The Cross Timbers (11 page)

I was diligently playing one of these “onion trumpets” when George suggested that he and the other boys put on an Indian dance. They joined hands and danced about in a circle emitting a few “yippees” to accompany my so-called music. When George proposed that they all close their eyes and dance, they readily agreed. They had not noticed a big bull nettle growing nearby until both Oscar and Ben Clark at the same instant gave two wild war whoops as they broke away from the circle of dancers and began to rub their bare feet and shins!

Oscar Briley squalled easily, which only caused us to play more pranks on him than on other boys. We were playing “town ball”
one morning and I still recall the momentary shocked look on his mother's face when I rushed into the house, apparently much excited, and exclaimed, “Mrs. Briley, Oscar got hit in the back of the head with the ball and the bawl came out of his mouth!”

On another Sunday when the Brileys were visiting us Oscar went in the house to look through a new book of pictures. While he was gone George and Walter got a spade and we hastily dug a hole about three feet long, a foot and a half wide, and a foot deep; we filled this with water and put some dry brittle sticks across it. We then laid dry leaves across these and carefully covered them with dirt. After sweeping the surplus earth away we had a neat, slightly raised plane three feet long and about eighteen inches wide.

The work was barely finished when Oscar, having looked at all the pictures, came out to find us engaged in a jumping contest. We had drawn a line on the ground about as far from our booby trap as we thought Oscar could jump. As he came up George, Walter, and I in turn all jumped but all fell a little short of the goal.

“I can beat that a lot,” bragged Oscar and proved it by squaring away and jumping entirely over the trap which we had so carefully laid. Evidently all was lost unless Oscar could be persuaded to jump from a line farther back, which might arouse his suspicions. George was equal to the emergency. “That's fine, Oscar,” he said blandly, “but the one who jumps exactly
on
that raised place on the ground does a
little
better than if he jumps clear over it.” Because Oscar wanted to do as well as he could he jumped again and landed in the middle of the raised ground with disastrous results.

My brother George's crowning act of infamy came later when we were out at the cow lot and discovered a bird's nest high up in a fairly tall tree. Walter was urged to climb up to see if there were eggs or young birds in it. The climb was not an easy one, because the tree had no branches for the first ten or twelve feet and the trunk was unusually smooth. Walter gripped it with his legs and arms, however, and with a boost from George eventually reached the first limb and from there on he had no difficulty.

Walter reached the nest and called down to us that it was empty. As he started to climb down George seized a one-by-four piece of lumber about ten feet long that was leaning against the fence, dipped the end of it in a large soft “cow puddin',” and smeared the tree trunk liberally as far up as he could reach. Walter yelled frantically, “Oh,
Girge, Girge,”
as he saw his descent to earth so effectually blocked.

The rest of us laughed heartily, but when he started crying we began to realize that the incident might have serious consequences for George. Oscar and I were innocent bystanders but we might be deemed guilty by association, and our plea that we had no idea of George's intentions when he “got Walter up a tree” as he did, might fall on deaf ears. Personally I doubted that George's act was premeditated. It seems more likely that he yielded to temptation when he saw Walter high in the tree and the means of keeping him there so close at hand.

Getting Walter down proved to be a difficult task. We piled a mound of hay beneath the tree and urged him to jump on top of it, but it looked like too long a drop and he refused. Finally, George climbed up partway and helped Walter down, both of them getting more or less messed up before Walter was safe on
the ground again. They cleaned up as best they could and I heard George say, “We won't let the folks know what a mess we got ourselves into, will we, Walter?” To this Walter replied, “Oh, no! Of course we won't!” I am sure that neither of them ever did.

We were truly sorry when the Brileys moved to Roanoke and a year later migrated to the Prairie West. We never saw any of the family again but rumors reached us that they were doing well as wheat growers in western Oklahoma or the Texas Panhandle.

We had numerous other playmates but none who could quite take the place of Walter and Oscar. One of them was Bob Kemp, a brother of Mrs. Jake West, whose husband had bought the old Blodgett farm. We did not play with Bob much because he had lived in Fort Worth and was more or less a town kid. Bill Mayes, whose parents lived on the prairie a short distance west of us; Surhter Boone, whose Dad lived at what was called “Boone P'int”; and the Bourland brothers, Andy, Ed, and Sam, were among our good boy friends.

By far our closest friends during the latter years of our life in the Cross Timbers were the twin brothers, Paul and Dow Taylor, mentioned in an earlier chapter. They were lads after our own hearts, for they did not chew tobacco or smoke cigarettes as did many boys of the community. Moreover, they liked to read, never swore or used bad language, were always courteous, and yet were by no means sissies; we were therefore always glad to be with them.

Yet, much as we liked the company of other boys and playing games with them, we were always able to entertain ourselves when alone. Perhaps the fact that we had plenty of work to do in the fields and around the house made any leisure hours sweeter
and helped keep us from ever being bored. Even though we had no toys except a jack knife, a few marbles, and a homemade ball, it would never have occurred to us to ask our elders, “What can I do?” Our only problem was which of the many activities open to us promised the most fun.

Many games can be played by only two and we knew them all, including marbles, “hide-and-seek,” pitching horseshoes, and mumble-peg, in which the loser must pull a peg from the ground with his teeth. The loser, however, had the privilege of responding to the driver's question, “Three with 'em open or five with 'em shut?” This referred to number of blows with the knife on the peg and whether the driver made them with his eyes open or closed.

There were two forms of mumble-peg, but the penalty suffered by the loser was the same in each. In the first type points ranging from five to a hundred were given for the position in which the knife was made to fall; the first player to secure five hundred points won the game.

In the second and more complicated game the winner was the first to complete a long series of throws. Each player sought to leave the single blade of the knife sticking in the ground with the handle upright. When a player failed in a throw his opponent took over and continued until he too failed. The plays of holding the blade between the thumb and each finger of the right hand in turn and of holding the knife point against fist, elbow, shoulder, nose, and chin were fairly easy.

They became increasingly difficult, however, when the player must throw the knife from various positions. These had specific names, such as “break the chicken's neck,” “shave old Pete,”
“mark the pigs,” “help the lady over the fence,” and “knock sky winders,” sometimes called “spank the baby's rear” because the handle of the knife was placed on the player's knee and the flat side of the blade projecting into space was struck sharply with the edge of the hand. The final throw, called “find the goose's nest,” was made by the player holding the blade in his hand and throwing the knife straight back over his head.

We frequently played games suggested by our reading, each of us shifting his role to another character when necessary. On one occasion we were playing King Solomon's Mines, in which we crossed a newly plowed field, which was the desert, and climbed the corn crib, which was the mountain designated in the book as “Sheba's left breast.” We stopped before reaching the top when we found in the cave the frozen body of the Portuguese, who had died so many years before.

After some discussion of our find we continued our journey, passed over the summit of the mountain, and descended to the valley beyond it. Here I dropped the role of Sir Henry Curtis and assumed that of the chief of the hostile natives. Running on ahead I pulled up a stalk of sorghum cane from a nearby stack of feed and with a whoop of defiance threw my spear at these intruders. Unfortunately, our father, who had been visiting one of the neighbors, came around the corner of “Sheba's breast” just then and attracted George's attention. As a result, my well-aimed spear hit his cheek, breaking the skin and making a long red mark.

This rang down the curtain on King Solomon's Mines instantly. I stammered that we were only playing a game, but Father did not seem to appreciate any such games. He knew that it was
an accident but suggested that I either go inside and study my spelling book or play some less dangerous game. I was deeply penitent, knowing that if my spear had struck George's eye the result might have been very serious.

Although I missed George more than I can find words to express when we were separated even for a few days, and I think he missed me; yet, it was possible for me to play alone in quite happy fashion. It seems certain that reading stimulated our imaginations, and the fact that we worked fairly hard made us appreciate leisure. In addition, we had virtually no toys except those which we made for ourselves. Perhaps these were the chief factors in keeping us contented, happy, and never at a loss for something to do.

7. Young Nimrods

When George was about twelve years old he began to develop a great yearning for a gun. There was not very much game in our part of the Cross Timbers, but the desire to own a gun and go hunting seems to be born in every farm boy and may have been stronger in the 1880's than it is today.

In the large attic bedroom where George and I slept was an old musket of the Civil War vintage. Unfortunately, the tube on which the percussion cap rests had been broken off, probably on my father's journey from Missouri to Nebraska or from that state to Texas. We never asked Father to give us the history of that ancient firearm. It may have been given to him when he was a member of the Northern Home Guard or possibly he had bought it after the War from a dealer in surplus army material.

George was not interested in the pedigree of the old shooting iron. His only concern was in getting it fixed so that it would be usable again. The nearest gunsmith was in Fort Worth, but a blacksmith at Roanoke claimed that he had formerly worked on guns a little. He added that he had a catalogue from a company in St. Louis that sold guns and supplied parts for almost every type of firearm.

Once he had learned this, our father yielded to George's earnest pleas and delivered “the old musket,” as we always called it,
to this worthy blacksmith to be fitted with a new tube. A couple of weeks later it was ready and Father, who had gone to Roanoke with a few bushels of sweet potatoes, brought it home.

George was delighted. Not only did it have a new tube but all traces of rust had been removed and the stock and metal parts polished until they shone. His joy was brief. When he pulled the hammer back something snapped in the lock and the hammer became limp. A hasty examination showed that the mainspring had broken.

This was truly a tragedy but the friendly blacksmith was equal to the emergency. Somewhere he found another lock, which by a little careful trimming of the wooden space into which it must be fitted was entirely satisfactory. Once more Father brought the old gun home and once more George made joyful noises and began to assemble equipment for hunting.

Our friends Paul and Dow Taylor had presented us with two beautiful powder horns. One was used for powder and the other for shot. An empty brass shell of a rifle cartridge could be used as a “charger” to measure the quantity of powder and shot to be used in loading the old gun. Since the percussion caps for a musket were large and had a rim around the bottom we called them “hat caps.” They came in a round tin box containing a hundred.

Father had brought a box of caps, a half pound of powder, and a pound of shot when he returned from Roanoke with the old musket. The next day was Saturday and he was going to the Denton Creek Church, which had preaching both Saturday and Sunday. The members were so few and so widely scattered that services were held only once a month, with two days devoted to preaching.

It was early October and we had just about finished the first picking of cotton. Knowing our eagerness to try out the old musket, Father told us that we could quit at noon the next day and go hunting. He warned us to be careful in handling the gun and told us that while hunting in the woods one should stop from time to time to look and listen. He added that the Indian knew that if he waited patiently the game would come to him.

We were up early as usual the next morning and as soon as breakfast was over George and I headed for the cotton field, leaving Father to saddle old Pompey and start for the Denton Creek Church. It was a beautiful day but the morning seemed long. We told stories to entertain ourselves a little, but we had no heart for either telling or listening. It was fortunate that both of us did not get cricks in our necks from looking up at the sun so often to estimate how long it would be until noon. During our ten years of life in the Cross Timbers, I cannot recall that we ever had what was locally called a “timepiece.” In fair weather we judged time by the sun, and at night or in cloudy weather by guess.

At long last when George had decided that it must be about noon we emptied our cotton sacks and hurried to the house. By the time we had washed, Alice had dinner ready. We swallowed our food hastily, and then gathered up the powder horns, box of caps, brass charger, a bunch of paper for wadding, and a game bag of all-too-generous proportions, which Alice had made for us. Certain that we had everything we needed, George shouldered the old gun, and we set out on our first hunt with as much enthusiasm as two African explorers starting on their first safari.