Chapter Twelve: New friends and new life in Fannin County, Texas, 1913.

The move to Fannin County, Texas, was important for Pearl as she is experiencing a new “Mama” at eight years of age, having lost the presence of her mother Vinie three years earlier. Billy is now three and much more active. The Thornton cousins are enjoyable playmates and her school is enjoyable. She begins asking questions about God. RAN

 Pearl’s Narration begins:

That spring of 1913 was a rainy one.  I can remember Mama counting the days that rain had fallen.  So one evening after the rains were over and the clouds were drifting away letting the sun break through and set clear in the west, we all gathered on the front porch rejoicing that after a full week of rain, at last we could expect a clear sunrise on the morrow.  I was introduced to a characteristic of Mama’s during that unpleasant and boring week:  her habit of complaining about things she could not possibly change.  Sunny weather brought the family a respite from Mama’s complaining as well as other discomforts during the damp days.

We had a new family move near us with some new girls.  We visited them one Sunday afternoon immediately following our siege of rainy weather, as I recall.  Here was more company as we made our way to school, which, by the way, had two routes.  Some of the children, perhaps the new neighbors, knew of the way by the road across a high bridge, spanning a creek.  Papa had not guided me on that route, as it could be hazardous.  The bridge was high and curved upward to the center, so I was happy to get off it, and never wanted to cross that way again.  Papa wasn’t angry with me, but advised me concerning the dangers of the route and crossing the bridge.

  The now familiar road that we walked, took us along a winding road close by homes on the way.  One home had a picket fence right by our pathway covered with roses, of pink and white.  Only one girl and I were walking home that afternoon and admiring the beautiful roses, when she suggested that we pick one apiece.  I hesitated to touch them without asking if we could have them.  She assured me that they wouldn’t care, so we picked a small bouquet apiece.  When I got home with my bouquet, Papa began quizzing me:  Where did I get them?  Did we ask the owners for them?  No, to both questions.  Papa didn’t apply corporal punishment, but impressed upon me the importance of respecting the property of others; informing me that my act of picking the roses that day was stealing.  Oh my!  I had always been taught not to steal, and here I have stolen!  Well, that was punishment enough.

 There were McPhersons living in our community.  He was a brother of Buck McPherson of Hess, Oklahoma, married to Papa’s cousin Maisie, Uncle Bud Ware’s daughter who lived near Ector, Texas.  We visited this family as they were Papa’s acquaintances.  There were two boys and a small girl.  The youngest of the boys was Raymond, age nine, and he was my very first boyfriend.  I’m not sure that he was aware of my affection for him but he was a handsome little nine year old!  Once when we were visiting their home, we children were all playing together under the trees.  Raymond, in a jovial mood began running from one tree to another, attempting to scale them, but never succeeding, humming a tune as he ran about.  That was love song number two that I remember early.  Although I never learned the lyrics, the melody lingered with me because I was so in love with Raymond McPherson.  I never heard the melody again until in the 1930’s as an introduction to a radio soap opera, nearly a quarter of a century later.  “The Rose of Tralee” is the song and I hear it occasionally by Irish tenors, as it is an Irish love song.

https://www.ireland-information.com/irishmusic/theroseoftralee.shtml

https://youtu.be/0Gc5gjESyqA

 The first love song that I learned was “Red Wing”, as I have mentioned in the days at Hess, Oklahoma.  Perhaps, I mentioned another tune, a hymn stamped on my memory, commemorating a sad experience.  It was at the funeral services of my sister Jewell that they sung “Jesus, Lover of my Soul” and I never hear it or sing it, without sad memories of that event flooding my soul!  We attended church occasionally at Mount Zion Baptist Church, a country church, and one Sunday after church services we went home with a family for lunch.  One young man in his early twenties, the father and mother, constituted this family.  A rather dull visit for Billy and me, I recall.  But after lunch while we all sat in the parlor this young man sat down at the organ and began to play and sing “Jesus, Lover of my Soul”.  He sang and played other hymns, too, but, as always, the memories that song recalled made my day very sad.

   I appreciate the song now in these later years as I read about the experience of Charles Wesley that prompted him to write it.  He was walking along the street one rainy day, when a sudden downpour began.  So he stepped inside a nook at the entrance of some business establishment to wait for the heavy shower to pass.  A small bird also sought shelter from the storm in this protected nook and settled on Wesley’s shoulder, eventually slipping into the front of his coat.  It was then that Wesley compared himself to the small bird: helpless in the storms of life, seeking refuge in the “Savior’s breast”. Later in the summer at revival services under a brush arbor on our school ground, I became aware of my responsibility to God.  As it was only one mile from our home, we walked the distance every night and Papa walked every morning, as I recall. 

 There was a family home a quarter mile east of the school, right on the road and when we returned home they would always have their lights on, indicating that they were not in church.  I asked Papa why they didn’t go.  He answered that they were “Campbellites” or Church of Christ Disciples as we know them now.  Anyway, one evening while I stood upon the bench between Mama and Papa with Billy, I began to realize that as the preacher gave the illustration of the dying woman who said there was something “between her and God”, I suddenly realized that there was something between me and God.  On that evening a nine year old boy, named Roy, a chubby little fellow with whom I attended school, went to the altar to accept the conditions offered.  At home, I asked Papa about my making the choice, but he replied with the stock answer that a child was not responsible for his soul’s destiny until twelve years of age.  I accepted Papa’s theory, and was satisfied.  Billy and I learned another hymn that we would sing around the house and at play, “At the Cross” was a favorite hymn of ours.

          I remember in the summer of 1913 in Fannin County a revival meeting was in progress in the community.  I’m not sure in which building, school or church, Uncle Clint responded to the invitation by professing his call into the gospel ministry.  Aunt Bee rushed to his side weeping, as they embraced, both in tears of joy!  Then in another meeting following this service, the two of them sang together on the podium, “I Love to Tell the Story”.  It was a beautiful rendition of the song, my first time to hear it. https://youtu.be/0BE_SryWgNY.

        I must not forget the wild blackberries we gathered a short distance from our home.  Papa helped Mama gather them and she made the most delicious blackberry jam from them.  She also made homemade yeast bread that summer and many were the midmorning or afternoon snacks we enjoyed of the blackberry jam on slices of Mama’s yeast bread, spread with butter, the best that I ever tasted before or since.  Mama had canned several jars of blackberries for the winter months, but she and I would venture to the berry patch next to a clump of trees to gather blackberries for a cobbler while they were still bearing.  One hot morning we were gathering very intently, when Mama suddenly espied a large snake!  She shouted some surprised exclamation, as she drew back, then said, “Let’s get out of here – berries or no berries, I’m not gathering another one!”  And that was the last of the blackberry season for us.

     

  Another day we were spending the day with Aunt Bee and her children while Papa went to town on some business.  Aunt Bee and Mama took the boys, Harry and Ernest, also, Billy and Lucille to gather wild plums.  They left me at the house to take care of DeWitt, less than one year old.  I had never had the responsibility of the care of a baby before, so after an half-hour or so, I began to panic.  DeWitt had begun to cry as he awakened from a nap and couldn’t see his mother, so I decided to carry the heavy eight to nine month old baby, large for his age, across the field to where the others were.  He was very heavy and difficult to carry, and when Aunt Bee saw me coming, she came laughing, to meet me, relieving me of my ponderous load.  We soon finished with the plums and all returned home, but Aunt Bee never let me forget the incident.  She labeled me a “girl who didn’t like babies!”             

  One evening we were visiting at the Hundleys and as it began to get dark, Harry and Ernest planned to have some fun at mine and Billy’s expense.  Along the roadside just opposite their home, grew a variety of milk weed that became very tall, becoming white with blossoms or whitish leaves in late summer or early fall.  In the darkness the boys led us out a short distance from the house and pointing out the weeds to us, shouted, “Ghosts!  Look at the ghosts!”  I didn’t feel a great fear of them, disbelieving in ghosts, as Papa had taught us, but as the boys yelled and ran toward the house leaving Billy and me behind, naturally, we panicked and as it appeared, we were really scared!  And Harry and Ernest enjoyed their joke on us.

     There was another day later in the fall at Uncle Clint’s and Aunt Bee’s; butchering day.  A group of men gathered down by the creek under the trees to join in butchering a calf for beef.  Ernest, Harry and I were watching the proceedings of cutting the meat.  Ernest was standing too close to the action and as a man hacked a bone instead of sawing it, a small sliver of bone escaped and flew into Ernest’s left eye.  He grabbed the eye with his hand as he gave out a cry of pain.  I looked in his direction and saw the blood running down his face.  The men hurried him into the house in order to examine the injury more closely.  It was quickly discovered the need of medical assistance, so they took him to a doctor immediately.  There were many anxious days for us all, which resulted in the loss of Ernest’s eye, and the artificial eye which soon replaced the injured eyeball.  It was a sad experience for all the family.

    Another sad experience for us was the death of our neighbor, Mr. Roark.  Mama and Papa took Billy and me as we visited the bereaved family.  A young man, twenty or twenty-one years of age, the son, still at home, was taking care of his elderly parents.  As we approached the home I saw this young man slip out the door and around back of the house, wiping the tears from his eyes.  I felt sympathy for this son as he had lost his father by death, a sadness I had experienced in the loss of my sister, Jewell, four years before.  As we went inside to pay our respects to the bereaved, I recall the quietness and solemnity, as everyone spoke in muted tones as they conversed with one another.

    The funeral services were held beneath a grove of trees beside the grave site.  Large bouquets of home grown roses attested to the love and faithfulness of neighbors and friends.  The casket rested on two chairs, one at either end.  A mixed choir from the church sang, “In the Sweet Bye and Bye”; another song for Billy and me to remember, we were sad as we returned home and as Mama and I changed our clothes in the hot spare bedroom where our clothes closet was.  I felt the need of comfort or a little joviality following that experience, but Mama did not respond to my approach; she seemed glum instead, perhaps she didn’t understand just how to deal with my needs nor her own.

    We had a pleasant year, all told, in the first year with our new mama.  From the beginning, while we were sorting and storing the kitchen equipment and necessities, when Mama was talking – partly to herself, partly to me – I was there to help her, as Papa said.  When she was saying she hoped to have lots of cup towels, I had never heard “dish rags” called cup towels before, I thought she was saying cup “piles”.  I could envision a table filled with cups stacked three or four in a pile!  So I asked her if she was saying cup “piles”, then she spoke it more distinctly and I understood, and I learned a new term.

    The living room-bedroom combination was cozy with the fireplace and the two double beds in the room.  Billy and I had to go to bed before we were sleepy, so we would talk silly talk until Papa would hush our chatter.  This took us undercover.  It was Billy’s idea to pretend we were centipedes (Santa fees, we understood).  This was the most feared crawler, as it was believed that the place where a centipede stung the flesh, it would rot away.  At any rate, for our entertainment underground, we became centipedes.  We made up some centipede language – not many words – in fact, I remember only two expressions with which we conversed – my word was “Bu-jay bu-jay” and Billy’s answer was “all-cernt-dee-dee”.  These expressions we repeated over and over again, until we began to laugh at ourselves!  We each invented our own words, we deadly centipedes, buried deep in the earth, talking centipede talk and planning evil stings to all people we could find!  What a game!

The fireplace became a tradition for me in later years as the poem, “The Night Before Christmas” was heard and loved.  I seemed to have been one of the children “snug in our bed as visions of sugar plums danced in our head”.  Over in the other bed Papa and Mama in their night caps awaiting the advent of Santa Claus coming down the chimney.  And, again, in an eighth grade reader we read “Snow Bound”, John Greenleaf Whittier, I lived with the family and guests who were snow bound, gathered before the fireplace, reliving tales of past experiences for their entertainment.  In my imagination, I could say, I had been there!

        I recall that this year, 1913, was the first calendar year of which I was aware.  The calendar that I have described above, that Papa brought home from the grocer’s at Hess hung on our wall and throughout the year, Papa called my attention to the calendar, reminding us all that this was 1913.

            This home was soon to be abandoned for a home in Oklahoma.  I don’t know how the transaction between Papa and the folks in the Randlett Community was arranged, I only learned that we were to move to a new place as soon as our crops were out or sometime late in the fall of that year.  At that age, moving to a new home was pure delight!

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Editor’s note: So ends the brief time in Fannin County, Texas for this young family. We look forward to her years in Randlett, Oklahoma community and school near some more of the Thornton cousins.RAN