Learning From Nature

In the spring of the year my best friend Beulah would come to play, and we would go down the lane to the corner of the
fields to look for sheep sorrel. We called "sheep sour" because it WAS sour! The name for the plant is oxalis. We'd pick
several of the little stalks with the shamrock-like leaves, and we'd each chew two to see if we could keep from making a
face. Then we'd chew three, then four, but we wouldn't get to more than about five each until one of us would make a
face. Of course, that was the end of the game. In the little pasture by the house there were tall, slender trees; I
believe they were called Blackjack. Buford would help us hold one down, and some of us would straddle the tree. He would
move it up and down, and we pretended we were riding our "horses." We loved that, but sometimes he would turn it loose
for fun or meanness- I don't know which-and we'd almost flip off. It wouldn't be long before we'd have the tree ridden
down until it was so tired it kept bent over. When it got to that stage it wasn't much fun to get on and ride, so we'd
let it go and hunt for another one. Years later when I was out in that pasture, I saw trees that would never be
straight; they were bent from the times we rode them. One spring a dove built her nest in a tree in that pasture. I was
walking through there and found a baby dove on the ground. I tried to put it back in the nest, but once a bird gets out
of the nest you can never keep it back in the nest, so I took it home with me. I knew that mother doves regurgitate food
into their young, like pigeons do, so I put some cornbread mixed with sweet milk into my fist and held it to the bird's
little beak. He ate like he was really hungry. I kept feeding him until he grew old enough to get outside and fly
around, but he'd come back and land on the roof or somewhere close by. He'd start calling "sweet, sweet," and I'd find
him and take him inside. But finally he started staying away longer and longer. I guess he found some of his own kind
and flew away with them. In the springtime or early summer some insect stung the little oak bush leaves, and a little
later they would grow ball-shaped hulls. We called them pop balls, because when they got to be a pretty good size you
could press on them and they would break with a pop. In due time they would turn from green to the prettiest colors of
light yellow to deep yellow, orange, and red. My friends and I would gather and string them for beads, and we'd decorate
our hats made of leaves and twigs. One year when there were so many, we took a bunch of them to the house and made
garlands for the top of the dresser and over the windows. Of course, after about three days they turned brown and we had
to throw them out, but we enjoyed it while we were doing it. Occasionally, we would find a little wheat birds' nest.
They never built very far off the ground., so we were able to look into their nests. We enjoyed finding, and watching
them, but we were careful not to bother the nest nor go near it if we saw the mother bird on the nest. When there were
four eggs we knew she would soon be sitting on them, and her little birds would hatch in a couple of weeks. Once or
twice we helped feed them. We picked the little green worms off Mama's cabbage and dropped them into a can. Then they
went down to the bird's nest and shook the bush a little. Every little bird stretched his neck and opened his great big
mouth so we could a worm into it. I expect the mother was glad when we tired of helping her.


Songs Papa Sang

When Dewey and I were small, Papa would entertain us in the evenings while Mama tidied up the kitchen and got ready to
put us to bed. He would play the usual little games, such as riding Dewey on his foot and singing: "Ride a cock horse to
Banbury Cross To see a fine lady on a white horse, Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, She shall have music
wherever she goes." He also loved to sing: "Oh, dem golden slippers, oh, dem golden slippers, Golden slippers I'se gwine
t' wear'cause they look so neat, Oh, dem golden slippers, Oh, dem golden slippers, Golden slippers I'se gwine t' walk de
golden street." Somewhere along the line we all learned to sing: "Froggie went a courtin' and he did ride, uh huh, uh
huh, Froggie went a courtin'and he did ride Sword and pistol by his side, uh huh, uh huh." Then there are a jillion
verses: "He road up to Miss Mousies's hall, uh huh, uh huh, He road up to Miss Mousies's hall And very loudly he did
call, uh huh, uh huh. He took Miss Mousie on his knee, uh huh, uh huh, Took Miss Mousie on his knee And said, 'Miss
Mousie, won't you marry me?' uh huh, uh huh. Uncle Rat he went to town, uh huh, uh huh, Uncle Rat he went to town To buy
his niece a wedding gown, uh huh, uh huh." "Where oh where will the wedding be, uh huh, uh huh, Where oh where will the
wedding be? 'Way down yonder in a hollow tree, uh huh, uh huh. First came in was an old belled cow, uh huh, uh huh,
First came in was an old belled cow She tried to dance but she didn't know how, uh huh, uh huh. Next came in was the
little flea, uh huh, uh huh, Next came in was the little flea Who turned his fiddle on his knee, uh huh, uh huh. What
will the wedding supper be, uh huh, uh huh, What will the wedding supper be? A long string be and a black eyed pea, uh
huh, uh huh." Of course, he sang the chorus in between each of the verses: "Hiro kinbo, herro jerro, Hastem a rat-tat
Penny-winkle, flippy-doodle yellow bug Ringtime bottom upa kymbo." He also liked to sing "Dixie." If he were trying to
lull Dewey to sleep, he'd sing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" or a quiet song. Of all the religious songs, his favorite was
" When They Ring the Golden Bells for You and Me." We had that sung at his funeral in 1954. He lived to be over 89 and
Mama lived to 101, so I think they proved that hard work doesn't kill people. They loved their work and activities in
the community and church.

They were interested in world affairs, too. Papa would be right by his radio when the news came on each day. He believed
he had lived in the most interesting and productive time in all of history. So many changes came about because of the
gasoline motor. The gas lights with their burning mantles were such an improvement over the coal wick lamps, but you
still had to keep a lot of candles on hand. If a moth flew into the mantle, or if it were accidentally touched with a
match, it simply disintegrated. Although he had seen many wonderful changes, Papa didn't live long enough to see a man
on the moon. He would have enjoyed that. I think now that I have lived through the most wonderful years. Science and
medicine have progressed so far beyond our wildest thoughts of just a few years ago.


Quilts

Every little girl was supposed to learn how to sew and to piece quilts. I was quite young when Momma cut out blocks in
two dif-ferent colors and stuck each color on a separate pin turned upside down in a shoebox. We'd take the two colors
off the pins and lay the right sides together, and then we would be ready to make a seam to sew them together. First, we
had to learn to make a decent knot in the end of our thread, a small smooth knot and not a big loopy thing. Then Mama
showed us how far down on the cloth to make our seem so it would be wide enough not to pull out, yet not overly wide. We
had to make an even seam clear across or it wouldn't look nice when it was unfolded and pressed out. When we finished
our seam, we were supposed to run our thumbnail along it to straighten it out. Then we made two little back stitches to
hold it securely. My first quilt was a nine-patch with two different colors. Combined with plain pieces to set the
blocks together, it made a very pretty quilt. Way back then you had to make you own batting to go between the lining and
top. That kept a woman pretty busy when she had a lot of quilts to make. In the fall when cotton was being ginned, Mama
would send an old sheet by Papa to catch the fresh-ginned cotton. He tried to get it back home without mashing it all
together. Every woman had a pair of "cards" -two long flat boards with steel teeth sticking up which looked a lot like
hairbrushes girls use now. The cards had little handles on them, and you held on in your left hand down on your knee,
and you carded with the other one by pulling it toward you. In that way you straightened out the cotton you were working
on. Then you'd pick up the edge with your top card, flip it over, and straighten it out again. By that time the batting
was nice and fluffy. Then you'd lay that section across the bottom of a chair until you got a row clear across, like
shingles with one overlapping the other a bit. Then the next row was put cross-wise. The process was repeated until you
got a chairful-clear up to the top of the chair back. This stack was taken off into another room where a child wouldn't
likely fall into it and mash it all down, because that would mean redoing it. When you got approximately two and a half
chairs full, you were to lay them into the lining of your quilt. You could carefully pick up a whole layer at once and
lay them evenly before placing the quilt top in place. Then you'd pin or baste it loosly together and you were ready to
quilt. That was the early way we had of making quilts. Later, we could buy rolls of cotton, and all we had to do was to
spread them out on the lining, cover with the quilt top, and we were ready to go to work.



Wise Use of Our Time

My father was born in the year of the Civil War, 1865, abd he could remember some of the shortages and hardships they
had to endure after the war. Everything was manufactured in the North, shipped down the river in barges, and freighted
out to the smaller places. He said matches were hard to get and of very poor quality. I don't think they were even
called matches; they were called sulphur sticks or something like that. People made candle lighters to light the tobacco
in their pipes or the oil burning candles and lamps. To give us something to do and to learn, Papa taught us how to make
candle lighters. We's cut a strip about an inch and a half wide clear across a newspaper. If you were right-handed you'd
hold a strip of paper in you left hand, then wet your thumb and forefinger, and start twisting a little knot at the
outer courner of the bottom. You'd keep twisting and guiding it with your hand. if you twisted it too square across
you'd have a little stubby lighter, and if you pulled it out too long it would fall apart. So there was some skill in
making a nice candle lighter. When you got finished it would be about eight inches long, and you's make a pleat near the
top so it wouldn't unravel. When you got several made you's stick them into a vase and put them up on the mantlepeice,
and in time they would be used up. One easy-to-make toy was a whizzer. First, you would get about a yard of twine. Then
you would choose a big flat button, wet the end of your twine, and stick it into one hole of the button and back through
the opposite hole. Then you'd tie the ends together and put your thumbs through the loops. Holding your left hand still,
you'd twirl the right hand 'round and 'round to wind up the twine. When you got it all wound up you'd start pulling with
your thumbs outward, then relax a bit, and repeat in a rhythmic fashion. The button would be whizzing pretty quickly. It
took a little skill to learn, and it gave us something to do on long winter evenings. Every child was taught to tell
time. Mama made the face of a clock out of cardboard and marked numerals on it, and then she made hour and minute hands
to position on the face until we learned what time they represented- fifteen after the hour, thirty minutes after the
hour, fifteen till, or whatever. In that way we knew how to tell the time even before we started to school. We didn't
start to school as early as children do now. I think I was about seven when I started because it was a long way to walk
to school, and my parents taught me at home. We didn't have any laws that we HAD to go to school at six years of age. We
didn't always start school at the same time each year. Vashti was in cotton growing country, so the date for school to
start depended on when most of the cotton was picked. Papa never kept us out of school to pick cotton. If some was still
in the field when school started, Papa would hire men to finish. Sometimes on Saturday's or in the evenings after school
we'd go out and pick a little until it was all finished. Papa said that cotton was ours, and the money we made on it
would be ours to keep.


Mending Shoes

When I was a child all shoes were made of leaather. Cow-hides were cheap, and plastics and other composition materials
had not been invented. Every household had a "last" made of iron metal with different sizes of "shoes" that fit on top
of the last. You slipped your shoues needing repairs over the "last" to mend them or to put on new soles. For the new
soles, you bought leather in irregularly sized pieces. Then you's cut off enough for one or several pairs of soles.
Men's shoe soles required thicker leather, but women's and children's shoes had thinner soles. Along with the "lasts"
and "shoes" you needed and awl, kind of like an icepick, and tacks which came in different lengths. The tacks were
square-headed instead of round like most of our tacks now. Anyway, when you got ready to resole the shoe, you slipped it
onto the last with the sole side up. Then you fitted the leather to the sole and marked it off. After you cut the sole
piece, you bored holes with and awl about a half inch apart and put in the tack by hammering it into the sole good and
hard so it bradded itself into the leather. If you didn't get the tack in right the wearer might get his foot gouged.
That's the way shoes were resoled; it was really called half-soling. Nathalee, in her collection of antiques, has a set
with the smallest and largest forms I ever saw. Sets of "lasts" can be found in almost every museum or country store. In
that day everything was done afoot on the farm: plowing, planting, chopping, thinning, cultivating. A lot of shoe
leather was worn out. And if you wanted something which was not too heavy to carry home from the store, you walked to
town and got it. Of course, children walked to and from school anywhere from three to eight miles a day.


An Errand

One summer, when Dewey and I were children, Mama raised a lot of little yellow tomatoes. She knew how much the druggist,
Mr. Jess Girard, loved yellow tomatoe preserves, so she asked Dewey and me to take him some tomatoes. We felt so big to
be able to walk by ourselves the three-quarters of a mile to the store. Mama put the tomatoes into a wide-mouthed tin
bucket, and she put a notch in the middle of a stick and placed the bucket there. We each took hold of one end of the
stick, and the bucket swung between us. After we delivered the tomatoes to Uncle Jess, he went around the counter to
open the glass case at the back and gave each of us a piece of candy. Mine was a large red gumdrop inprinted like a
rose. We took them home and showed them to Mama before Dewey gobbled his candy down. I said I was going to save mine,
and I wrapped it up and put it in my doll trunk under the bed. Once in a while I would take it out and look at it.
Finally, I told Dewey that we would take a bite apiece, and pretty soon the gum drop was gone. Uncle Jess had lost his
wife, and his sister came to live with him to help him rear his three children. Their names were Cora, Zora, and Blake.
The sister undertook to make the preserves, but instead of getting down the sack of sugar she accidentally got the sack
of salt. Of course, the preserves were ruined. Blake Girard later met and married my sister-in-law, Rua Hood. They had
two boys: Jesse, named for his grandfather, and Shirley.

Buford's Traps

Buford my older brother, never did play with me much. He was more of a loner than Dewey. He would build cages or traps
to catch wild animals, and he'd build swings for us. He and Dewey were great pals when they got older. Buford would help
Mama with building chicken coops and that sort of thing, but he liked to build a trap-not the kind that would hurt an
animal-in a pyramid shape, laying pieces of wood this way and that and getting smaller at the top. Then he would raise
it up on one end, placing a block of wood he had carve out just so, and onto that he'd fasten a kind of dowel pin, a
stick with a sharp end on it. Then he'd put an ear of corn onto that and a few grains of corn leading out from under the
trap in order that the birds would get so interested in following the grain that they'd go right in under the trap. Then
they would start to peck the grain on the cob, down would come the trap. Buford would go to check his trap each morning
and evening to see what he had caught. Lots of times he hadn't caught anything. Part of the time he had caught a bird,
usually a field lark or bob white quail. He would let it go because the fun was in catching it. Once he built a really
snazzy squirrel cage for his pet squirrel. He built it with screen wire, and it had some sort of carousel for the
squirrel to jump in and run 'round and 'round. My, how that squirrel did like peanuts. And he could shell a pecan in no
time flat. One day when Buford was cleaning out the cage, the squirrel slipped out and ran over the roof of the house
and up the tree. The boys never could catch him. When they would almost have him in hand, here he'd go again. So that
was the last of Buford's squirrel pets.

Going To Grandma's

Some years when the crops were laid by, when the men were nearly through cultivating the land, it would be a good time
to go to Collin County for a visit with Grandmother and Grandfather Williams and all of the uncles and aunts and cousins
who lived there. The first time I can remember much about going I think I was seven and a half years old. Getting ready
to go was work for everyone. The sideboards had to be put on the wagon; then above the sideboards was a place to put
wagon bows, and the canvas top was put over the bows (we called it a wagon sheet). It was gathered up at the back end
with just a small hole left for rear vision, and the front end was left open for the driver. A rope was put across the
middle part to gather it up when the children wanted to look out. Papa put slats across between the sideboards. On top
of them he placed springs and an old mattress, and that was where we children sat and played and slept. Underneath the
slats was a place for a flat trunk which contained our clothes. Our food supply and feed for the mules were also kept
there. On the back of the wagon was a feed trough where the mules were tied to feed at the end of each day. Mama and
Papa road on the spring seat. It took us three days to make the trip. We had to camp out two nights. Mama was busy with
food preparation in getting us ready to go. She'd bake half a ham and fry up a bunch of chicken and make cakes and pies
and lots of teacakes, or cookies. She would put them into a flour sack and hang it to the bow in the middle of the
wagon. We wouldn't get very far from home before we'd be ready for a teacake. We took enough food to last us for about
two days. The last day out we would buy salmon or sardines, bread, canned tomatoes, or whatever we wanted for lunch. And
then then we'd be at Grandma's that night. The first night out we always tried to get to Smyrna School House down below
Bowie. It had a well of good water and a place to camp. One night when we got there we found a brush arbor with seats
all underneath, and it looked as if a "protracted meeting" was being held. Sure enough, it wasn't long before people
started coming in wagons and on horseback to the meeting. Papa, Mary and Buford decided they would clean up and go over
to the church service, but I had started the trip with tonsillitis and didn't feel very well. Mama stayed in the wagon
with Dewey and me. We could hear the singing, and Mama said she could hear most of the preaching. On one of those trips
Dewey and I went wading in a clear stream with a pretty sandy bottom. All at I tried to get out and couldn't move my
feet. I called for Papa to pull me out, and that was the first time I learned about the dangers of quicksand. We ran
around and played amoung the bushes, and oh my, we got chiggers all over us. How we did scratch and itch! We thought
there was nothing more irritating than chigger bites. We went on and crossed over Little Elm and Big elm creeks. At
Denton we sort of skirted the main part of the town and went down through the negro section. That was the first time we
children had ever seen a black man. There we were all bug-eyed, looking out from under the wagon sheet. It was late in
the afternoon, and the people were sitting out on their porches. The babies were lying on pallets outside to try to keep
as cool as possible. I just couldn't understand why a LITTLE baby would get that black. We were told it was the way they
were born, black, and they were black all of their lives. (Transcribers Note: This aproximately 1901 or 1902) We got
down to Grandmother's and, of course, we were glad to see everyone. While we were there various kinfolks would come to
be with us, and every day we would go out to visit some of the relatives for the day, or part of the day-usually for the
noon meal. On one trip our dog followed us. We didn't want him to go, and we scolded him to go back home several times.
But in the the end he circled 'way around the field and caught up with us, and we were too far along the way to send him
back home. He was pretty sore-footed by the time we got to Collin County. It was awfully hot there in the summer, and
the men would sit between the two barns where it was covered over with a shingled shed which made a cool breezeway. They
would catch up on their visiting and laugh and tell jokes. One day they noticed old Towser was panting. Somebody
suggested they sheer off his long hair; he was a black dog with lots of hair. They got the mule shears down off the wall
and started removing hair. Then they decided he would make a good looking lion, so they left a bunch of hair on the tip
of his tail and fashioned a ruff around his neck. When he got loose from from the amateur barbers, he ran down to the
house. It really scared poor Grandmother because she didn't recognize Towser. On our way back home we came to a house.
The dog took off from the road and ran through the back door and out of the front and caught up with us again. We
wondered if he scared the people inside the house. On another trip, Buford took his filly named Bessie which Papa had
given him. She was the prettiest horse, a light sorrel with an almost white, and very long mane and tail. She was a
natural born pacer and very easy to ride, they said: I never did ride her. When we'd get close to a little town Buford
would put the saddle on her and here he'd go, pacing the length of the main street and back for people to admire his
horse. On man fell in love with Bessie and offered Buford three hundred dollars for her, which was alot of money at that
time, but he wouldn't sell her. About a year later she had a little colt, and not long after that she got sick with the
"Blind Staggers" and died. The last time I went to Collin County before I married, I went with Mary and Dewitt and some
of their children in their car. I went one more time after I had married and before Mary Lee was born. Papa, Mary, and I
went on the train to visit Grandmother, but I never got to see her again. I moved to Colorado, and I think Mary Lee was
a year and a half old when my grandmother died. All of her grandchildren loved Grandma's molasses cookies, and she kept
a stone jar full for as long as we'd be in her home. She would keep baking them to make sure we had all of her cookies
we wanted-and that was quite a few! We loved to hear Aunt Betty (Elizabeth) play her guitar and sing ballads, as we
called them. Grandmother didn't require much of her except that she entertain the young folks who would come to visit,
and we did have a good time. But we were always glad to get home-and ready to go the next summer, if we could.


School Games 

I the fall of the year, after chores, we had to get ready to go to school. I had learned my ABCs and Mama had taught me
how to count and print before I ever went to school. It wasn't any trouble at all to get through the first grade. I had
a good first grade teacher, Miss Lena Moore. Part of the time we had just two teachers, but most of the time we had
three; each teacher would teach several grades. If we ever had company at school it would usually be on Fridays. Either
some of the trustees would drop in to see haw we were getting along or some of the mothers would visit the school. We
didn't have a clean dress for every day of the week; that would have taken too much sewing and washing, but Mama always
let us wear a clean dress on Friday in case we had visitors. Then we'd hang up that dress and wear it again on Monday.
We had about three school dresses and a Sunday dress that Mama made for us. Most people now wouldn't think of drinking
out of the same dipper as everyone else, but that's the way we did it then. Mostly, we made up our games. The younger
boys would play ball and scuffle and fight. The girls would take up a collection to buy a jump rope, and some girls
brought their own skip ropes. I liked to jump rope although I couldn't "hold out" for very long. In the fall of the year
some men would bring loads of trees with the limbs all cut off, ready to be sawed into wood for the stoves at school to
keep us warm through the cold days. Sometimes we would get someone to pile up three logs, two on the botom nd one on the
top of that, and to put a small tree across it for a see-saw. We could use it until they got ready to cut it up for
firewood. In the spring we would play what was called "town ball." I always either pitched or caught; I didn't do a lot
of running. And then the boys had their ball games. It wasn't until we were in the upper grades that we had any
supervised games, such as basketball or football. Then we had our team that would play against other schools of about
our size. I remember when we first got all ready to play basketball. The team elected me to play center because I was
tall, I guess. Mama got my uniform made, bloomers and a blue pleated skirt and white middy blouse. But I just couldn't
hold out in strength to play, so I had to give my suite to somebody else. When the days got warm in the spring we liked
to pair off by twos or threes or fours and sit underneath the trees and play various games. The one I liked best was
mumbledy-peg which was played with a pocket knife. We would have to dig up a spot of ground about a foot wide and pretty
deep and pat it down so that when the knife was thrown, it wouldn't just dig out a piece of soil and fall over. The
object of the game was to throw the knife in a certain way and to make it stick straight up in the soil and not fall
over. If it fell you lost your turn. I could play mumbledy-peg with the best of them!


School Plays

At the end of the school term we had what was called and "exhibition." It was presented on a night when everybody in the
community and all of the communities around would gather for the entertainment. We would practice for a long time on
each presentation. The younger children would have recitations, little plays, and drills. The boys would perform a sword
drill, and the girls had a flag drill. I was in the flag drill once. Someone had to whittle out the swords and paint
them with an aluminum paint. The mothers made suits for the boys and girls, and the teacher had to try to teach her
pupils to march in a straight line and not 'round the courners." When the music would start everybody had to keep in
step just right. It was very pretty when teachers and students got ready to present. Pantomimes and tableaus were also
staged. Nowadays, a spotlight would be used on something the director wants to show, but in those days they didn't have
electric lights-not even flashlights-so they'd burn some sort of powder, and it would flare up and show whatever was
being portrayed. I remember Mary was the Statue of Liberty. She was dressed with a crown on her head, and she held a
torch up high. It was pretty and effective. The "exhibition" lasted for two nights on one year when there were more
pupils. Some of those who had dropped out of school came back, so there were more of the older students. They
entertained on the second night, but the first night's presentation had mostly the younger children. There was a short
comedy and an historical play called "The heroine of the Revolution." One character in the drama was a little girl, and
the teacher chose me for that part. My family rehearsed me on my lines and tried to get me to speak louder. We didn't
have microphones, and you had to talk loudly if the audience could hear you clear in the back of the big, shingled shed
that was situated next to the Baptist Church. This play called for me to have curls, so Mama rolled my hair in rags. The
hair was rolled around the rag, then the rag was tied around the curl. I kept it up until it was time to take the rags
out and brush my hair into soft curls. The problem was that we had two days and nights of rain in between the time my
hair was rolled and the night of the performance. By the time I was ready to go on stage I really had some tight curls.
Mama brushed and brushed and did all she could to make my curls longer and prettier. I felt all dressed up in my new
white dress she had made, with a pink satin sash and pink ribbons in my hair. As the play began, I had to enter picking
flowers amoung the trees that had been set up on stage. I heard men's voices, so I hid because I didn't want anyone to
find me. I overheard the plot the enemy was making to take over our army, so I went home and told my folks; they went to
tell the general. He listened very intently, and then he knew how to maneuver his army to defeat the enemy. At the end
of the play he asked for one of my curls, which he snipped off and slipped into his pocket. And so the little girl was
truly "The Heroine of the Revolution."


Preparing For Sunday Saturdays were always busy days at our huse. Mama would set the light bread to rise. We'd make,
maybe, three pies; I'd make the filling and she'd make the crusts, and then one of us would measure while the other
would beat the batter to make the cake. Mary would clean the house, and then later in the afternoon the young boys would
go outside and pick up trash and clean around the front door and clear down to the front gate. There would be shucks and
feathers and such trash that would need to be picked up and taken away. We wanted our yard all nice and clean because we
nearly always had company on Sunday. People who drove several miles to church couldn't come back for evening services;
it was too far to drive their horses and work them in the fields the next day. First one family and then another would
come for dinner and visit with us in the afternoon, and then they'd go back to church that night before driving home.
So, Saturdays were nearly always very busy days for us. Once in awhile we would be invited to other homes for dinner. I
remember Brother Arnold who was our Pastor for several years following a period of teaching school at Vashti. After he
moved to the seminary to get his master's degree, he would come back to preach. Papa would meet his train in Bellevue.
He'd give services on Saturday mornings, Saturdays nights, Sunday mornings, and Sunday nights. Then he would go back on
the train on Monday mornings. Mama would nearly always have something to send back with him to help feed his family. A
little later on he got a car and came to Vashti in it; then he could take back Mama's gifts of food more easily. One
spring Mama had "taken off" several hens with little chickens, so she asked him if they had a place for a hen and
chickens. He said, "Oh, yes," that they had quite a large lot on Seminary Hill. She picked out the biggest and finest
she had and gave him a hen and thirteen chicks. The "biggest and finest" turned out to be all rooster, except for one.
The preacher had a nervous breakdown that summer, and Mrs. Arnold said those fresh chickens came in very handy. She'd
cook them and make soup for Brother Arnold-Mr. Arnold, she called him. When the little hen got old enough to lay eggs,
she laid a nice fresh egg each morning for the preacher's breakfast. So the Arnolds got a lot of benefit out of the
chickens.


The Community Churches Much of the community entertainment centered around the churches. We attended everything at the
churches, no matter if it was at our church or not. There were the Baptist and Methodist denominations; then the
Presbyterians joined with the Methodist Sunday School and also had preaching there once a month. On the first Sunday in
a month the Christian Church, when they were in session, would have their meetings, but the number of members would
dwindle and they wouldn't have services for a while. Brother Walker, a retired Presbyterian minister and my sister's
father-in-lay, would often fill the local pulpits. Part of the time I was growing up the Baptists had church on the
first and third Sundays, the Methodists on the second, and the Presbyterians on the fourth, but, as I said, we all went
to wherever there was church on that particular Sunday. We would have our own Sunday School; then we'd hop into our
buggies and meet at the church of the day. In the summertime the different churches would have "protracted meetings."
They were held in a big shed down by the Baptist Church, but all denominations used it. The meetings would usually last
from ten days to two weeks. At the night services big crowds would gather in from all around the countryside, and the
preacher would come in from a town or city nearby. We'd have a good time and hear a lot of preaching, too. Very often
the visiting preacher would stay at our house. In those days the were no motels nor hotels in small communities like
Vashti, so guests stayed in the homes. B.H. Carroll was a noted Baptist theologian of those days and was instrumental in
founding the Southwest Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth. He stayed in our home on several occasions when he was preaching
in Vashti. One time he was there for a fund-raising campaign. Papa had gone to near Bowie and brought a wagon-bed of
boxes of peaches. They were ripe and ready to be canned, no matter if we had a noted guest or not. Brother Carroll
understood the urgency of the situation, and he sat out under the tree with Papa, Buford, and me while we peeled
peaches. Mama and Mary worked in the kitchen canning them. He had a valise full of religious books and other good story
books which he read to entertain himself while we worked. He was quite deaf, and he wore an old-fashioned hearing aid.
It was a rubber-like hose he hung around his neck when it wasn't in use. When he got ready to talk with you he would
connect one end to his ear and hold the other end out toward you like a microphone for you to speak into. After he had
received enough of an answer to satisfy himself, he would return the hose to his neck and cut off your end of the
conversation. But he was a wonderful old fellow. Papa was converted in 1889 at a revival at Old Liberty school house.
That was about a year after he and Mama were married. He was gone for several days while he attended the meetings, and
Mama said she would never forget how he came racing into the yard on his horse, jumped down, threw open the door and
shouted, "Minnie, I'm saved!" He and Mama were charter members of the Baptist church which was organized in Vashti in
about 1891. I remember when I was about nine years old I felt awfully burdened down and wanted to go forward when the
alter call was given, but I was too timid. I resisted until one night the singing was just about over, and some who had
gone forward were down at the alter. Some of the girls in Mama's Sunday School class were there, and Mama and other
ladies were busy talking, counselling, and praying with them. I slipped out of my seat, went forward, and knelt at the
end of the bench. Nobody noticed me, because about that time the service was dismissed. I don't know what I said to the
Lord, but he knew what was in my little heart, so all at once I didn't feel like crying nor praying nor anything. I just
felt so happy and light-hearted with no burdens at all. I got up and walked over to where some people were, and I didn't
shake hands with the preacher nor tell my folks. I just felt, well, I'll see if this is the real thing-if I'm saved.
I'll just wait and see if I still feel this way in the morning. I felt so light, as if I were walking above the straw.
The congragation started singing a lively song, and I joined right in. It was four years later before I thought I'd
better accept what the Lord had given me and join the church by baptism. So, along with twelve or fifteen others I went
down to the pond-I guess you'd call it-just below the church property, and I was baptized. The Holiness people,
Pentecostals they are called now, built a shed similar to ours across the road and a hundred yards or so down the way;
they had their revivals there. One summer they started their revival just before ours closed, and one of the neighbors
who could hear the loud preaching and singing from both places laughingly told the joke that the Baptists were singing,
"Will there be any stars in my crown," and the Holiness people were singing, "No, Not One." All of the young people went
to all the revivals. The Methodists had their revivals under our shed, and so did the other denominations. It was a
place to meet and somewhere to go with your date. One night when Dewitt took Mary, some mischievous boys who lived south
of Vashti changed the buggy wheels on one side. You know, the back wheel is larger than the front wheel, so they
couldn't go home like that. Dewitt had to take off his Palm Beach coat, roll up his white shirt sleeves, and change the
buggy wheels. He got tar all over his hands, and was he ever mad! The boys played another prank at Vashti when Brother
Tooley, the Methodist minister, was doing the preaching at a revival. Some of the people put their sleepy children in
the wagons. I was cool out there, and the wagons were pulled up pretty close to the shed. The pranksters exchanged the
babies around in various wagons; they even used lamp black to blacken the faces of one or two. That night when the
parents got home, a lot of them had the wrong children. They had to meet back at the church-some of them driving for
several miles-to make the exchange. Sometimes the boys would steal chickens and go off down into the woods to try to
roast and eat them. I doubt they ever ate very much. Uncle Walter had a joke on them, though. Very often in the hot
summertime, the chickens would leave the hen house to roost out in the trees. The mischief makers came by there one
night, grabbed one out of the tree, and went galloping off with the chicken a-squaking'. The next morning Uncle Walter
found that they had stolen his old rooster, tough as could be, and knew they couldn't have eaten any of that meat. The
boys would steal watermelons, but were just a bunch of boys who wanted to play pranks and didn't have anything better to
do. Their activities didn't really harm anybody, unlike today's muggings, rapes, and dope usage and all of that. So I
guess I was fortunate to have been reared in those gentler times.


Stores and Merchandise 

One of the first stores in Vashti that I remember was owned by a man named Mowery-the post office was in the store-and
he also kept some drugs and school supplies. That was when we first had use of cough drops. I don't remember which
company manufactured them, but they were called cough beans because they were in the shape of butter beans. For the rest
of Mama's life she called the drops cough beans. An Englishman, along with his wife and daughter, bought a store and
moved there. The daughter, Gracie, had been born aboard the ship coming from England. She was grown when they moved to
Vashti, or I thought she was about grown. On one side of their store they kept groceries and various things the farmers
needed-coal oil, rope, and such. Then on the other side they had dry goods. You could buy brown muslin and white muslin.
We called "domestic" then; now is is called muslin. Women made a lot of their sheets out of the brown muslin. They had
to be made pretty long, because muslin did shrink quite a bit. Everyday summer underwear was made out of the brown
muslin, and Sunday-go-to-meeting "drawers" were made from white muslin. When I was young, little children wore what were
called fitted waists with buttons front and back and on the sides. Children's drawers were buttoned onto that waist. The
ones for school and Sunday best were trimmed with embroidered insertion on the bottom of the legs and embroidery on the
bottom of that. It all came down to the tops of your kneecaps; Dresses were worn at least a couple of inches below the
knee. When I got big enough I thought I could wear drawers like the big girls, like Mary, and I begged Mama to make mine
with the waistband that was just buttoned on the left side. I thought I didn't need to button it all around to the
waist. I hadn't been wearing them that way very long when one day I went up to the desk to talk to the teacher. To my
utter horror my panties started to slip down underneath my dress. I grabbed them up and slid into the first available
seat. I just knew I was socially ruined, that nobody would ever speak to me again because I had lost my drawers in
class. No one paid much attention, I guess; nothing was ever said about it. All of the calicos and domestics were woven
27" wide back then. Merchants didn't begin selling the 36" material until later. I think they must have bought short
lengths, because we didn't have too many people in that small town wearing dresses off the same bolt of material. There
were pretty materials in stock. In the fall of the year ther was a sort of cotton flannel for children's school dresses;
that was warmer than calico. Women bought a lot of the calico, gingham, and percale for quilt-making. They'd buy enough
for linings or to cut up to make fancy-patterned quilts. Everybody made quilts. We didn't have a lot of blankets like we
do now-certainly not electric blankets. We had to keep warm at night by some means, so we just piled on more quilts. In
the wintertime we put flannel sheet blankets on the beds, and they were warmer than a cold sheet in a cold room. On very
cold nights we would heat an iron in the fireplace for each person. We'd wrap them in paper and then in cloth before
putting them down into the bed. So our beds would be warmed for us before we hopped in. Later we could buy hot water
bottles. The calico and percale were not "fast" colors like materials are today. The colors would fade out pretty
quickly. Some people said if you'd soak the materials in salt water before you made them into clothing you would be able
to "set" the colors. I don't know whether that worked or not, but a lot of new cloth was put into salt water to try out
htat method. We found the best way to prevent fading was to wash the pretty dresses out as quickly as possible and to
hang them in the shade instead of the sun. They kept their colors brighter with that kind of care. Mama was a very good
seamstress. She learned to sew when she was quite young and helped her mother make Uncle Edgar's and Aunt Cornelia's
baby clothes. There were not many dress patterns then; usually, some lady who worked with dress goods would make basic
dress patterns, measuring and fitting the pattern to your body. Then you would decide on the material and select the
braid trim and the buttons. Outfits for dressy occations were often made of brocade or lace with velvet or satin braids.
One needed to have a good figure-not too fat, not too thin-with a straight back and square shoulders to look really good
in clothes. A nice bosom also helped. We didn't have bassieres until years later, so ladies wore tight waists made of
muslin which was cut and seamed to fit her figure and buttoned down the front. I remember on day when I was in Brown's
Department Store talking with my boy friend's sister who clerked there. She said a young man had just been in asking for
a "pagma" pattern. After asking him to repeat it for her, she still couldn't imagine what he was asking for. So she
said, "I'm busy right now. Why don't you look through this pattern book to see if we have it, and I will be with you
shortly." When she came back he was pointing to the picture of a young man wearing pajamas. She said, "Oh Pahjamas!" -
and got out the pattern in his size. He shyly told her he was getting married the next week. So pajamas came into common
usage for young and old, male and female. We buttoned all of our clothing as well as our shoes, so we had to keep a
button hook handy. Zippers were not invented until much later. At first, they were just used on heavy clothing such as
jackets. Then as more and more uses were found for them they were made much smaller and thinner. We wonder how we ever
did without them, as well as many other conveniences we now take for granted. Although Mama made me many beautiful
dresses, there are a few favorites which stand out in my memory. One was a red dress with a set-in brocaded velvet vest;
I was about sixteen then. I was invited to spend the Easter holidays with the Burnett family one year, and she made me a
new pink rice cloth dress. I can remember feeling very dressed up in my new summer dress with white kid gloves. I also
remember a grey taffeta outfit accessorized with grey buttoned shoes to match. One fall I found a picture in a magazine
of Irene Castle, Fred Astaire's dancing partner at the time, wearing a black satin dress with a wide bustle-like sash. I
told Mama I'd like to have a dress like that, so she copied it. I took it to a week-end meeting of the Baptist
Association in Henrietta. I stayed with relatives in Blue Grove, and Charles came to pick me up on Sunday and took me
home. We were dating then, and he especially liked that dress. In the spring of 1917, at the beginning of World War I, I
remember a coat-dress made with a striped tafeta jacket of orange, yellow, and white over a white pleated crepe de chine
skirt. My hat was a white Panama style with orange and white ribbon decoration. My date for church on Easter declared
that I was the prettiest girl there. Most women made their summer dresses and bought winter suits, coats, and heavier
dresses. Back to the Englishman, Mr. Bennett, who ran the store-there was quite a stir in the community when they
announced they were going to England to visit relatives. They hadn't been there since they came over to this country to
live. Mrs. Bennett got out their winter clothes, especially coats, to take with them. Gracie, their daughter, said,
"Whoever heard of wearing coats in the summertime." and she hung the coats back in the closet. Well, Mrs. Bennett got
them out again and put them into the trunk, and Gracie found them and put them back in the closet. Finally, Mrs. Bennett
slipped them in at the last minute, and they were surely glad to have them when they were on board ship and in northern
England, because it was cold all of the time. Every night when they would go out for a ride the aunts would wear furs.
Gracie said, "Auntie, what do you do in the winter, because you wear your furs in the summer?" "Oh, child, we just keep
wearing our same coats." When they started to return, their relatives begged them to stay on a little longer in order to
come back on the Titanic. The new ocean liner was getting ready to make her first voyage to the United States, but Mr.
Bennett was ready to leave so they came on home. Of coarse, they were mighty glad they did! Not long after they got
back, a distant relative came over to live with them. He was a nice young man, and he helped the older man with the
work. He could milk cows, work in the garden, and help with the heavy lifting around the store. It wasn't long before
neighbors noticed that he would borrow Mr. Ballman's horse and buggy on Sunday afternoones to take Gracie out driving.
Mr. Ballman was the local blacksmith, and he had a beautiful grey horse and a nice buggy. The couple eventually married
and all of the Bennetts moved to Oklahoma and apparently lived happily ever after.


Strange Visitors 

We entertained quite a few dignitaries in our home. Then I also remember a few odd characters. There was a family of
Jews; they were dark skinned people with a fine wagon and a good team of horses. They wanted to camp for two or three
days in our little pasture where they could have water and feed for thier horses. They never wanted to pay cash for
anything; instead, they wanted to trade. So they had a lot of small articles in their wagon because they had to have
room for themselves. There was the husband, his wife, and two beautiful little girls. When it came time for them to
leave, the man brought in some bolts of lace and such as that for Mama to make a selection in payment for the horse
feed. The front of our yard was a kind of circle. Our house was off the road a little way, and the fence was boarded
with a long plank and built in such a way that it formed a wide place into which people could park their horses and
wagons. Then we had what was called a stile that went up over the fence-three steps up, then a platform, and three steps
down on the other side to get into the yard-instead of a gate. To one side, the east side, we had a big plank gate
through which teams could be driven into that part of the yard and on up by the side of the house, on down by the
woodpile, and between the garden and other buildings to the barn or out into the pasture. We had people who would stop
and want to stay out in front. Sometimes they would build campfires to cook over, and very often, if Mama had extra milk
or tomatoes of fresh things like that to eat, she'd send some of it along to fill out their meal. One time a man came by
from 'way out west, and he was very friendly-called Papa "Brother Cha'lie." Papa's name was Charles, but a lot of people
called him Charlie or Uncle Charlie. "Brother Cha'lie, could I borrow a plug of tobacco until I can get to Bowie?" Daddy
chewed tobacco at that time, and he bought plugs of about two or three stacked together sort of like graham crackers.
You could take off the top layer, cut what you wanted, and put it in your pocket to use throughout the day. Well, Papa
let him have some. When he came back by to spend the night he wanted to borrow enough to get back home. That went on for
several years, fall and spring, when he'd be going to Bowie. Later, the old fellow became a Pentecostal preacher. One
night when I was at church I recognized him. On that particular night he was preaching really hard against the use of
tobacco. I went home and told Papa, and he said, "Every tooth in that man's head has cost me a dollar!" About the oddest
person I remember was a little man who drove up in a big fine buggy, pulled by a beautiful horse, and wanted to spend
the night. He was a peddler of Bibles; I think he sold some other books as well. It was getting pretty cold in the fall
of the year, and that night it really turned cold. He got sick, so Papa told him to stay in bed and to keep warm while
he brought him some food. For a week they nursed him-Papa nursed him and Mama cooked all of the things she thought he
should eat. At the end of the week the patient felt better and was ready to go on his way. He wanted to pay the folks,
but they wouldn't take any money so he gave them a big Bible. Papa harnessed the man's horse and tucked him in under his
heavy lap robe, and on he went. A few days later Papa was sitting by the fire with his elbow on his knee and his face in
his hand. All at once he said, "Mama, I don't believe that little fellow was a man at all. You know, he was here for a
week, and he didn't shave or even need shaving. I just believe it was a woman dressed like a man." We didn't want
anybody to know that, so we kept it to ourselves.


Gardening 

When spring came along everybody got out and helped with the garden. Gardening was a family affair. Papa had plowed the
ground during the fall of the year and allowed it to fallow during the winter. Then by spring we were ready to start the
planting. Before we started with the regular gardening, Mama sowed seeds in tubs to make plants to set out later.
Everybody saved whatever seed they could, but you couldn't save cabbbage seed so she would order them. I remember she
ordered the early Jersey Wakefield; they made small, sharp-pointed heads for early use. Then she sowed the Flat Dutch
which made great big heads and were good for making sour kraut. She would sow the seeds in tubs on the south side of the
house and cover them over if it looked as if it might get too cold. We had to make a sweet potatoe bed where we raised
our own sweet potato plants. In the fall, we put our sweet potatoes down in a rock cellar and covered them over with dry
sand. In that way, they kept good all winter. Once in a while toward spring we'd find one rotted, but they kept very
good, didn't shrivel, and were fine for baking. Toward spring Mama and Papa would bring some of them out and split them
open. But first the bed had to be prepared with well-rotted manure, sand, and soil. Then they would put the potato,
split side down so the plants would grow fom the eyes. When they got the bed, which was a about the size of a door,
filled with these split potatoes they would cover it over with three or four inches of soil. The whole thing was propped
up all around the sides and ends with rail fence posts or poles. It was the children's job to keep the potato bed
watered. Every evening the three of us-Buford, Dewey, and I-would get our buckets and draw and carry water down to the
potato bed to keep it moist in order that the plants would grow. After about ten days we would see the first leaves
coming through the top of the soil, and pretty soon the whole bed would be as green as could be with potato plants about
eight inches tall. When it came time to plant the sweet potatoes, one person would dig a furrow clear down through the
garden, and someone else would pull the plants off. You could just jerk the plants to one side, and they would come off
with some of the roots left on them. We'd take a box ful down the row and drop on off about every three feet. Then some-
one would come along and dig a hole deeper, set the plant in, and pack dirt around it. Others followed with water
buckets and dippers and put a dipper or two of water around every potato plant. Then the last person would pull the dirt
up to the plant with a little ridge on each side so the potatoes would have a place to grow. By the time we had planted
several rows in such a big garden, we had accomplished a lot. After we got through setting out our potatoes we kept
watering the bed. There were always neighbors who didn't raise their own plants who were glad to get some of ours. Along
with the sweet potatoes we would have all of the early garden planted: the English peas, onion set in rows, radished,
and let-tuce. Oh yes, we'd have our Irish potatoes planted, too. We planted two kinds: a red, round potato called a
cobbler and a white potato, but I don't remember its name. Later we would plant beans and black-eyed peas, plenty of
black-eyed peas because we all liked them. We'd plant butter beans down on the fence row. On part of the east woven-wire
fence we had grape vines. When I first remember, there were no pressure cookers and no way of keeping vegetables that
didn't have acid nor vinegar. We could keep tomatoes, and later on we culd buy salucilic acid to put in the top of each
jar of beans to preserve them. When pressure cookers became available, the housewife could preserve peas and beans and
almost anything for wintertime eating. There was always something to do, such as canning fruit or working the garden
out, but what I hated most was picking dewberries. We had five rows on the north side of our garden. They were so
stickery that Mama made long gloves which came down over the backs of our hands. Just the tips of our fingers underneath
and the ends of our thumbs would be bare. The gloves were usually made out of parts of old overalls, and they came up
over our arms so we wouldn't be scratched so badly. It always made me sick as a horse when I had to bend over in the hot
sun and pick dewberries all morning. We would make about two pickings before Mama would let the neighbors know that if
they wanted any dewberries they could come and pick them on the halves. That was surely a relief to us, because by the
time we got half of what they picked we had all we wanted. It was very important to think about the next year when the
garden was through producing. We saved seeds from everything that pro-duced seed. We would save just the scrappy ones
from the last of the season, but we set aside the ends of the rows and never picked them. In that way we could get a
good stock of seeds built up.


Neighborliness 

People helped out their neighbors in various ways. Some-times a neighbor's milk cow would go dry, and if we were getting
plen-ty of milk, Mama would send us with a bucket of buttermilk so that the woman of the house would have enough to make
bread-cornbread or biscuits. Very often, if we had more butter than we needed, Mama would put a pat of butter in with
the milk. In turn, people were good to us when we needed help. When there was a sickness the neighbors who were
available would go to help. If the man of the house was ill and his crops needed working out, neighbors would set aside
a day to harvest his crop. Some of the women would take lunch to feed the men. Neighbors would sit up with and relieve
the woman of the house to do her necessary chores. There was an woman in the com-munity who my sister just hated to see
coming when Mary was sick. She'd sit down by the side of the bed and want to know just how Mary felt-all of her
symptoms. Then she'd sit back and tell us about some-one she knew who was kin to someone they knew who had somebody sick
just like that, and that person either dies or was never well for the rest of his life. So Mary hated to see her coming.
But there were times when we really needed someone to help, and in that day and time people wouldn't take pay for that
kind of help. They might very well be the next ones to need a helpful neighbor. The first time I knew anything about
hydrophobia, later called rabies, was when a Mr. Argabrite who owned a large orchard east of town was bitten by a mad
dog. There was no known cure then, so he asked his family to chain him down on the bed in order that he wouldn't
accidentally hurt any of them. Papa "sat up" with the family. He came home very shaken from that experience; he never
wanted to see another person die from Hydrophobia.


The Practice of Medicine 

Sometimes we would have a good doctor who seemed to know what to do for us when we were ill, and sometimes we'd get one
who didn't seem to have very much knowledge of medicine. 'Way back then there weren't a lot of medications to
administer. About all we had were caster oil, paragoric, mustard plasters, and morphine if one were suffering too
intensely. I remember I had neuralgia around the heart and would begin hurting so badly. Mama would send for the doctor,
and he would give me some morphine to ease the pain. He'd instruct her to keep me in bed and warm, and I'd be all right
in a few days. The worst illness for a person to have was appendicitis. Lots of people back then didn't recognize what
was wrong with them until it was too late to save them. The doctors had no knowledge of operating for it when I first
remember. Later on, our doctors would send word to Fort Worth to a doctor there who would come up on the next train and
bring a nurse with him. He'd put the patient on the dining room table, operate on him, and go right back on the next
train. The nurse would stay with the family and wait on the patient for about three days before she would return to Fort
Worth. After doctors started operating they were able to save more people who had appendicitis and other problems. My
sister had a neighbor who was operated on for appendicitis, so Mary thought she'd go have her tonsils taken out while
the doctor was there. She marched down the road without telling Mama or anybody about it-that was after she was married
and lived south of where we lived. She thought she would be back home in time to fix lunch for her family. After Dr.
Beck went back to Fort Worth, Mary's blood vessels kept breaking and she nearly bled to death. She was sick for quite a
while. I remember the first time I had surgery. My throat swelled up, and I thought I had the mumps. The swelling
continued, and Dr. Thweatt said he thought it was a gland that needed lancing. Papa wanted a second opinion and took me
to Bellevue to another doctor, and he thought the same thing. So they set a day to come out and lance my throat. They
summoned a new doctor in from Buffalo Springs, west of us, to give the cloroform and finish with ether. When they cut
into my neck it was a solid growth, and they weren't equipped with instruments nor knowledge to deal with that. So they
wrapped up my throat and let it go at that. Just after Christmas Papa took me to see this new doctor, Dr. Carmen, and he
told us he had lived near Dallas and had sent quite a few patients to Drs. Doolittle and Flynn. He Made all of the
arrangements for us to go to Dallas on the train and to be admitted to the hospital fo the doctors to do the surgery. In
Dallas, we forst had to go to the medical building. It was a tall building- we thought it was very tall- with elevators
for the seven stories. If you remember the first time you rode an elevator you will know how I felt; it was fine going
up, but coming down was scary. We went on out to the hospital, which was called the Baptist Sanatarium and later, Baylor
Hospital. That evening Papa got me all settled in my room, and then he went on the inter-urban train twenty-four miles
to his brother's home where he spent the night. The two doctors came in and studied my throught and the situation of the
tumor, and they seemed very concerned. The next morning they came back to study about it some more- on just how they
were going to take it out, take out the old scar, and try to make their scar look like a wrinkle in my neck. After a bit
Dr. Doolittle spoke: "You know, young lady, this has to come out." "Yes." "Now we'll really watch this more than
anything, but if we have to, we may have to cut the nerve leading to your mouth. You won't blame us if we have to, will
you?" "No, I won't." So they wheeled me to the operating room. When I came out from under the anestetic I felt my mouth,
and it seemed all right. Pretty soon the doctors came around. "Good morning, young lady. Let's hear you whistle." I
smiled sickly and said that I could never whistle. When they saw me smile they knew my mouth was all right. In two years
I was back there for an appendectomy. I'd been having appendicitis attack since I was twelve years old, but I had always
recovered. This time the attack came during the coldest, windiest weather you can emagine, but Dr. Carmen drove his
buggy from Buffalo Springs. He couldn't drive back home against the wind, so he spent the night at our house. They let
me recuperate for two or three weeks before Papa and I went back to Dallas. Mrs. Carmen had surgery the same day, so we
shared a double room. I was in the hospital for two weeks. The first three days they turned me on a sheet. Nowadays
doctors have you up and walking on the first day. I was there through Christmas Day. My current beau sent me a dozen
pink carnations, and other friends and family members sent gifts, letter, and cards. There weren't pretty get-well and
Christmas cards in the stores then, nor pretty wrapping papers. Lots of times gifts were wrapped in plain paper or
pieces of pretty dress materials. such as calico. You could use it later for making quilts or whatever.

GO TO PAGE 3