I changed the subject, anxious to check on Miss Duncan's accuracy. I asked the man,

"How far is it to Rotan?"

"Three-and-a-half miles."

"Do you happen to know where that little mare was about an hour- and-a-half ago?"

"Yep, she was down in the back of the pasture."

"Which way does your pasture run from here?"

"Down that way toward town."

"How big is your pasture; how far is it to the back side?"

"A half-mile."

"Do you remember if the mare was near the railroad fence, or out in the other side of the pasture?"

"Yep, she was agin the railroad. But why all these questions?"

Then I told him the whole story-the cattle drive, the lack of a rope to tie the mare, our week of searching, the telegram, and I let him read the reply. After he finished reading it he said,

"That's right, she was three miles from Rotan by the railroad."

So we finally got the mare back and we were happy about that. Now there is still the question as to why my brother didn't bring the things we needed. He had a simple answer: He didn't want to. No further explanation, no apology, no feeling of guilt, no regrets-just simply didn't want to.

CHAPTER 16

AT ROYSTON UNTIL WORLD WAR II

During the 17 years we lived on the farm at Royston there were a number of other stories, some good, and some not so good.

Wes Kennedy and his family lived about a mile northeast of Royston and they had three big dogs that had the bad habit of chasing automobiles and barking and snapping at the front wheels. The dogs chased the family car the same as they did strange cars which pa.s.sed by along the road. Wes tried every way he knew to break the dogs from the bad habit, but every effort had failed.

Now the story goes that one member of the Royston Spit-and- Whittle Club suggested that he tie a burlap bag to the spokes of his front wheels. As the dogs snapped at the wheels, they were supposed to get their teeth caught in the burlap, this would hurt their teeth and break them from chasing cars.

They say Wes was anxious to try it, so he tied a potato sack to one front wheel and drove right on home. As usual the three dogs came out to meet him, growling and snapping at the turning wheels, and the scheme really worked. The dog that snapped the spinning sack never chased another car as long as he lived-which was about five seconds. You see, dogs with broken necks seldom chase cars. Oh well, they still had two big dogs and that was enough for the whole family.

Wes and his wife also had quite a few boys and girls, a lot of little ones and at least one big one-a girl. I was told that there was a difference of opinion as to just how big the girl really was. Wes thought of her as just a little girl, but she thought she was big enough to go with the boys. And her mother, having been a girl once herself, sort of agreed with the girl. Since her dad objected so vigorously, the girl, with the aid of her mother, devised a little scheme which was designed to satisfy the girl and yet not be too painful to her father, especially since he was not to know what was taking place. Anyway, the way I heard it, the kids were hoeing cotton one particular afternoon-who knows how many kids, maybe eight, maybe ten, anyway enough that one girl more or less would hardly be noticed by a father who was often busy at some other job which in most cases was easier than hoeing cotton.

The cotton rows b.u.t.ted up against a county road about a half-mile from the house. And in the weeds along the road ditch was a perfect place for the girl to hide a paper bag full of her clean clothes. And after sundown was a perfect time for her to exchange her hoe for that bag of clothes. So, when the other kids put down their hoes for the night, Wes didn't count kids and didn't notice that the big girl was missing. She had hoed to the far end of the rows and had not returned with the others on that last round after sundown.

Meanwhile, the girl's prince charming didn't carry her away on his white steed, but rather in his black Model A Ford. She kept her date with her boy and then spent the night with her girl friend. Next morning the girl, dressed again in her work clothes, picked up her hoe at the far end of the cotton rows and joined her brothers and sisters in the field on their first round of hoeing. No one ever told her dad about the incident, so he lived happily ever after.

In those days, when I wasn't too busy farming, I earned a little money at other things. I did road work for Fisher County quite a few months one year. One day I was hauling caliche in the county truck to fill in holes in the road by a bridge. When I was hauling my last load for the day, I was not in any particular hurry, so I stopped by my home to let Dennis and Anita go with me. I wanted them to get a lot of experience at a lot of different things, as I had done when I was a boy. I didn't want them to grow up in ignorance. There were times, I'm sure, Ima wondered whether I wanted them to grow up at all. Well this was one of those occasions. I was glad Ima wasn't along.

The kids played around while I unloaded the truck. And after I had finished my work, I took one of the sideboards from the truck, which was a two-by-eight twelve feet long, and I placed it across the b.u.t.tment of the bridge. With me on one end and the kids on the other, I could see-saw them up and down and they could splash their feet in the water. What could be more fun to a three-year-old and a five-year-old? We had fun and all went well until time to load up and go home.

Dennis was out on the end of the board and I told him to sit still and let Anita get up first and come to me out on the road, then it would be his turn. Well, Anita got up and was walking toward me when Dennis decided he wanted to be first. Nothing I could do or say would make him change his mind. I just couldn't get him to sit that extra few seconds. He got to his feet and tried to pa.s.s Anita on the eight-inch board. And of course, since Dennis was biggest, Anita went off into the water-head first. I couldn't turn loose of the board quickly and jump in after her; I had to hold on while Dennis came on out and got off the board. By this time Anita had come up again and I lowered the board to her. She crawled upon it and came out with mud in both hands and was laughing. Excitedly she said, "Daddy, me pick up mud mit me hands."

It was not the time of year to go swimming because the weather and water were both too cold. But inside the truck cab, with the gla.s.ses up, it was hot. So I put Anita up in the seat with all her clothes off and she was comfortable right away. Her clothes dried out before we got home and we put them back on her. I sort of hoped that Ima wouldn't have to know about the accident, but do you think Anita could keep it secret? Goodness no! She had to go and tell Ima the whole story, in her own small way.

I worked off-and-on for Calvin Carriker all the years we lived at Royston. Along with his farming he also operated a grocery store, a filling station, and the post office. Ed Lewis worked full time for Calvin for years, and at one time was driving a stripped down Model T Ford, and there was something wrong with the T which Ed had not been able to remedy. At slow speed it skipped on one cylinder; at high speed it ran okay. When I speak of high and low speeds, I'm speaking in the neighborhood of, "Under ten miles an hour it skipped and over fifteen it didn't."

One day after a rain, Calvin asked me why didn't I help Ed, and the two of us get the old car to running better, since it was too wet to work in the field. I asked Ed what all he had done to the motor, and after he told me, I told him it had a broken piston. But Ed said he had looked at the pistons when he had the head off grinding the valves, and the pistons were okay.

I told him, "Okay, let's run through it once more. You have put in new plugs, timer, manifold, gaskets, and ground the valves. You have replaced everything that could cause it to skip on one cylinder except a bad piston."

Then Calvin said to me, "Why don't you take the piston out while Ed gets a piston from somewhere?"

Looking at the pistons from the top, Ed couldn't see the broken piston, but when we took it out, we found it broken on one side all the way from the bottom up to the top ring groove. We replaced that one bad piston and the old car ran okay.

There were other troubles with automobiles in those days. Today some of us older people are inclined to talk about the good old days and tell of how we were born during the horse-and-buggy days and how we lived through the Model T era, the Great Depression of the 1930s and into the Jet Age. However, most of us have failed to inform the younger generations about the "broken-fender" age and the "drain-your-car-every-night" era. These two periods overlapped to a considerable degree and ran concurrently much of the time.

That was when car fenders were bolted to the running board at one end and the other end of the fender was allowed to vibrate and flop up and down-especially on rough roads, and there were no smooth ones. The constant flopping caused the fenders to begin to break directly above each wheel. This called for a welding job to repair the break. Then a few weeks later the fender was beginning to break again in the same place. And this called for yet another repair job, and this went on and on throughout the entire life of the car. It happened to all cars alike-the Ess.e.x, the Nash, the Whippet, and even the Hupmobile.

This broken-fender age lasted from about 1928 until the late 1950s, and for me it extended into the 1960s because the only cars I could afford were old and well used and the fenders had been repaired by any number of other previous owners.

Why didn't fenders break before 1928? A number of reasons. They were much smaller and lighter, and therefore they didn't flop and bend and break. Furthermore, cars were slower, and many of them didn't last long enough to run far enough to break their fenders. The fenders outlasted many of the motors

Now, concerning the drain-your-car-every-cold-night age. Wood alcohol was about the only antifreeze we had, and it would boil away easily. Also it would evaporate and it was expensive, Furthermore, after making a long drive or pulling a heavy load, you never knew whether you still had enough alcohol to protect your motor from a freeze-up. Nor did we have efficient weather forecasts telling us just how cold it was going to get before morning. Therefore, most of us didn't use alcohol. We just used water and drained it out in cold weather.

So, all cars had a handy little faucet under the radiator. And most cars had another faucet on one side of the motor. Together they made it real easy to drain the water out. By raising one side of the engine hood, I could lean across the fender and reach both faucets easily, even in the dark, as I often did.

On one particular winter night, it was about midnight when a norther hit and woke me up. I knew I should have drained the car before I went to bed But being a gambler at heart, as well as being lazy all over, I took a chance-and lost. And with a fresh norther roaring outside, there was just one thing to do, go drain the car. So, clothed in my shorts and my house shoes, and hidden behind a cloak of darkness, I hurried out to drain the car. I quickly raised one side of the hood, leaned across the cold fender, and in a jiffy I had both faucets open.

Then as I raised my weight off the fender, a sharp pain in the skin of my stomach reminded me that I was living in the age of broken fenders. When I leaned across the fender, my weight had caused the crack in the fender to open, and as I lifted my weight the fender bit me right in the stomach. I had to push my weight back down on the fender and hold its mouth open with my hands while I carefully removed my stomach.

Despite the mechanical problems we had suffered during the 1920s, by the early 1930s the automobile was a proven necessity and the farm tractor was beginning to crowd in and push the horse off the farm. So I decided to cash in on my horses before the price fell.

In the spring of 1934, when a lot of farmers were buying horses for the coming farming season, I sold all my work horses. Now, I didn't have a tractor and I couldn't afford to buy one, but I figured I could build one. I had never seen a home-made tractor-never even heard of one. But now that I had sold all my horses, I was left with no choice except to build one.

Again it was a matter of trusting my own judgment and going out on my own. Again there was no turning back; I had to go forward. I used a truck differential and a car motor. And by the time I got it all together and put plows on it, my cost was $250. I have seen tractors that others have built since then, and I helped neighbors build a few, but that first one I built beat them all. I farmed with it two years, then sold it for as much as it had cost me, and then I bought a used Farmall.

While I was dealing with horses and tractors, our kids were making history on their own. They had this little white mama dog that had never had pups and they had an old mama cat that had come from no-telling-where, and she had stopped over at our place long enough to give birth to three kittens. But while her kittens were still suckling, the old cat up and died. And the next thing we knew that little dog had adopted those three kittens and was letting them nurse. We never did know whether they got any milk for their effort, but they really put forth the effort. I had never heard of a dog being that friendly with any member of the cat family.

During the lean years, when I had time to work for the other fellow a little, I wasn't content to hoe or drive his tractor for a dollar a day. Instead, I was always looking for a way to make money easier and faster. Now, running a row binder didn't necessarily make money easier, but it made it quite a bit faster.

One fall I took my row binder and car and tractor and Ima, and we all went out and made $300 in a single month, cutting feed for neighbors. That was clear money above all operating expenses, car expenses, binder repairs, and a babysitter at home for Dennis and Anita.

Now you may think I'm a male chauvinist, listing Ima along with my other property that I took. But I didn't mean it that way. I simply meant to list her with the items I took. You see, I had to take her, she wouldn't go voluntarily.

During that month, we slept in a bed on top of our car. We had all the tools we needed for repairing the binder right in the middle of any field. And we always had plenty of hot bath water right from the tractor radiator. It was clean water-we put in fresh clear water daily.

We also found other ways to pick up a few extra dollars. When World War II was in full swing and sc.r.a.p metal was bringing a good price, we took a few loads of sc.r.a.p to Sweet.w.a.ter and sold it. While unloading there one day, I noticed an old Buick car in the sc.r.a.p pile. I looked it over, and the more I looked at it the better it looked to me. Finally I paid the man $30 for it, pumped up the tires, put in a one-dollar battery and drove it home. It proved to be one of the best running cars I had ever owned. We drove it two years and then swapped it off for a $45 milk cow.

It seems that about half the years we lived at Royston were dry years and that about half of every wet year was dry. So there were a lot of dry times when I was not farming because there was no farming to be done. On one of those occasions I rented an old blacksmith shop at Royston-nothing in it, just four walls and a roof. I think I paid two dollars a month for the use of it, which was all it was worth, considering the sandy dirt floor that came with it, and with no windows for light. It had big doors at one end for cars to come through, some of which I repaired and some I wrecked out and sold for parts. In addition, I stocked and sold a few new parts too.

Wes Kennedy came into my shop one day and showed me some auto light bulbs he had bought at Sweet.w.a.ter at 20 cents each. And he added, "Some places get 35 cents for them."