Chapter 10 SOLD FARM; MOVED TO HAMLIN

By the summer of 1919 things were looking somewhat better. Papa had ordered two new tires for the Reo. They had come in but there had been no hurry to put them on the car. They were lying there in the garage beside the old car which had been mothballed for quite a few months.

Then one Sunday afternoon we saw an airplane flying around over at Lamesa. It was a small two-seater like they flew in the war. Anyway, there we were sitting at home and watching the action from ten miles away, when Papa asked if any of us would like to drive over there and watch the airplane. OH BOY! Would we! We got busy right away putting the new tires on the car, pumping up all four tires, and getting the old car to run again after quite a spell of sitting. Then we drove over, watched the action from up close, then went back home.

While in Lamesa watching the plane, we learned that the pilot was taking up passengers, that is, anyone who wanted to pay ten dollars to ride. And he would loop-the-loop for an extra ten dollars each loop. One man paid $40 to ride and loop three times in rapid succession. It was hard for us to imagine anyone having that kind of money to spend for so little in so short a time.

Our parents wanted to be good to us kids, but being good to us didn't include spending a lot of money on us. By their ingenuity and hard work, they had a way of stretching a few dollars beyond contentment and happiness, almost to abundance. We each had a saddle and a horse to ride, including Ollie Mae, but not William Robert. Papa braided quirts for all of us. He would take the leather uppers of worn-out shoes, cut them into long strips, and make quirts as good as the best. He cut up Ollie Mae's old high top red shoes and made the prettiest little red quirt you ever saw. And as I mentioned before, we boys had our guns.

The Higginbotham Ranch was in a rundown condition and was being sold piece by piece to farmers. Most all the ranch houses were vacant and much of the pastureland had become a dust bowl. Tumbleweeds had caught against the fences and sand had drifted into the weeds, burying both the fences and the weeds in many places. There were abandoned houses here and there on the ranch. The vacant houses had most all the windows broken out. Most of the doors were off their hinges or broken or had been taken by someone who had a need for them. We boys often took Old Scotch and our guns and our horses and went to a lot of the old houses- just exploring to see what was there.

In one of the old houses, behind a door casing, I found a 22 rifle. It worked but not well. It wouldn't shoot where I aimed it; the barrel had a curve in it. If I had found the old gun when I was younger, I might have thought I could shoot around corners with it. But I was much smarter now and I knew you couldn't shoot a curve with a gun. no matter how crooked the barrel was.

Actually the curve in the gun barrel was no problem. Papa showed me how to straighten it by placing it on a four-by-four, then placing a block of wood on it at just the right place and hitting it with a big hammer. Oh, yes, I got it fairly true, but not true enough for hunting rabbits. But then, I had my good new gun for rabbits. I learned a lot about guns by having the old gun around to play with.

One day we four boys got off out behind the barn, hiding from Papa, and made shotguns out of our rifles. We would take the bullet out of a 22 shell, place the shell in the chamber, pour some powder from a shotgun shell down the barrel, stuff in a little paper for wadding, then put in a few shot from the shotgun shell, and a little more wadding to hold the shot in place. Then we would aim and fire. But the little birdshot wouldn't even go through an old rusted out washtub. After a couple of tries, I put more powder in my gun next time. They still wouldn't go through the tub. The other boys were afraid to put a lot of powder, but I wasn't. So I put twice as much powder the next time-I really put in an overdose and a few extra shot.

Well, yes, the pellets went through the tub this time for sure, but the gun went the other way-right through the stock. The metal body of the gun split the wood stock and came almost to my shoulder. Smoke filled my eyes and a cloud of smoke rose above my head like an Indian smoke signal. It seemed that maybe it was trying to tell us something, so we listened, and we stopped muzzleloading our guns.

Once during a big, big rain the swamps caught a lot of water, and ducks became plentiful on them. A neighbor man and Frank and we four boys went duck hunting. The swamps were four or five miles apart. There was a lot of water and plenty of ducks, but there were practically no trees or bushes to sneak up behind. The ducks could see us coming and fly away. We met with failure at swamp after swamp-no ducks for us, anyhow not many.

By two o'clock in the afternoon we were circling back toward home but were still about seven miles from home, and with only three little ducks about the size of quail-well, maybe a little bigger, and we were very tired and hungry. We had been walking since early breakfast. It had been a long day and we had covered many miles.

Finally we decided to eat the ducks we had. At a vacant ranch house we found a rusty syrup bucket. There was water at the windmill. And in the barn we found some cattle salt with some black stock powder mixed in it. First we built a fire. Then we picked the ducks and boiled them in the rusty bucket, salting the stew with the black and white salt. We could hardly wait for it to cook.

We had walked at least 25 or 30 miles, and if you think walking that distance in eight hours doesn't make victuals taste good, you are plum loco, no matter what they are cooked in or seasoned with. That was, beyond a doubt the best food I had ever tasted in my life. We divided the meat as equally as possible, and it came out to about one fifth as much as each of us needed. Then we drank the soup-two swallows for you, two for him, two for me, and so on, right out of the rusty bucket. When a feather came floating along, we didn't risk wasting a single drop of soup. We would let it go into our mouth, suck the juice out of it, then spit it out.

We always had some good neighbors wherever we lived. One fall we headed maize for a good neighbor. He was to pay us $2.50 for each wagon load. But the stalks had fallen down so badly in places that heading went very slowly and we couldn't make much money at it. Papa tried to get the man, Mr. Wood, to pay us three dollars a load. Mr. Wood thought we were just trying to get more pay for less work, and he wouldn't pay it, so we quit. Then Mr. Wood finished heading the maize himself. Now, I say he was a good neighbor because, when he saw how much trouble it was to head the fallen stalks, he came and paid us fifty cents extra for each load we had gathered. My parents made a practice of praising the good in people and they taught us kids that "By their fruits ye shall know them."

Yes, our parents taught us a lot of things. But there were other things which were not taught in our family. We kids just had to learn about these things as best we could. Along about my early teens, I began to learn about new-born calves and colts and babies. Up until then, all I knew was that horses and cows found their babies out in the pasture, and doctors brought babies to women at times. And about Santa Claus, I wasn't curious about him, I was just happy about him. I well remember how disappointed I was when I learned the truth about Santa. And my newly acquired knowledge about babies brought a bit of disappointment concerning the moral character of adults.

We learned some of our lessons the hard way. I remember one Sunday afternoon we boys were riding young unbroken horses while Mama was away from home and Papa was sleeping. We knew we were not supposed to ride wild horses unless Papa was with us. He had told us never to do so. It wasn't that we deliberately disobeyed Papa. It was that we thought we had learned a lot since he last told us that, and perhaps the rule didn't apply any longer. And besides, we were riding a real gentle unbroken filly.

Anyway, Joel was on the horse and we were holding the reins when she went sideways and fell and rolled over on Joel. She mashed the wind out of him and left him unconscious. It looked bad to me. There he was, just lying there doing nothing. I knew Papa would be unhappy with our disobedience, but when there is something that needs to be done, you just do it. I was scared and I hated to have to face Papa but I didn't hesitate a second. I ran as fast as I could to get him. I was about 12 or 13. Was I scared? Brave? Loyal to Joel? Trustworthy? Devoted to duty? I don't really know. I only knew there was something that had to be done and my sense of duty was stronger than my fear of having to face Papa with my confession of disobedience, so I did what had to be done.

Lucky for all of us, Joel went down lengthways in a furrow between two ridges. The ridges held the horse up somewhat. Joel wasn't really hurt-just had the wind knocked out of him and it left him unconscious for a few minutes.

Along about this same time in my boyhood, I had something that one of my brothers wanted to buy from me. I don't remember what it was but I do remember I offered it to him for eight cents. He offered me a nickel for it. He had a nickel and four pennies. I finally offered to take the nickel if he would pitch the four pennies up and give me all that fell "heads." We didn't make the deal because Earl learned what I had offered to do and he shamed me scornfully. He said, "That's just the same as shooting dice or playing poker." I didn't know how to shoot dice nor play poker. I only knew that either one was a bad thing to do. I was deeply hurt, not because Earl had scolded or shamed me, but just to think that I would bring dishonor to my family by even thinking of gambling, after all the moral training my parents had given me. Also there was the element of ignorance. I hadn't realized that such an act would be gambling, and I was too proud to admit my ignorance.

Anyway, I resolved to myself then and there never to do a thing like that again as long as I lived, never to gamble in any way. But, like Adam in the garden of Eden when he blamed a woman for his disobedience, I too can say, "A woman tempted me and I did gamble." I'll tell you about it later.

This last year we were on the plains, it looked like we were sure to make good. But it seemed that fate was trying our patience. I think the devil also had a hand in the turn of events. I never did like that guy. Sometimes I think he is still after me.

Anyway in late summer Papa and the neighbors looked at our cotton crop and came to the conclusion that we couldn't keep from making 100 bales. And cotton sold that year at $200 a bale. It looked as though the Lord had finally smiled on us as he did on Job. But I guess we hadn't suffered as much nor repented as well as Job had. When the Lord favored us with a good rain one Sunday afternoon, our neighbors saw the rain and said, "Man, that Johnson family sure must be living right. Look at the rain the Lord sent them."

But what the neighbors didn't know was that the devil had put a boll worm in each and every drop of that rain. None of us knew about the devil and his pesky worms until later.

What happened? We made 20 bales instead of 100, about enough to pay the taxes, interest, and the annual note. If the devil had left us alone, we would have had about $16,000 left over.

So now what? Sell out, of course-sell out and get out. We sold the farm for $25 an acre; we had paid $18. That would have been a good profit on the place except for the fact that the improvements we had made on the place cost about as much as we made on it. So we just about broke even. But the value of land had begun to rise and we didn't know it. Before we moved off the place, even before Mama signed the deed, the farm sold again for $10 an acre more than we got for it. When Mama learned about the last price it brought, she said, "I don't think I'll sign the deed."

Papa told her, "Oh yes you will."

Of course, Mama had not really meant what she said.

So, due to three years of drought and crop failures, we had gone broke. Then we moved to Hamlin-all of us without money, and Mama and Papa very weary. In a short three years we had gone from a good life on the Exum farm to poverty in a rundown house in a one-horse town.

This gives you some idea of the financial state of the family at that time. This might also give you an idea of the patience of a couple who had come through this valley of gloom and destruction-came through in fairly good moral condition, and continued on to guide their children along the right path.

OKAY! Okay, so we didn't stay on the right path all the way. At least we were told which way to go. We were not all angels, but at least we tried hard at first to hide our devilish ways.

That last fall on the plains, Papa didn't have enough money to pay us kids for gathering cotton. But he promised to pay us so- much a 100 pounds and told us to keep an account of how much he owed us, and he would pay us gradually and eventually.

We each kept an account in our little books. When we boys wanted to buy or sell among ourselves, we would show the transaction in our little ledgers. Evidently some of my brothers didn't put much stock in Papa's ability to pay later, or they got a little pay from him now and then much faster than I did, or something. Anyway, after we moved to Hamlin, I still had my book which showed a balance of quite a few dollars that Papa owed me. I hadn't gotten all my money, but I hadn't needed as much as some of the others. And I thought it my duty to spend less and thereby help Papa out over a longer period of time.

Furthermore, at that early age I was getting a thrill out of watching my balance grow. I had sold quite a few items to my brothers without cash. We had simply subtracted the amount from their books and added the figures to my balance. I actually had over $23 in my balance when one brother accused me of cheating and stealing. They could have checked up on me. I had every transaction written down. But I threw the book away rather than have my family doubt my honesty.