Editor’s note: Pearl recalls many interesting activities around her farm home. School is getting more demanding. Enjoy!RAN
I remember a winter night, sitting by the heater, Papa was helping Billy with his reading, he was probably in the first grade. We had a large “ash can”, which we all still remember the type: it was square with a red “flying horse” a symbol of Mobil Oil on two sides of the can. This can caught the ashes that were shoveled from the stove, mornings, while they were cool. It also doubled as a cuspidor for Papa, as he was a tobacco chewer in those days. In Billy’s learning to read he came to the word “can”. Somehow, Papa couldn’t get the word across to him, so he kicked the ash can lightly with his shoe as a reminder. I was sitting close by, and I recall how irritated I was at Papa’s type of instruction! I kept still, but I well knew that there was a better method of teaching!
On a rainy day one of those winters, Papa was probably burdened with the prospect of getting his cotton stalks cut before plowing the land preparatory to the planting of another crop. He probably didn’t own a stalk cutter but needed to borrow one from a neighbor. So in view of all this, he became an inventor.
He constructed the model of a stalk cutter that could be fastened on the one row cultivator after removing the plows and beams from it. The model was made of thin slices of wood 2 1/2 – 3 inches in length, about 6 or 8 of these, joined together in a reel type object that rotated on an axle, to be fastened at either end to the frame of the cultivator. These delicate parts were joined together with soft wires. We were all excited about Papa’s invention which he had made with his pocket knife and slender pieces of wood.
Papa proceeded with his invention by packing it carefully in an empty match box, then wrapping and labeling the package. Off it went by parcel post to the Government Patent Office, at Washington, D.C. I don’t recall the length of time we waited for an answer from the Patent Office, but the answer was in the negative; someone had already submitted the same invention and received a patent. We were all disappointed. They did not return Papa’s model, either. It would have been a neat souvenir!
We had Cricket, the small black dog, but never really had pet cats, because Papa wouldn’t let us keep a cat in the house. An old wild cat came around our house, and Cricket chased her into the manhole of the foundation of our house. We did everything we could think of to get her out, to no avail. I was left to watch at the manhole while Mama and Billy went around the other sides of the house beating on the foundation and yelling at the cat. I, curiously, had just peeped in to see if she was in sight, when she suddenly raced out of the hole. My bare right foot was directly in her path! She caught my foot with two of her claws – one rather deeply – which left its scar for many years to come.
At cotton chopping time that spring, 1916 we were happy to have four young girls from Randlett come out and chop cotton for us. Their folks drove them out early mornings and came for them rather late in the evenings. Papa had fun with them, teasing about keeping them overnight. “No, no,” the girls screamed, “we couldn’t stand to be away from Randlett overnight!” Then Papa did give them the horse laugh: making fun of their little burg that they called “their town”! They worked for three days, I recall.
While still in school that spring, on a Friday afternoon, last period at school, Mr. Gillett had a group visit our school. They spoke from the Bible, Ecclesiastes 12:1, which admonishes us to “Remember thy creator in the days of thy youth…”. We were moved, some to tears (I’m ashamed that I laughed as we left the building, to keep from crying!) This may have been the basis of a Sunday School as we did attend Sunday School that summer and fall on a fairly regular basis. I have a photograph of the entire congregation in the fall, wearing our coats and hats.
The cistern caved in that summer of 1916. We were not using the small amount of water contained there, but were hauling our drinking water. Papa had brought home some large watermelons and put them down near the water to keep them cool. After the cistern collapsed, it was several days before he could secure the services of a repairman. Possibly some correspondence between Papa and Mr. Miller had taken place too. At any rate, the decision to repair the walls of the cistern would entail quite an expense, as it was necessary to rebuild it entirely.
Heretofore, the cistern walls were only thin plaster applied on the firm dirt walls – probably clay for the most part. But the proper way, and the lasting way would be to use brick and mortar, building an entire cistern from bottom to top. “Mac” McCurry, a brick mason, lived in our community over by the school house. He came with helpers he had obtained and built the cistern for us. Papa explained to us that it was built in the form of a large jug, if it could be seen all at once, with the part rising above the ground forming the neck, some three feet in diameter. A neat wooden cover was put over the opening with a smaller hole or section on which a hinged lid was placed to be closed when not in use. Water would be drawn up through the smaller aperture with a bucket and rope, powered by a pulley on a frame above the cistern.
The work on the cistern was of tremendous interest to Billy and me, as we were curious as kids are at that age. But perhaps the greatest concern to us was the large, beautiful watermelon that lay buried beneath all of the debris for some two, maybe three weeks before the excavation for the new cistern began. Mama warned us that there would be a great “stink”, or offensive smell, and she dreaded them tearing into it, but that couldn’t be helped; the cavity must be cleaned out. Perhaps, Mama’s conditioning us for the stinking mess made it worse than it actually was. So, the new cistern was done, but naturally, the first water was not usable because of the cement and lime used for the mortar. We were happy when we could draw water from our cistern again.
Ed. note: this link is an interesting 1916 recording of purifying a cistern. Enjoy.RAN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh8h2M5V8S8
It was a warm, summer morning. The year, 1916, when Papa got me up early and we walked away over in the field, almost to the back side one-half mile away. Papa carried a large cane knife with which he was cutting cane taller than his head and tying it into bundles. After Papa had cut two or three armloads, my job was to collect these for tying into the bundles. When we had made six or eight bundles, we would put them together forming a shock by standing them on end, bracing them against one another.
These shocks would stand in the field until they were cured out, then be hauled in and stored in stacks for feed in the winter when there was no grazing available. Cane is very tasty and nourishing for livestock and good for human consumption when freshly cut. Papa and I peeled the short lengths of the cane and chewed it for the sweet juice and discarded the dry pulp. I can still hear Papa singing, “Bringing in the Sheaves” as he worked. The real reason for our early trip to the field was so he could attend revival services at the Valley View school house at 10:00 AM. We had finished our work in a couple of hours, at 8:00 AM, walk to the house when Papa would bathe his sweaty body, dress in clean clothes, hitch the team, drive the two miles to the church in time for the services. I don’t know how many days he made the trip. I didn’t attend with him, as I recall, nor Mama, Arthur and Billy. Just one of those sweet memories with Papa in summer! Soon school bells would ring again!
Ed. note: The hymn Papa was singing is based on Psalms 126:5-6, “Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.” Tennessee Ford had a great baritone voice and was popular during my childhood. This link below features Tennessee Ernie Ford singing “Bringing in the Sheaves”. RAN
In September, 1916, at Valley View School we faced a new situation again. Members of my class were seventh graders, for one thing. Another item of interest, we had a new teacher in the advanced grades, in the person of Mr. Odis Cochran. A personable, good looking young man, newlywed to a nice, beautiful wife. They lived on the west side of the school grounds in the newly constructed teacherage. On my! We were really moving up!
Under this new teacher, I remember my first learning to really study geography. I don’t recall why this came about unless it was Mr. Cochran’s quizzes on each chapter. At any rate, I got down to business, reading the lessons over and over. This really was a first in study for me! Reading was easy, as well as spelling; writing, left something to be desired, but we weren’t graded on penmanship yet. I was keeping up in Arithmetic, but not at the top of my class, but this geography was something else!
In the seventh grade we began United States History, too. Mr. Cochran took advantage of this additional knowledge to inject into our learning the practice of speaking about it! This was called debate. These debates began rather innocently by the eighth grade class with such subjects as “Resolved that the broom is more useful than the dishrag” or “The spoon vs. the fork”, etceteras. But that was only the beginning. As the debates moved along the eighth grade had more sophisticated subjects and by the time the seventh grade was competing, we were given the subject, “Resolved that the automobile is more useful than the airplane”. This guy, Arthur Tutt, who was always giving me too much attention, causing me to be the butt of much teasing about him, was on the team opposite mine. I was on the affirmative side in defense of the automobile, he was on the negative side, defending the airplane.
Coincidentally, I followed him in rebuttal. He had really left the gate open when he said, in defense of the airplane, that we could fly to Europe where Kaiser Wilhelm was leading the German army in overrunning the lesser surrounding countries, and “help” the Germans! What a blunder! But to me what an opportunity! Heretofore, I was a scared little debater, but because of this blunder, I handled my rebuttal quite skillfully. I said, “We don’t want to help the Germans…”, plus some remarks I made in favor of the affirmative for the automobile. I had been made aware, perhaps, more than Arthur Tutt had been, or maybe it was only a blunder on his part, but the world wide military movement was of enough concern in our country that World War I was little more than half a year away from our United States of America!
It was under Odis Cochran’s tutelage that I was made aware of our own state capitol. He brought us up to date by asking, out of the blue, “Where is Oklahoma’s state capitol?” A few “smarties” said, Guthrie, when Mr. Cochran enlightened us all by giving us a brief sketch of the capitol’s history and its removal from Guthrie to Oklahoma City in the latter part of 1910, some six years prior to that time.
I don’t remember much singing under Mr. Cochran, but “America the Beautiful” came to me by some route or another about that time, and I recall walking down the road apiece to the Anglins, looking up at the Saturday morning skies, not only singing, but feeling:
“Oh beautiful, for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain,
America, America, God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood,
From sea to shining sea!”
It was not a newly written song, but very new to me, and very much loved from the beginning.
I have mentioned the Sunday School at Valley View School, and I’m not sure just when it was organized. If in the summer following the close of school, I don’t remember attending. Perhaps after school opened again that fall I heard the school mates speak of attending Sunday School, I was encouraged to go. A photographer’s services were engaged to take a picture of the entire Sunday School one Sunday, so we all went. It was late fall as we were all dressed in our winter coats and hats or scarves on our heads. It may have been an all day affair with Sunday School before noon, dinner on the grounds, the group all gathering for the picture in early afternoon.
There was a congregation of some eighty-five persons who gathered in front of the school house. The photographer with his large camera and tripod arranged himself under the black curtain until he was satisfied with the view, which was no easy task. There was no rhyme nor reason to this type of picture; everyone standing where he chose, just so he would be in the view of the camera. I can spot myself and my friend Bertha Tutt standing beside me, but I’m not sure about the identity of many others. I can recognize the Postelwait twins, Leota and Leola who were in the first grade that year, standing together a short distance from where I stood, wearing dresses alike, with hats; perhaps the large woman behind them was their mother, Mrs. Postelwait.
I had a hat on, too. Mama and I had been shopping at Burkburnett, Texas. Papa had bought me a heavy, dark blue winter coat so Mama and I went to a millinery shop where she bought a hat for herself and bought for me, a dark blue velvet hat to match my coat. Bertha Tutt’s coat was a light brown which became her reddish complexion and her red hair which was partially covered by a scarf. Surely, a greater part of the community had turned out for the events of the day, but I couldn’t count many of my special friends there. The photograph reveals that only two vehicles were on the ground; a Ford touring car and a horse and buggy. (Well, the horse had been led away due to the length of the day’s activities.) The absence of vehicles indicates that quite a number of people lived in walking distance from the school.
While buying hats at the millinery shop, we had an interesting experience, new to me, but not to Mama, unforgettable, nonetheless. A gypsy woman came into the store a little ahead of us and walked straight to the proprietor. She spoke in a dialect foreign to us, but with the few intelligible words she spoke accompanied by the motions of her hands, she conveyed to the milliner that she wanted to tell her fortune. The milliner went to her box of ribbons and satin and taffeta scraps, and picking out some colorful pieces laid them in the gypsy’s outstretched hand. But the woman in the bright bordered dress with severely dressed black hair, shook her head and began to speak rapidly and excitedly! Mama whispered to me that she didn’t want scraps of material but money, probably. Sure enough, the milliner returned with a half dollar and laid it in her hand. They stood together there while the gypsy muttered some unintelligible chatter, not understood by Mama and me, but understood by the proprietor. Then she turned and walked out the door and across the street to where their wagon was parked. A dark skinned man and several children was awaiting her return. We were familiar with the wagon with pots and pans hanging on them, and seeing the children peeping out at us from under the wagon’s cover as they passed by on our road. We had that sight a few times when Mama was afraid they might see us watching them and stop by. Mama didn’t want any of their wares.
The gypsies would frequent gatherings such as fairs and carnivals where they would pick up quite a sum of money as they moved about in the crowds. We saw them once when Papa took us to a carnival at Burkburnett. Just Billy and I went with Papa that day to go to the carnival. It was, perhaps, the only one we ever attended as kids. We rode the “merry-go-round”, but I was afraid to ride the horses, preferring to ride in a carriage. Papa held Billy while the horse pumped up and down which was a lot of fun for Billy.
Ed. note: For continuity I will publish Chapter Twenty One next. Some of you may notice, it is actually a previously published passage of Pearl’s autobiography called “Moving to Cooper Creek”. Stay tuned. RAN