Part 3 (2/2)

When January rolled around, it was time for us to move onto the Exum place And on the day we moved that half-mile, I had to stay at our old hoons at our old faro with theons Of course, that hurt s terribly

But I was hurt even worse when one of the older boys caun to kill a skunk down on the creek-and Mao with hio You're too little”

I didn't understand how Ma as ht, and sot ain Papa set out to build whatever buildings we needed to suit our wants There was already a house and a good size barn And when Papa finished building, there were shelters for tools, livestock, poultry, and a blackse, rooo to the cellar because of a stor fruits, vegetables, and canned goods

One ti it down in the cellar Down there it would be protected frohts Papa explained to us that we should eat the ripest bananas first before they got too ripe and had to be throay Then soly told that Papa said, ”Eat the rotten ones first and wait till the others rot to eat them”

We were poor in tere faood far, he became a mechanic

We never left our hack out in the weather, we had a shed to shelter it Our barn was second to none in our neighborhood, especially by the ti sheds and stalls on both sides of it Later on, we got a car and built a shed for it We didn't call it a garage, it was a car shed And one tiht another house, ether

We had a good well of water, a big windmill, and a cypress water tank on a tower about ten feet tall The tower under the tank was boarded up on all four sides to for s cool Screened s allowed the wind to pass through That was about the coolest place on the fararden, fenced rabbit proof and irrigated ater fro ears, popcorn, cantaloupes, watermelons, peanuts, okra, squash, pumpkins, and more kinds of beans and peas than I can name

The barn was filled with feed heads, corn, and cottonseed, both for planting and for feeding There was roo sheds for horses, cows, chickens and hogs And up in the loft, there were peanuts still on the vines

Sorow peanuts because rabbits ate so many of the vines It was all but impossible to keep the rabbits out of the patch But ays grew peanuts anyway When neighbors asked Papa how he ood peanuts, he told thesters too I can't reh peanuts in the barn loft to last all winter We stored them on the vines and then we picked them off as we needed them, and fed the vines to the stock

I reme up in the barn over the horse stalls eating peanuts I was sitting on a board that was nailed to the underside of the ceiling joists Well, the nails pulled out of the board and I fell to the ground and hit her than ht ear Papa took me to our family doctor and had it sewed up

The story was told on us boys that, ere all little, a mule kicked one of us in the head, and that boy was never quite norot to acting so much alike that Mama and Papa couldn't tell which one of us thethe depression of the 1930s, a neighbor was giving me a homemade haircut one Sunday afternoon and, when he discovered the scar on hed and said, ”Now I knohich one the et back to the story of when I was a boy on the Exum farm I started to school when I was seven In fact, most kids started at seven in those days And since I was seven when school started in September, that meant I had been seven since last January 11th In other words I was alht

While we lived at the Exum place, ent to school at Wise Chapel, which was about three miles northeast of our hos, and in the afternoons, we often faced strong southwesterly winds on our way home

As alked to school, other pupils from other farms joined us, and then still others By the tiht be as many as 20 of us in one bunch One of the families whose kids walked with us was the Bruner faer brother, Ed, married Eva Bruner

What do you mean, ”Did alk that three miles to school?”

Of course alked-except maybe two or three tiht as well take tiht here toour school trail It involved one of the Bruner boys And what happened to that boy should never happen to anyone But when you get thatis apt to happen, and it did this tiuess school trails shouldn't cut across pastures, but they did In the second place, I haven't been able to figure out why God made prickly pears, but He did In the third place, if school kids are going to use the trails which wind in and out a the thorny bushes and cactus plants, they should never scuffle near prickly pears, but they did And in the fourth place, if a boy scuffles and falls down, he should never sit right flat down in a prickly pear, but he did

After he got up, he went straight hoe thorns and many of the small ones Then they took him to Mama because, they said, her eyes were better She reood shape, I suppose, all things considered

Whatas kindergarten was unknohen I started to school Beginners started in the Prirade in school-it was a book As Webster defines it, ”an ele children to read”

We went to school to learn to read, write, spell, and work arithmetic problems-and to obey the teacher

We also learned ular curriculum and which were not necessarily sanctioned by those in authority We grouped theether and called theh the Prirade I was al ofto my teacher and ood little boy

Even at that early age, the teacher granted es and I was in love with her My love and admiration for all teachers, especially woe, at ti my wife some displeasure