Chapter 4 SOCIAL LIVING; LOVING, LISTENING, LEARNING

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 pay

Mr. 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.