The Cross Timbers (14 page)

As we walked along the creek bank we came to a large deep pool of water with a long narrow inlet stretching away sixty to seventy feet to the southwest. Near the upper end of this we saw a beautiful bass at least eighteen inches long apparently sunning himself in the shallow water. George whispered softly to John and me, “Boys, you stand here and stop him from getting back into the main creek. I'll slip up and dangle this big grasshopper on my hook right in front of him. Now turn him back if he starts for deep water.” John was standing on the bank of the inlet and I was a yard or so below him. We both hardly breathed as George sneaked very cautiously to a point well back of the bank and gently tossed his hook into the water.

Evidently the fish saw his shadow and was gone like an arrow. Turn him back! We might as well have tried to turn back a flash of lightning! John jumped into the middle of the inlet with a mightly splash, but before he hit the water the fish was far below and in the deep pool. John came out looking a little foolish and
pretty wet, for the clear water was a good deal deeper than it looked. He dried out quickly, however, in the hot sun.

We fished all day and caught nothing but a few small bream and perch until late in the afternoon when we were all fishing in a big deep pool. George's cork suddenly plunged under and he landed a channel cat at least eighteen inches long. While George was removing the hook John rushed up and, standing almost in George's tracks, threw his hook into the water at as nearly as possible the exact spot where the fish had been caught. Evidently he thought that fish came in pairs like shoes. He fished diligently there for fifteen minutes but not a nibble rewarded his efforts.

The sun was nearly down by this time, and we had three miles to walk. We reluctantly wound our lines around the end of our fishing poles, pushed the sharp end of the hook into the cork, and started for home. It had been a happy day even if we had caught but few fish. George was very proud of his big channel cat, which is one of the most delicious fish to be found in the streams of Texas or any other state.

During the summer that my brother John and his wife lived with us my father took me with him on a fishing trip to Henrietta Creek. For some reason George and the rest of the family did not go, probably because they were eager to finish some job on the farm. Father and I went in the spring wagon, took a lunch with us, and spent the day. On this trip my father proved that he was not idly boasting when he claimed to be a superior fisherman. I managed to catch a fairly good string of perch; but he caught two black bass, one of them weighing over three pounds and the other slightly over four.

While we never felt that fishing was quite as much fun as
hunting, we were ardent anglers just the same, always ready to go fishing when the opportunity was offered us. Moreover, we rejoiced as much when we caught a long string of fish as we did over a successful hunt. Our method of fishing with a cork or bobber which had to be watched closely may have increased our powers of concentration. At any rate, when I went to bed at night after fishing half a day, the moment my eyes were closed I could see my cork on the water bobbing a little at times as a perch or catfish nibbled at the bait.

Perhaps it is not surprising that most people of the Cross Timbers had some superstitions as to fish and fishing. Apparently most persons today are not entirely free of such superstitions. Fish seem to bite or not bite “without rhyme or reason.” Sometimes one may find the fishing good one day and the following day never get a nibble at the same spot using the same bait. Occasionally fish may take the bait ravenously for an hour or so and then mysteriously stop biting.

Scientists may provide the answers, but the average person fishes in the realm of metaphysics! He has no idea what causes him to have “good luck” one day and “no luck” at all the next; or why when three or four persons are fishing, one catches a dozen and the others catch only two or three. It is not surprising that “fisherman's luck” has become a stock phrase. Even today anyone passing a fisherman dangling his hook in the water never asks, “Are you catching many?” Always it is, “Having any luck?” or “What luck are you having?”

Not only did the age-old mystery which clings to the vocation of the Apostle Peter and Izaak Walton affect us in my boyhood but it seems to be nationwide, if not world-wide, even today. In
addition, the “fringe benefits” of a fishing trip which we received as boys were not too unlike those that come to modern business or professional men who go fishing. We had a day or half day of freedom from work in the field, just as they can get away from the office and the petty details of their business.

I can still recall with great pleasure the long walks over the green, flower-spangled prairie to Henrietta Creek, with a big jack rabbit jumping up occasionally to go loping off, turning slightly sideways just to show that he was in no particular hurry. Once the stream was reached it was real luxury to sit on a rock in a shady spot beside a deep foam-flecked pool and watch your cork floating on the water, hoping any instant to see it plunge under. Even if only small ones were caught, or none at all for an hour or so, you knew that big ones were in there and sooner or later you would surely hook one.

When the sun indicated that it was about noon there was the lunch to unpack and eat. Bacon-and-egg sandwiches made with big slices of homemade bread, sweet sandwiches with butter and jam or jelly generously spread on the bread, and perhaps a few cookies or pieces of cake tasted much better when eaten while we were sitting on a rock beside a clear stream than they would at home.

No doubt the “tired business man” on a similar trip carrying a hundred dollars worth of equipment now feels as we boys of the Texas Cross Timbers did nearly three-quarters of a century ago—that going fishing is always fun regardless of whether you catch any fish or “have no luck” at all. Moreover, it has been said that “Providence does not deduct from one's life span the hours spent in fishing.”

9. School and Schoolmates

My formal schooling began late. The school laws of Texas during the time we lived in the Cross Timbers provided free schools for all pupils from eight to sixteen years of age, inclusive. Compulsory education lay far in the future and it is doubtful if any proposal for a law compelling parents to send their children to school between specified ages would have received many votes, at least in our community.

Since I had learned to read long before I had reached free-school age, my father saw little reason to send me to school earlier or to keep me there the entire term if I was needed at home to thin corn, chop cotton, or do other useful work. George had attended school a little at Lone Star Schoolhouse when we lived on the rented farm on the prairie.

One day, several months after my mother's death, Alice took me with her to visit one of her friends in Keller, who lived near the two-room schoolhouse. When we saw the children playing at afternoon recess, she asked me if I would like to go to the school playground, sit with George during the final period, and come home with him. Of course I was thrilled at the prospect of visiting a schoolroom and ran over to the playground as fast as my little legs could carry me.

A game of ball was going on, but George seemed glad to see me. In a few minutes the bell rang, and all the youngsters trooped into their respective rooms, the small fry to the “little room” and the larger ones to the “big room.” I tagged right along with George, who was in the so-called “big room” presided over by “Professor” Moore, while the teacher of the smaller kids was Miss Jennie Curtis. A man teaching, even in a one-room school, was always called “professor,” while the pupils were called “scholars,” a gross overstatement of fact, but hardly more so than referring to
all
young persons in college as “students”!

I sat down by George, who had a double desk but no deskmate, and gazed with wondering eyes at my strange surroundings, for this was my first time inside a schoolroom. The blackboard, the raised platform on which Professor Moore's desk stood, the erasers hanging by long strings from nails just above the blackboard, and the mottoes on the wall all fascinated me. I noticed too that the girls all sat on the south side of the room and the boys on the north side, that a big wood stove stood in the center of the room to supply heat.

The first class called was in algebra and had only three or four of the biggest boys in school. One of them, Albert Hussey, was called upon to solve a problem. He wrote some strange symbols on the blackboard, combined them with large letters of the alphabet and figures, and at last took a long stick, which I later learned was called a pointer, and pointing it at the various letters and symbols began to speak with a strong nasal voice, “Now, if
A
eenqual
B
and
B
eenqual
C,
then
A
eenquals
C.”
I looked and listened goggle-eyed, as I said to myself, “Gee whiz, how does
he know that?” Such wisdom was far beyond by understanding!

The algebra class was at last dismissed and returned to the seats its members had originally occupied. Then a class in grammar was called, and a dozen boys and girls arose and moved forward to sit on the two long benches directly in front of the platform on which stood the Professor's desk.

Half of them were sent to the blackboard and Professor Moore read from a book a sentence to each member of the group to be written on the board. I could read the sentences fairly easily;
but when the teacher asked the pupils to “diagram the sentence” and they began by drawing long lines on which some of the words were written and from them drew slanting or broken lines on which other words of the sentence were written, I despaired of understanding what was going on and lost all interest in the subsequent proceedings. Apparently George did not have a class in the period following afternoon recess and could devote the entire time to studying his lessons for the next day.

The grammar class was followed by one in geography, which interested me a great deal. Then came one in physiology, which was also of considerable interest. Finally, at about ten minutes to four, when school was to be dismissed, or “let out,” or “turned out,” in the idiom of the Cross Timbers, came roll call.

As the teacher called the roll, in which names were in alphabetical order, a pupil who had reached school on time and had not whispered to any schoolmate during the day answered, “Perfect.” If he had been late, his answer was, “Tardy”; if he had whispered without permission it was, “Imperfect.”

Then two of the older students each passed a small tray of little cards bearing the words
One Token of Merit.
Everyone who had been “Perfect” took one. George had told me that when you got five of these you exchanged them for a larger five-tokens-of-merit card, and that fifty tokens of merit brought you a large and very beautiful colored card.

When I was about seven and a half years old my father decided to start me to school. It happened to be near the end of the month and when my first week of school ended, Father received a bill for my tuition as I was under the free-school age. Because it seemed to him unreasonably large, after he had paid it he
decided that it would be just as well for me to study at home until I was eight years old.

Study at home was not too bad. George's school books I had already gone over with special interest. In his McGuffey's readers, I had already memorized most of the poems. Also, his big geography and physiology textbooks had proved to be very interesting.

I now began to study the more difficult words in Webster's Blueback Speller. Alice would assign my lessons and after one had been studied for an hour or so, she would take the book and pronounce, or “give out,” the words to me; it was unusual for me to miss one. Arithmetic was very difficult for me and though I studied the multiplication table diligently and practiced “doing sums” in addition, subtraction, and multiplication with some regularity, my knowledge of arithmetic, penmanship, and English usage lagged far behind that of reading, spelling, geography, and history.