When we called our dog, we didn't say, "Here, Scotch! Here, here, here." The word we used wasn't "here," it was "how." And no matter how far away he was, he would come immediately when he heard us call. He only paused long enough to make sure it was one of our family calling him and to get the direction from which the call came.
And when he came to us, he didn't come walking nor trotting, but loping. And he didn't stop a few steps away nor lower his head and ears, nor did he approach with his tail down. He bounced right up beside us, full of life and gusto as if to ask, "Oh boy! What kind of excitement do you have planned for me this time?"
It's a common thing to see a two-car family in the 1970's, but we were a two-car family as early as 1916. We still had the Reo and Papa bought a Big Six seven-passenger Buick touring car. Old Scotch knew that Buick by sound. Uncle Robert had a Little Six Buick that sounded almost like the Big Six. Our dog could recognize the sound of those Buicks a half-mile away.
When other cars drove by along the road, Old Scotch would pay no attention to them. We had taught him not to chase cars. But when either of those Buicks came along, he would run out to greet it a quarter-mile away. He also accepted Robert as a personal friend as well as a friend to our family.
Then one day Old Scotch didn't come when we called him. Nor did he come the next day. We had no idea where he had gone nor why. Of course, we kept hoping that some day he would return. But days became weeks and weeks became months and the dog was still missing. By this time we had given up all hope of ever seeing him again.
Papa and Mama taught us to be nice to our animals and taught us how to get Old Scotch to obey us. And there seemed to be no end to the little things they taught us how to do. In a jiffy they could cut a slot in the side of a pumpkin leaf stem and make us a horn to blow. They showed us how to put a chicken's head under his wing, swing him a few times and lay him down on the ground, fast asleep. Papa taught us how to tie a certain kind of a knot in a rope for one occasion and another kind for another purpose. And he taught us how to make a loop for roping calves.
We owed a lot to our parents for making our lives pleasant and exciting. They were among the most respected parents in our community. They were leaders—not in organizations concerned with business or big government, nor in local clubs, but they were upstanding church-goers with high standards of moral character and integrity. As in play, so in life, they wanted their children to abide by a set of rules which would lead them into a good life—a life of knowledge of the difference between good and evil, with a desire to do the good and shun the evil.
They may not have thought of God as some of us do today but I am sure they did what they thought was right, and they did it with consistency and sincerity. More than that we have no right to ask.
Some families have their own little unique customs. I suppose we were one of those families. When visiting with other families, it seemed odd to me to hear them call their babies by their given names. We always called our youngest one "Baby" until the next one arrived. Then we called the new one "Baby" and the one before him had to take on his rightful name.
This went on until my younger brother was born. Joel, just older than I, couldn't say Clarence, so he called me Big Baby and he called the new one Baby. No, he wasn't slow about learning to talk. You see, we didn't give him much time. He was only sixteen months old when I came along, and he was just three when the new one came. Another custom not common to all families was, we smaller ones wore dresses around home for the first three or four years of our lives. It made diapering much easier and saved a lot of laundering. Come to think of it, I never heard of diapers until I was almost grown. They were not diapers, they were breeches—in our family they were "britches." That's the only thing I ever heard them called until I was a mature man.
We were poor people, living the simple life. I wasn't any poorer than the rest of my family, but I was the simplest one.
We also had this custom of competing among ourselves. In most everything we did, there was an element of competition and hurry. Our parents had a way of causing us kids to apply pressure to each other. They found that it worked better than when parents tried to force kids to work faster.
In the cotton patch you could hear us kids saying such things as, "I picked more cotton than you did." Or if we were hoeing you might hear something like, "Come on, Slow Poke."
The plan worked well. No one wanted to be outdone by a brother, especially a little brother. And if a little brother could outshine a big brother, even just once in awhile, that was a real feather in the little one's cap.
Oh, yes! There was hurry and there was pressure. But it didn't seem to get us down as it does some people today. We had no psychologists in those days to tell us that pressures would warp a kid's brain. We didn't know that competition and hurry would drive us crazy until these educated people told us about it.
So we lived hard, we worked hard, and we played hard. Then we were able to go to bed and sleep hard. Never in my life did I ever hear Mama or Papa say, "I didn't sleep well last night, because I felt tense and worried."
There was really nothing to worry about like there is today. They didn't worry that we kids might go away from home and get into trouble. We didn't have to leave home to get into trouble. We kids made our own trouble right at home. We had a lot of fun doing a lot of different things. Most of our troubles were brought on accidentally, we didn't deliberately plan them.
There was no worry about the family losing anything, we had nothing to lose. No one would steal from us because no one wanted what we had. So, whatever pressures we might encounter during the day were dispelled during a night of welcome rest.
In the cotton patch Mama and Papa encouraged us to see who could pick 100 bolls first. The first one to pick his 100 bolls would call out, "hundred." Then each of the others would call out the number of bolls they had picked during the same time.
This competition got more bales of cotton to the gin in a shorter period of time. But, as in all activities where kids are involved, we sometimes had little disagreements.
I had this thing of humming or singing a song while I picked cotton and counted my bolls. I found that the mental work I was doing was relaxing and it allowed my hands to do their work faster. And now, 65 years later, I learn that I was doing something a little bit kin to what they call Yoga.
At any rate, it really worked for me. I could pick cotton faster than a brother or two who were older than I was. Now, I didn't necessarily use my system in order to get more of the family cotton picked. I used it mainly just to beat my older brothers picking cotton, and that not for very long at a time.
But my little scheme backfired on me. One of those brothers couldn't stand to be outdone by a younger brother. He told Mama and Papa that I was lying and cheating, because he knew I couldn't count bolls while I sang a song. But he was wrong. I could. Anyway, nothing I could say would make him believe me. I began to become an outcast among some of my brothers early in life. I believe there were times when some of them would have been glad to "sell me into slavery" as Joseph's brothers did him.
But my parents didn't seem to doubt my word. I really believe they understood that I could do a thing or two that some of the others could not do—and perhaps were not at all interested in doing.
I believe little things like that were the beginning of a wee bit of an unconscious rift between some of my brothers and me, and at the same time, the making of a stronger bond between my parents and me.
Looking back, I remember many times when Papa and I were doing things together and there was no one else around. I really don't know why I was the only one there a lot of times. Maybe I just wanted to be in good company. I loved and admired Papa and I thought he was the best and nicest man in the world. Or perhaps I was with Papa because of my inquisitive mind concerning mechanical things, like,
"How do you shoe a horse?"
"How do you tighten a loose wagon tire?"
"How do you make a row-binder do what you want it to do when the manufacturer couldn't seem to do it?"
I watched him do all these things and many more. And many of the things he did fascinated me.
The situation was much the same between Mama and me.
"How do you churn milk and make butter?"
"How do you 'take up' the butter after it is churned?"
"How do you make those beautiful decorations on it later?"
"How do you weave a carpet on Grandma's loom?"
It seems I was always watching a lot of these goings-on while the other kids were somewhere else doing whatever they liked to do. And Mama and Papa were never too busy to answer my questions. I realize now how much more I could have learned if I had only known how and when to ask more questions.
It seems that my parents favored and petted me at times. I'm not sure they did. If they did, perhaps it was because they felt sorry for their little ugly duckling. And maybe I only imagined they were especially nice to me. Maybe they were that nice to everyone. Perhaps they were nice to me just to have me around handy when they needed me to help them just a little bit.
This latter seems to be the most reasonable argument, after considering some of my stupid exploits and my senseless reasoning throughout my life.
Yet, it just might be possible that they were partial to me on account of the wen, and later on, my paralysis—these factors coupled with the fact that within the last four years along about the time I was born, they had suffered the loss of a two-year-old son, a two-week-old daughter, Mama's favorite brother, Hugh, and Grandpa Johnson.
Who can measure the thoughts of loving parents as they view their newborn child for the first time, anxious to know whether he or she is beautiful and healthy and without blemish.
And who knows the anxiety of parents who, after seeing their child with blemish, must wonder how his condition will affect his relationship with others, how it will affect his outlook on life, and whether it might grow worse and shorten his days.
There were so many little stories unfolding simultaneously that I am going to be unable to keep them all up to date as I go along. While I have been telling about some of our working habits and our little family customs, I find that the story of my love life has been neglected. I must go back a way now and bring some of my social living up to date.
Oh, yes! I had a sweetheart. Her name was Gladys, and I must tell you about her.
You see, when we moved to the Exum farm, I was a little boy barely five years old. But then, when we had lived there a year and a half, I was no longer just a little kid. I was getting to be a big boy, six and a half and going on seven. And my ears were getting bigger also. I began to hear about sweethearts. Susie was thirteen and was just the very one to explain it to me.
She told me once, jokingly, "A sweetheart is a chicken heart baked in molasses."
But seriously, what she explained about sweethearts amounted to something like this, "Sweethearts are one boy and one girl about the same age who like each other and like to go together and like to do things together. He is her sweetheart and she is his sweetheart."
Now the Flints, who had moved onto our old farm, had a bunch of boys and girls and we all played together. The one I liked best was Gladys. She was just my size, she was six years old, and she and I liked to go play together. So, when I learned what sweethearts were, I knew for a fact that Gladys was my sweetheart because we liked each other and played together.
Of course, I didn't tell anyone, not even Gladys. I didn't feel any differently toward her. We just went right on playing together as we had been doing. But I had this newly acquired knowledge that she was my sweetheart.
No more than I knew or could understand about it all, I wondered why boys and girls had sweethearts at all. They were just like other boys and girls except they were your own age.
I never heard of any parents who objected to their older boys and girls having sweethearts and dating. (In those days we called it "going together.") But in our immediate community, there were some pretty strict rules to govern their behavior.
The "good" people in our community didn't allow their boys and girls to dance. So, there were no dances in our neighborhood because there were no families that wanted to be branded as being "not so good." Instead of dances we had parties. Many a Friday night some good farm couple would give a party. These parties were always family affairs. The young people didn't go to the parties alone. Their parents took them to the parties and then the grown-ups took part in many of the games.
I remember two of the games they played. They were "snap" and "cross questions and crooked answers." There were many others but I can't recall them just now. I was only eleven when we moved out of that community, and we never had such parties at any place we lived after that.
One night at one of the parties, Frank's girl "snapped" me. (We didn't call them girl-friends as we do today, just "Girls.") But I was so timid I just backed away like the bashful country kid that I was. She told them she got "stood-up" and would have to pick someone else.
I wanted to play in the games, but I realized that I was much smaller than any of the others who took part in them, and I was afraid I might do something wrong and cause them to laugh at me.
Two of the party song-and-dance "swings" they did were "Shoot the Buffalo" and "Farmer by the Mill." These were the promenade type dances where they swung their partners kind of like in a square dance. Mr. Flint was about the best man in the neighborhood at calling those dances.
Now I have gone and contradicted myself. I first said we didn't have dances. Now I'm telling you we danced. But this was not the kind of dance where they waltzed around in each other's arms. They were party dances.
When the party activities got under way, the people were seated all around the room next to the walls. Usually some were standing in the adjoining rooms also, looking through the doors, because the living room wasn't large enough to hold the crowd. When that many came to a party, it was considered a good party.
A large crowd was just what they wanted. More people meant more games and more happy people playing games. In general, when there was a large crowd, things moved along at a faster pace.
The game of "snap" was usually played by the young set—that is, the sweetheart set who enjoyed holding hands and chasing after each other.
The game was easy to get started. All it took was a girl and a boy to stand in the middle of the room and hold hands, facing each other. Then the girls would "volunteer" one of their crowd and push her forward to be "it." Then the "it" girl would circle the room looking for the boy she wanted for a partner. When she found him, she would snap her fingers in front of his face, just as you would in school when you wanted to get the teacher's attention.
This snap told the boy that he was her chosen, at least for a few minutes. As soon as she snapped her fingers, she would hurry to the couple in the middle of the room and the boy she "snapped" would chase after her. His object was to touch the girl, and her object was to try to prevent his touching her.
She would try to prolong the chase by dodging and sometimes swinging around the couple in the center of the room. And sometimes the couple would prolong the chase by favoring the girl. They might raise their arms to let the girl go through between them and then lower their arms quickly to stop the boy. Or, if the boy was having a hard time catching her, they might let her start through between them and then lower their arms quickly and trap her in their arms.
As soon as the boy touched the girl, the chase was ended. Then the couple who had held hands would leave and let the new couple hold hands in the center of the room while another chase took place.
This was not only a holding-hands game, at times it became a body- contact game. And yet, not too much contact, because the grown- ups were watching. Anyway, snap was a popular game at our parties.
Now, this Friday night the party might be at the Johnsons, but before the party was over, you could bet good money that the teen- agers would have talked another family into giving a party next Friday night.
These were strictly play parties. There were no refreshments served, not a lot of cooking and fixing. Just make sure the house is clean, the yard is clean, and there are plenty of places to park buggies, hacks, and wagons. Then hope a big crowd begins gathering soon after sundown.
Parties were preferred over dances because it was considered immoral for a boy to put his arm around a girl before they were married. Sweethearts could hold hands in the presence of adults, if it were in the process of playing a game. But just to sit this one out and hold hands was unthinkable.
A "good" mother would never tell her daughter it was all right for her to hold hands in public, or to hug and kiss anywhere, on her way to church or anywhere else, either afoot or in a buggy— not even at night.
Somehow, I just can't help but believe that parents knew these little things were going on between lovers, but they seemed to think that if they told their kids it was all right for them to do these things, it would be like saying "sic 'em" to a dog. Putting it another way, parents were saying, "Don't ever let me catch you doing such things." And the kids were not actually saying but were thinking, "Okay, I'll try not to let you catch me when I do them."
Dances were looked down upon because they attracted boys who drank, and girls with loose morals. There were some boys and girls who lived six or eight miles from us who were not wanted at some of the parties given in our neighborhood, and were not invited by some of our neighbors who were giving the parties.
But when my parents gave a party at our house, they invited everyone who would come. They thought it unmannerly to invite certain ones and leave others out. They seemed to figure that their integrity would demand respect from the worst of them—and it did. There never was any trouble at our house—no drinking, no fighting, no "cussing."
I remember one of those parties when some young people came in a buggy from quite a distance away. I think I was about nine years old and, of course, I didn't know all about everything that went on around me but I knew enough to realize there were some bad feelings between their families and some of those in our immediate neighborhood. The main reason seemed to be that those youngsters attended dances in other communities and some parents in our neighborhood sure didn't approve of that.
The incident I remember had to do with their buggy horse which got sick with a severe attack of colic while the party was going on. Someone had wandered outside and had discovered the horse in great pain. The boy who owned the animal had seen the disease before and knew how quickly it could kill a good horse. So he offered to sell the animal to anyone for $10. It would have been a bargain for Papa, because he knew exactly what to do to cure the horse. And the horse was probably worth $50.
When Papa learned about the problem, he got a quart bottle, filled it about a quarter-full of soda and then added about a half-quart of kerosene. Then he climbed up in a tree, pulled the horse's head high in the air with the bridle reins and poured the mixture down his throat. Within ten minutes, the horse was without pain and resting comfortably, except for a mighty bad taste in his mouth.
I think the boy was truly grateful that Papa had not taken advantage of him by buying the horse. Will Johnson knew that a good name was rather to be chosen than the value of a buggy horse.
Along with sweethearts, there were a few other things I didn't understand altogether. One time during my younger days, I cut out a picture of a baby buggy from a Sears, Roebuck catalog. I don't remember just how old I was at the time. I was old enough to do a pretty good job of cutting out, but I didn't do so well with my reasoning. I was disappointed to learn that the buggy wouldn't sit up and roll.
That was not altogether a case of stupidity but rather, a lack of research. This was part of the research through which I learned about the third dimension.
It's hard to believe a kid that stupid could become so smart within the next few years and retain that smartness for the rest of his life.
We also learned—not through research, but from concerned parents, about the choice of words to use, the careful choice, I might add.
Some words were strictly forbidden. The word "bull" was one of them. We didn't dare use that word in the presence of Papa or Mama. And if any of the other kids heard us use it, they would tattle on us. So, we just didn't use it. We were taught to use the word "surley" instead.
As late as 1940 I knew middle-aged men who would not use the word "bull" before a woman. One old farmer said, "I don't know what the world is coming to. I believe the time will come when men and women will use the word 'bull' in mixed company and think nothing of it."
But that was in farming country. In cattle country it was different. I'll bet a ranch boy wouldn't have known what a surley was. One of my rancher uncles was talking to a farmer who had some calves he wanted to sell to the rancher. He told the rancher, "Three of those calves are still nursing." Well, my uncle and his daughter had to put forth an effort to hold back their laughter. They were not used to nursing calves. In cattle country calves don't nurse, they suck.
Continuing along that same line, up until I was a teenager, I never heard the words "sex" or "male" or "female" used except by some dirty-mouthed kid. Even when I was in the seventh and eighth grades, when I had to fill out certain school papers and was told to put an M for male or an F for female, there was a wee bit of embarrassment or shyness associated with the use of gender words. The use of the word "sex" was still guarded against, except in writing. The word was never spoken in mixed company. The word "gender" was considered bad enough.
And speaking of dirty-mouthed kids—no one in our family ever used any kind of dirty words, at least not in my presence. Some of the brothers I grew up with are in their seventies now and I can truthfully say, I can not recall ever having heard one of them "cuss" nor utter a dirty word.
We have all heard of that proverbial corner around which prosperity is lurking. Well, at the Exum place we finally rounded that corner and bumped right into it. We got a telephone.
I'm sure we didn't have a telephone at the Flint place. But by about the time I started to school, almost everyone in our neighborhood had one. There were maybe eight or ten parties on the same line.
We owned our own telephone, put up our own lines, and bought our own batteries. Having so many on one line wasn't the best arrangement but it was better than no phone at all. It was a big step forward at that time in the history of our community.
Every day at noon—straight up twelve o'clock—the operator would ring a long, long ring. We could set our clocks by it and we could listen to the weather forecast immediately after the long ring. I don't know where they got the weather information, probably from a record of what the weather did on that same day a year ago, or maybe from the almanac. Anyway, wherever they got it, most of us listened to it and were stuck with it.
In the above paragraph I said the operator would ring. That's not exactly right. It's true, she was a woman operator. And we kids knew she was a woman, but we didn't know she was an operator. We only knew her as "Central." As far as we were concerned, her name might just as well have been Mrs. Central.
At any rate, when we wanted to ring someone on our line, out our direction from "Central," all we had to do was turn the crank and ring their ring. For instance, our ring was a long and four shorts. But, if we wanted to talk to someone on a line out another direction from Hamlin, we had to ring a long ring to get "Central" and get her to connect our line to the other line. Then she would ring that party for us.
When any of us tried and tried to ring Central and couldn't get her to answer, naturally all the phones on our line would be ringing at the same time, and usually some neighbor on our line would volunteer to ring for us and help us get through to Central. Perhaps the neighbor's phone had a stronger magneto, or perhaps two or three of us ringing at the same time might send a stronger current and get through to her. We tried everything.
Come to think of it, there was the possibility that Central's phone had been ringing from the beginning. It was just barely possible that she was eating a sandwich in another room. And of course, we shouldn't overlook the possibility that she might have been out in the little house backed up to the alley.
Speaking of getting through to the operator, let me tell you about one day when the operator got through to me. Now, on this particular day, Frank was the operator. He was in command.
Frank, Earl, Joel and I were hoeing cotton. Frank, being the oldest and the one who would have to answer to Papa if the work didn't get done, was working hard and was way out ahead of the rest of us. I was the youngest and least and was way behind, but not too far behind to be able to talk to Earl and Joel.
After awhile Frank looked back and found us doing a lot of standing and talking and not much working. He shouted to us to get to work. We did for awhile because we knew Frank was boss. But again we got to talking more than hoeing and Frank yelled again, "Get to work back there!"
Now, I know it was hard on Frank, he being the oldest and having all the responsibility for getting the hoeing done. It was hard on me too, just being the youngest with no responsibility.
Finally Frank got so far ahead that it seemed not so necessary to obey him. Some of us read the Bible with that same attitude. We seem to think that God has gone so far away we need not obey him any more. But I suppose God knows when we are loafing and getting further behind, just as Frank knew about us boys that day. Anyway, we got more and more lax and Frank got more and more tense. Then he shouted again. "Get to work back there!"
Earl looked at me and said, "Tell him to come and make you."
Now, Earl always was one to recommend that someone else do something he wouldn't do for anything. But Earl also knew me and he was reasonably sure I would do it. That would leave him guiltless and he would get to see the fun. His pleasure would be twofold. He would glory in the thought that he had caused me to do something that we both knew I shouldn't do and he would enjoy seeing me get a good licking which he knew I had needed many times more than I had gotten.
At the same time, I was eager to show off and furnish entertainment for my "fans." So, I shouted back, "Come and make me!"
And Frank did just that.
I knew what was coming long before he got to me. I knew it would hurt and I knew I deserved every bit of it. But it was funny—in a way.
By the time Frank got to me I was flat on my back with my feet toward him. I kicked furiously. My laughing hindered me somewhat but I managed to keep him at bay for awhile.
My feet were flying and aimed in his direction. He circled around me, trying to get at my weaker end—my head. After two or three rounds, he got me, and I got what was coming to me.
I was so tickled, it didn't seem to hurt at first. But the more I laughed the harder he whipped me. If I remember right, I think I quit laughing before he quit whipping. Anyway, I had my fun and my punishment, Earl and Joel saw a good show and Frank did what he had to do. And I worked harder after that.
Do you think I told Mama and Papa what Frank did to me? Of course not. That would have brought a reprimand from them. I knew I had done wrong. I also knew I had better let well enough alone.
And did Frank tell them I had been a bad boy? Certainly not. He had handled the situation well and we all knew he could do it again next time. That's the way our family discipline worked.
There were a lot of disadvantages to being little when I was growing up. I don't mean like the whipping I got from Frank. That was okay. I needed that. I mean like things I wanted to do. There were so many things I wanted to do that Mama and Papa wouldn't let me do. They would say, "You're too little."
With Earl and Joel, it was different. They were not too little— never had been. At least, if they had been, I couldn't remember it.
One thing I wanted to do was go hunting with Uncle Robert and his greyhounds. I remember I went one time, but most of the times I was too little. I had to stay home and hear them tell about the rabbit hunt afterwards.
I guess the time they let me go was when they weren't going very far and they figured I could keep up with the others for awhile.
Anyway, Robert had some dogs that were mighty fast and well matched. It was hard for a jack rabbit to get away from them. Old Queen was his fastest one. She was his lead dog. Old Pluto was almost as fast. He would run in single file behind Old Queen, and when a rabbit began to circle, Old Pluto would begin to cut the corner to keep the rabbit going straight.
A rabbit likes to circle back to his home territory. He knows the lay of the land at home and figures he has a better chance to survive. But Robert's dogs wouldn't let him circle back. That seemed to frustrate him and make him easier to catch.
Robert also had about three other running dogs. They were not quite as fast as Queen and Pluto but they played important roles in the pack. They were good to spread out and help flush rabbits out of the weeds and brush. And they were also there at the end of the chase to catch the rabbit in case he dodged quickly and the two leading dogs failed to catch him.
When those dogs jumped a jack rabbit, you could just about write him off as another dead rabbit. About the only way a rabbit could escape was to run into a patch of tall, thick feed where the dogs couldn't see him.
Other men wanted to buy Robert's dogs at times but he took pride in owning the best greyhounds for miles around, and his best ones were not for sale.
Uncle Robert was a favorite of us boys. He was Papa's youngest brother and was only eight years older than Frank. We liked just about everything about him, especially the way he paid us when we worked for him. When we hoed or picked cotton for him, he paid us as soon as we were through, and he paid us in cash, never by check. We hated checks. Some men paid us boys by check, with all our wages figured in together, usually along with Papa's. Then we had to wait for Papa to go to town and get the money, which might be as much as a week later.
But not so with Uncle Robert. When time came for him to pay us boys—as soon as the job was finished—he made it a point to have a pocket full of coins so he could pay us then and there. There was no piece of paper, no writing and no waiting. And he paid each of us separately.
Another thing I was too little to do was go upstairs at Grandma's. Yet, I didn't mind that so much because I wasn't the only one. Even Earl and Joel couldn't go up there.
Robert and Ed were still living at home and not married. Their rooms were upstairs and they didn't want us little kids messing around up there. Besides, there was danger we might fall on the steps and get hurt.
I didn't know at the time why they didn't want us to go upstairs. They didn't tell us the truth about it. What they told us was, "If you go up there, the Old Bootjack will get you." Well, I was almost grown before I learned what a bootjack was. Then it was easy to see that a bootjack wouldn't hurt anyone, especially little kids. But the fear of it served its purpose. And I suppose we were not mentally warped because of having been fibbed to.
We learned other lessons also—some the expensive way. I remember, some of us Johnson kids were at Uncle John Hudson's house one day, playing with all his kids, when we discovered a pig out of his pen.
Now, Uncle John was away from home at that time and we thought we should do him a big favor and get his pig back in the pen with its mama. I don't know why, he couldn't hurt anything, he was too small. But he had a pen and we kids thought a pig ought to be in his pen. So we got after him.
It was a hot day. In fact, it was so hot that the sandy ground burned our bare feet. We were suffering from the heat but we thought we must not stop until we caught him. We felt duty bound to get that pig back in his pen.
We chased him all over the place and finally caught him out in the peach orchard. Well, we were hot, the ground was hot, the weather was hot, but most of all, that little pig was hot.
We carried our little prisoner and we all got under the shade of a peach tree. We kids cooled off right away, but the pig was so tired and was breathing so fast, we thought we ought to cool him off with some cool water.
We carried water from the windmill—good, cool water right out of the well. Then we poured it on the little pig—and he was dead in about one minute flat.
We were sorry, but how were we to know that cold water would kill a hot pig? No one had ever told us it would. We learned that lesson the hard way—that is, hard on Uncle John. And we learned some other things too, when he learned about his pig. Oh yes, he told us a few things he wanted us to know.
Regardless of all the little mistakes we kids made, we generally had the run of the farm at our Exum place, except for a few things which were not allowed. One of these was, "Don't climb on the feed stacks." That would destroy a lot of the feed and allow rainwater to run in and ruin even more of it. No problem there. Most any kid could follow that line of reasoning. But another "Don't" that was not so easily understood was, "Don't play in the cottonseed."
What could it hurt to play in it? It was in a nice bin, and we would leave it in the bin. Walking on it wouldn't hurt it. Digging holes and tunnels in it wouldn't damage the seed. This was forbidden fruit we just couldn't understand.
So, the rule about not playing in the cottonseed had its effect on cultivating our dishonesty. It was so much fun, we went ahead and played in the cottonseed bin anyway, when we thought the coast was clear. And I can't remember ever having gotten caught at it.
I can understand it all now. If we had been allowed to play in the cottonseed, we might have gotten careless about wasting seed out the door when we were having a cottonseed fight. And, more than likely, we would have left the door open at times for the rain and rats and cows to get in. And of course, a cave-in in one of our tunnels might have trapped one of the smaller kids when there were no large ones around for rescue work. We hadn't thought of that.
But we couldn't understand it at that time, and it seemed to us that this cottonseed "don't" was not an absolute "don't," but perhaps more of an "I don't think you ought to" kind of a "don't." So, when viewed from that angle, we didn't feel so guilty. We just played in the seed and enjoyed it.
But since there was at least a half-hearted rule against playing in the cottonseed, we didn't dare leave the door open when we were playing inside. Papa could have spotted that open door a quarter-mile away and, come supper time, we kids would have had to answer a question or two. Also, a few seeds outside on the ground could have been seen by conservative parents or maybe by a brother who was bent on "getting even" with another brother, and at the same time, putting a fresh shine on his little halo by tattling.
In spite of all the drawbacks, we played in the cottonseed, and naturally we stirred up dust. And when the sun shone through the cracks onto that dust, it was hard to see through it—it was sort of like a wall that you could walk right through.
One day we were playing in the seed when the sun was shining through a horizontal crack in the boards. The dust in the sunshine looked a lot like a large board, lying flat above the seed. I tried to crawl up on the dust as though it were a table top. But of course, it wouldn't hold me up.
I couldn't understand it. So I stirred up more dust until it became very dense. Then I tried jumping up on it. But it still wouldn't hold me up.
Years later, I learned why. The dust wasn't as dense as I was.
I have told you about a three or four-year-old boy planting with a two-row planter, a dog plowing for his master, and Texas kids trying to walk on dust clouds. Don't go away, I have other true stories to tell you.
As I mentioned before, I have heard Papa tell of trail driving near San Angelo, Texas. He was just a lad at that time—couldn't have been more than 17 or 18 years old. Here is what he told me about 35 years later:
One time when they were on the trail, they had bedded their cattle down one night near San Angelo and were sitting around the camp fire doing nothing when one cowboy said, "Let's go into town and get something to drink."
Another one said, "Good idea, but we're all broke and the boss is two days behind. How you gonna get whiskey without money?"
He said, "Saddle up and go with me and I'll show you."
Now this would be worth seeing, so quite a few of the boys rode with him into town—carrying jugs half full of water.
History tells us that along about that time, San Angelo was made up of at least 20 saloons and fewer than that number of all other stores combined.
Before the cowboys reached town, they all knew just what to do. After hiding their billfolds in their saddle bags, they each took a jug and split up, one going to this saloon and one to that saloon and so on.
Then each in turn told the bartender that they were out on the trail with only half a jug of whiskey, and would he finish filling it up? After the jug was filled, the cowboy would reach for his wallet only to "discover" that he had lost it. The bartender would just have to take back his half-gallon. The poor boy would have to "make out" with only his original half-gallon.
Now, with quite a few cowpokes pulling this little stunt in about half the saloons in San Angelo, you can bet your boots they rode back to camp with plenty of what they came for, a little weak, but free.
When Papa was a boy, the lives of his entire family had to do with saddle horses and cattle. Even the little girls liked to ride horses and play cowboy. The youngest girl, Annie, was one of those little girls. But when Annie became big enough to do chores, one of her chores was to churn the milk that made the butter for the family. And she hated to have to stay home and churn while her brothers rode out into the pasture after the cows.
Now, I'm not positive of this, but knowing Papa as I do, I wouldn't be surprised if he had something to do with helping his little sister solve her problem. Whoever it was, the idea worked well and made a little girl happy. She would tie a jar of milk to her saddle and ride on out with the boys, letting her horse do the churning.
At the Exum farm Mr. Whatley's pasture joined our field. And in his pasture he had an old cow which was well educated in the art of breaking through fences. And she seemed to enjoy slipping into our corn patch.
Now, the normal procedure for the average farmer was to put a yoke on the neck of such an animal. Of course, the purpose of the yoke was to bridge across the wires and stop the cow from going through the fence.
But this old cow soon learned to use the yoke to break the wires so she could get through the fence easier. And she had been spending entirely too much of her time in our field. Mr. Whatley either could not or would not keep her out. Papa thought he ought to keep her out.
I never learned where Papa got the idea of shooting the cow— whether it was his own idea or whether a neighbor had prescribed the remedy. And even though Papa was smart in most cases, I really think he used poor judgment when he shot the cow. He only meant for the shots to sting her enough to make our corn patch unpleasant for her. But he either misjudged his distance from the cow or he misread the size of shot in the shell he used.
When he shot the cow, she just stood there, I guess wondering what hit her. Papa doubted that he had hit her at all. So he moved up closer and fired a second shot, which really hurt the old cow much more than Papa had meant to hurt her.
When Mr. Whatley took a look at his cow, he was hurt even more.He told the County Judge about it and the judge told Papa to payMr. Whatley for his wounded cow.
Papa argued that the cow had damaged his corn more than he had damaged the cow—in fact, more than the cow was worth. The judge agreed, that might well be true, but it didn't give Papa the right to go around shooting his neighbor's cow. Besides, in this case, the corn would get well much sooner than the cow would.
Papa paid Mr. Whatley for his cow, and went home a little poorer and a lot wiser. I don't think Papa ever shot another cow. If he did, he didn't tell us about it.
As I said earlier, I got along okay in school. But throughout school I was a slow reader. And this reading slowness has plagued me all my life. It even caused me quite a bit of trouble in college. As a small boy, when Santa Claus brought me a book, I was a little disappointed. I'd much rather have gotten some kind of a toy, especially one with wheels that would roll.
We kids learned early in life how to do things, purely a matter of survival. But learning the "why" of things often came through reading and I was the slowest of readers. Even in high school I read very slowly, but I got what I read tolerably thorough.
I never read my history more than one time and I made "A" throughout the course. The same was true with stories and other readings. In college I only read my history once. And I didn't even review for the final test and came out with a "C."
There were a few books on the shelves in our house when I was a boy. Some had pictures, so I looked at them. Some didn't have, so I didn't look at them. And I certainly didn't read them.
There were two books which stood out in our home, always available and close at hand. They were the Bible and the Sears, Roebuck Catalog. There were times when these two rivaled each other in importance. Yet they were both necessary, the Bible for living and dying and the catalog for "What ye shall put on." And then the catalog, after a new one took its place each year, became the forerunner of what we now know as bathroom tissue.
Each autumn after the first bale or two of cotton had been sold, Papa and Mama would get the catalog down and make up an order that would fill a wooden box half the size of a coffin. Then we would wait two or three weeks for the shipment to come from Dallas. Finally a postcard would come from the railroad depot in Hamlin stating that the shipment had arrived. The next time Papa was in town in his wagon, he would go by and pick it up.
That night after supper we would all gather around for the grand opening. There was something in the box for one and all.
There was a pair of work shoes for each, and that pair would have to last until the fall of next year. Last year's would do to wear to school awhile yet. The new ones would do to wear for Sundays until they began to look worn, then we could wear them to school. And they would last a long time if we would pull them off as soon as we got in from school in the afternoons, and wear our old ones for doing chores. We could still wear our school shoes for Sunday by shining them up a bit. And of course, come March the weather would be warm enough to go barefooted most of the time.
There was underwear in the box, winter-weight that is. We didn't wear any in summer—just overalls and a shirt, that's all—well, sometimes a straw hat. And naturally we wore a cap in winter, with ear flaps. Each of us would get two suits of the underwear, unless some of the smaller kids could wear some hand-me-downs, and unless the hand-me-downs had already been handed down too many times and were too far gone.
The winter caps came in the big box too, and two pairs of pants for each boy, caps and pants all corduroy. Needless to say, the pants were the knee length kind, known as knickers, gathered with elastic above the knees. There were long pants for boys in their late teens, and those came down to their shoe tops. There were socks too. Socks were short and worn only by men and the big boys with long pants. Most of us boys got stockings which met the knickers above the knees. They were held up by garters of black elastic. The elastic also came in the box—yards of it. And the garters were made to individual sizes by our mother whose hands were never idle. There might have been shirts in the big box, though I think Mama made most all our shirts.
The corduroy knickers stood out full above the knees due to the gathering by the elastic. That caused the legs of the breeches to rub together when we walked, and that rubbing caused a swishing noise each time we took a step. As we walked to school, most of the boys went step, step, stepping along, but we Johnsons went swish, swish, swishing along. And everyone could hear that we were wearing our new corduroy breeches.
There were things for the girls in the shipment too, and for Mama. But I didn't know what they got, except maybe a bundle of cloth or two or three, to be made into dresses. I suppose they also made what they wore under the dresses. But that was top secret as far as we boys were concerned. However, that didn't bother me. I was by women's clothing about like I was by Santa Claus—not very inquisitive. My field of research didn't include girls' clothing.
As I grew older, of course, my attitude changed. I became somewhat interested in broadening my knowledge of girls and their surroundings. And so, with a feeling of guilt, and in strictest privacy, I turned to the women's section of the Sear, Roebuck Catalog for research and knowledge of the innermost secrets about women's wear.
Now, in that big box from Sears, Roebuck there would be blue denim for homemade overalls. There would be pots and pans for the kitchen, and gingham and calico and elastic and needles and thread. And there'd be a side or two of black harness leather for making new lines and new traces and for repairing the old ones. Papa also used the same leather for shoe soles and heels.
There'd be shoe tacks and harness thread; bolts, nuts, and copper rivets; leather lace for saddles, beeswax, welding flux and axle grease; ropes for handling cows and horses, carpenter tools and horse shoes.
And one year, for Frank and Susie, there was a phonograph and some records. Only I think the phonograph came in a separate shipment later in the fall—perhaps for Christmas.
One of the favorite records for us smaller kids was "The Preacher and the Bear." After awhile those of us who couldn't read could pick out that record easily because all the letters were worn off the label. Even people who could read couldn't read that one because there was no reading on it. We little kids had worn it all off with our fingers making it go round and round.
In those days research and technology had not advanced to the point where they could make a spring that wouldn't break. Watch springs broke in those days. Cultivator seat springs broke. Screen door springs broke. And when automobiles came along, their springs broke.
This phonograph had a wind-up spring, so it broke too. That's when we kids started putting our fingers on the label part of the record and turning it ourselves. Fingers got as good reception as a spring, so we soon wore the label off playing our favorite record
Sorry I wandered. Let's get back to the big box. In the box I remember there was a big bolt of cotton-sack ducking. We started picking cotton in the fall with last year's old leftover sacks. But now it was time for new sacks. The old ones would make good short sacks for the little kids. The big new sacks would be for those who picked the most cotton.
I didn't know it at the time but I learned later that the story they used to tell us about Santa being overloaded on Christmas Eve and couldn't bring all the toys was just not true. The fact was that Santa had ordered from Sears, Roebuck and they were out of some of the items and would have to ship them later. And by the time those items arrived in Hamlin, Santa had to deliver them a night or two later.
One year, in the big box, there was a set of shoe lasts and a stand, for repairing all sizes of shoes. I don't remember when we got the set. I think maybe it came to live with the family before I did and it was as good as new after I was a grown man. When Papa put new half soles on our shoes, he would punch holes with an awl and we little kids always wanted to place the shoe tacks in the holes. Our helping didn't delay his work a great deal—and he was always kind and patient with us as we labored with him and got in his way.
Many of the items in the big box were surprising to us kids, but a blue denim jacket was no surprise to Papa, because he was the one who made out the order in the first place. He also got socks- -a bundle of twelve pairs of gray Rockford work socks, also sock supporters, suspenders, and sleeve holders. Somewhere tucked away among other relics of olden days, I think I still have a pair of old sleeve holders.
You ask, "What are sleeve holders?" Oh, I thought everybody knew about sleeve holders. In those days you didn't buy a shirt with sleeves the length you wanted. You just bought a shirt. All the sleeves were the same length—long enough for the longest arms. Then you put on the little elastic holders and let them hold your sleeves up to the desired length. They were fancy little miniature garters to wear over your shirt sleeves above the elbows.
I have on my shelf a copy of the 1902 Sears, Roebuck Catalog andI checked up to see if the socks I mentioned really were RockfordBrand. They were—and the price was 55 cents for one dozenpairs.
In the big box there were also such items as safety pins, fruit jar lids, Kodak film, Daisy fly poison, lamp wicks, and sometimes, a few views for our stereo-scopes.
I'm sure there were other things in the big box. I just can't remember all that was in it. One thing for sure, if we just had to have it, it was in there. If we didn't have to have it, we didn't order it.
Now, a couple of nonessentials that were left off the order were bicycle tires. Papa knew that the old tires wouldn't hold air and he knew they couldn't be patched. But he knew they would hold cotton. So, he showed us how and we stuffed them full of cotton. And then we wrapped tire tape over the holes to keep the cotton in. And we wrapped tire tape around the tires and rims to hold the tires on the rims.
You may ask, "Wasn't it hard to pedal?" Boy! I'll say it was hard to pedal. But I didn't care. I couldn't reach the pedals anyway. Someone had to push me on it. But I didn't have to push anyone because I was too little to push anyone. And the old bike landed in the junk pile before I was big enough to push any of the smaller ones on it.
Frank was through with the old bike when he handed it down to us smaller kids. He had gotten himself a motorcycle. I believe it was an Excelsior by name, although I think it was by name only. It turned out to be not so hot.
The next thing I knew Frank owned a Buick automobile. I think he bought it from Uncle Simpson Johnson. It had a four cylinder engine, a spare tire, and a top that would fold down for easier going when facing the wind. The top could be put up to keep off the rain and sunshine. It was the model which had the two leather straps running from the front corners of the top down to the frame on both sides of the radiator.
Another thing I remember from my youth has to do with crazy sayings which mean nothing in fact. Some of them are about as scientific as a black cat causing bad luck if he crosses your path.
Anyway, most of the parents in our neighborhood didn't want their kids going out in the hot sun bareheaded. They would tell the kids, "If you go out bareheaded, the old buzzards will puke on your head."
One Sunday we were visiting Uncle Andrew's family. At least ten of us boys and girls started out into the pasture and someone noticed that Lela, the youngest girl, didn't have her bonnet on. The older ones told her the buzzards would puke on her head if she didn't go back and get her bonnet.
About 55 years later, Lela told me that she had always had a kind feeling toward me since that day because I was the only one of the whole bunch who would wait for her. All the others ran off from us and left us to catch up as best we could.
When we threw a stick and it went end over end or round and round sideways, that was just plain throwing a stick. But if we pointed one end forward and shoved the stick forward by a thrust on the back end of it, our scientific name for that operation was "puking" the stick. And we might start one end of a stick through a hole in a fence or over a fence and "puke" it through or over in the same manner.
Another thing grown-ups told us kids was, "If you want to see the wind, you've got to suck the old sow." Well, I wanted to be able to see the wind, but that seemed a little far out, even to me. And before I got around to qualifying, I learned that they were fibbing to us about it. You still couldn't see the wind.
Here's another one for you. When we killed a snake, we kids wondered why he wouldn't stop wiggling. We could even cut his head off and he would keep right on wiggling. They told us a snake wouldn't stop wiggling till sundown, unless you turn him over and make him lie on his back, then he would stop wiggling. Trouble was, we couldn't get him to lie on his back. Even with his head off, he would keep rolling back over on his stomach, as long as he could wiggle.
On the Exum farm, our house was about a half-mile from Grandma's two-story house. One day Mama sent me to Grandma's. I don't remember what I went for, but I do remember that when I got there, I couldn't find Grandma anywhere. I went all through the house looking for her.
I didn't find her but I found a full box of matches on one end of her sewing machine, where she always kept them. Now, everyone knows that all little boys like to play with matches. And since I was one of those little boys, I, too, liked to play with matches, especially since I knew I was not supposed to touch them.
So, I got a handful and went outside. As I went, I struck them on the porch wall, on the porch posts, on the bricks along the flower beds and on the front yard fence. Soon I was out of matches and had to go back for more.
I figured that if a little handful of matches was that much fun, a big handful would be a lot more fun. My second handful was really full.
This time I went out in the sand outside the yard and stood up a row of matches in the sand with their tops up and close enough together that the breeze would blow the flame from match to match. Then I lighted the match on the up-wind end of the row. It worked perfectly and it was fun watching the flame leap from match to match all the way to the far end.
I reasoned that too many missing matches would cause grown-ups to become curious and begin asking questions. And since they knew that I had gone to Grandma's that day, I would be the first one they would question. So I limited my match pleasure to three handfuls and then went home.
I still don't know why I was sent to Grandma's that day, but I remember I was glad I went. I came back with a deep, dark secret of my own and a pleasurable memory to add to my storehouse.
In our youth, if any of us kids complained of feeling a little under the weather, we were given a "scientific" medical examination at bed time. We had to stick out our tongue for our parents to look at. If there was the least bit of white coating on the tongue, it meant we must take a calomel tablet and go to bed.
I'm not sure I am spelling "calomel" correctly because I failed to find the word in my small dictionary. And I sort of doubt that our family doctor knew how to spell it. But it's just as well. I have yet to find a doctor who can write so anyone can read what he wrote anyway.
But anyhow, that was the science of medicine in our family—if the tongue is coated, take a pretty little pink tablet and wash it down with a glass of water.
I hated even the thought of taking one. The slightest taste of one gagged me. To prevent vomiting in the kitchen, I would ask Mama if I could go out on the porch and take mine.
Now, I knew I wasn't apt to vomit on the kitchen floor, but Mama didn't know it. Another thing she didn't know was that there was a knothole in the porch floor, under which, as years went by, a small mound of pink tablets grew into a large mound.
They never caught me putting the tablets through the hole because it was always dark. No one ever took calomel in the daytime, unless he had nothing else to do but sit around and wait for a call to the bathroom, which was way out back in the cold—always cold. Not one of us ever had a coated tongue in the summertime.
Mama would say, "Hurry, now, it's cold out there." I knew full well it was cold out there. But I wasn't about to take that little pink tablet. I was determined to go through ice or snow or any other bad weather rather than have that little tablet go through me. It didn't take long for me to put a tablet through a knothole, throw a glass of water out into the yard, and get back into the warm kitchen. I don't know how the other kids made out. The knothole was my own secret which I shared with no one.
Looking back, I can easily see that I should have let the entire family in on my secret. They could have saved the cost of the tablets as well as those miserable early morning trips to the cold bathroom. And as it turned out, the white coating on my tongue disappeared during the night the same as theirs did.
I was about eight years old at the time—that is, at the time I learned to use the knothole. I enjoyed it until we moved away from the Exum place. By the time I was 12 or 14, I began to understand the scripture where it reads, "As a man thinketh, so is he." The scriptures proved to be true. I thought I didn't want to take the tablets, so I didn't. I thought I would get well, so I did.
Another verse reads, "The Lord will provide." We often overlook the little things the Lord does for us, like putting knotholes in the most convenient places. Fifty years later, I learned that at age eight I was a Christian Scientist. They too, are a group of people who do not believe in taking medicine.
Many years later, when I was 40 years old, a neighbor told me he had fleas under his house and he wondered if I might know how to get rid of them. I told him, "Try Calomel. I used it when I was a kid and we didn't have fleas under our house."
When I was quite a small boy, a number of us were hoeing cotton one day. We had stopped at the end of the rows to get a drink and sharpen our hoes. Playfully, Frank picked me up and pretended he was going to throw me over the fence and out into the county road. Well, he swung me over the fence and stood me on my feet down in some weeds. And there between my feet was a beautiful little pocket knife.
This seemed almost too good to be true. I was the happiest little boy in the whole wide world. I guess every boy wants a pocket knife, and I had one—all my very own.
The others all looked at the knife and wished they had one like it. Jokingly, Frank said the knife was half his because, if he hadn't pitched me over the fence, I wouldn't have found it. So, a few days later, when he asked if he could borrow it, naturally, I loaned it to him, not because I thought it was half his, but because he was my brother and wanted to borrow it.
Frank was going to school at Hamlin at that time and when I thought it was time for him to return my knife, he told me that a boy in town had borrowed it and wouldn't give it back. And that was the end of my knife.
Now, did I hate Frank for what he had done? Of course not. I was too young to hate. Hurt, yes, but hate, never! I still loved Frank just as much as I ever did. And it was the same when he had to correct me. I loved him just as much while he was whipping me as I did before he began and after he stopped.
At any rate, my little knife was gone for sure. But a few weeks later, I dreamed one night that I found another knife, just about like the first one. And, as before, I dreamed I found it by the fence at the end of our cotton rows. I dreamed I put the knife in my pocket. The next morning when I woke up, I went and searched my pockets, but the knife wasn't there.
A few weeks later I dreamed of finding still another pocket knife. And I dreamed that I remembered having dreamed of finding the first one but had lost it by putting it in my pocket instead of holding onto it. So this time I clutched it tightly in my hand. This time, I reasoned, it could not possibly get away from me, even though I seemed to know I was dreaming. I felt sure there just had to be a way to pass from asleep to awake and bring that knife with me. But when I woke up, I was disappointed again and had to conclude that it just couldn't be done.
After that decision, I began putting my dreams to better use. When I dreamed a dream, and I seemed to realize that I was dreaming, I would do things to entertain other kids—things no one else could do, like sliding down the roof of a big barn, dropping off the edge, and just before I hit the ground, I would close my eyes so the fall wouldn't hurt me.
At other times I would tease a vicious bull until he would chase after me, and just before he hit me I would laugh at him and close my eyes. He couldn't even find me, let alone hurt me. Often I would open my eyes and get him to charge again, only to lose me and miss me when I closed my eyes.
Our youngest son is named Larry. And after he was a grown man, I dreamed that he and I were going some place in a Model T Ford car on a highway in Texas. It had been raining for weeks and was still raining. The highway was muddy and the ruts were so deep our axles were dragging. We were wet, cold, tired, and stuck in a mud hole. Then the truth came to me. I got in the car and called to Larry to get in out of the rain and take it easy. He was puzzled, but he got in the car, sat down, and asked, "Why?"
I told him, "Relax and rest, I'll wake up in a few minutes and everything will be all right. I'm dreaming all this. We're not stuck out here in the mud. It's not raining on us. There are no unpaved highways in Texas and no Model T cars on them. I'm dreaming that you are out here in this wet and cold with me. You are not really here. You can't even hear me talking to you. You are lying up somewhere in a nice warm bed. Come to think of it, so am I."
I woke up sometime later and found things to be just the way I had described them to Larry in my dream.
Another time I dreamed that Ima, my wife, and I were touring in the mountains. We had stopped at a lookout point and were looking into the valley below. Dinosaurs were grazing down there and walking around. One cute little fellow, with a neck about as long as four telephone poles, came toward us and stuck his head up over the rock banister where I stood. Ima had gotten scared and ran to the car. I called to her, "Ima, don't be afraid. Come back and let's pet him. You know we're dreaming because these things have been extinct for thousands of years. Come on, he won't hurt us and we'll be the only people living who ever petted one—or even saw one."
In high school we were told that a long dream might take place within a few seconds. But I already knew it from first-hand experience.
I was about nine years old when I had such an experience. One day I was riding in the back seat of our Reo car. Papa was driving at about his regular speed of twelve miles per hour down a country road. I was sleepy but still awake when we crossed Dry Callie Creek on a noisy bridge.
Then I fell asleep and dreamed we went places and did things that would have taken a couple of hours in real life. When I woke up, I thought I had slept all the way to town and almost all the way back home. I was disappointed because I had planned to buy some candy while we were in town.
I looked around to see how far we were from home only to find that we were about two hundred yards from the noisy bridge, and were still on our way to town.