Part 7 (1/2)

My feet were flying and aiet at otto me

I was so tickled, it didn't seehed the harder he whippedbefore he quit whipping Anyway, I had ood show and Frank did what he had to do And I worked harder after that

Do you think I told Mama and Papa what Frank did to ht a repri I also knew I had better let well enough alone

And did Frank tell them I had been a bad boy? Certainly not He had handled the situation well and we all knew he could do it again next time That's the way our faes to being little when I was growing up I don't ot fros I wanted to do There were so s I wanted to do that Mama and Papa wouldn't let me do They would say, ”You're too little”

With Earl and Joel, it was different They were not too little- never had been At least, if they had been, I couldn't re with Uncle Robert and his greyhounds I remember I went one time, but most of the times I was too little I had to stay home and hear theuess the ti very far and they figured I could keep up with the others for awhile

Anyway, Robert had sohty fast and well et away fro Old Pluto was alle file behind Old Queen, and when a rabbit began to circle, Old Pluto would begin to cut the corner to keep the rabbit going straight

A rabbit likes to circle back to his houres he has a better chance to survive But Robert's dogs wouldn't let him circle back That seemed to frustrate him and make him easier to catch

Robert also had about three other running dogs They were not quite as fast as Queen and Pluto but they played iood to spread out and help flush rabbits out of the weeds and brush And they were also there at the end of the chase to catch the rabbit in case he dodged quickly and the two leading dogs failed to catch his jumped a jack rabbit, you could just about write him off as another dead rabbit About the only way a rabbit could escape was to run into a patch of tall, thick feed where the dogs couldn't see his at tireyhounds for miles around, and his best ones were not for sale

Uncle Robert was a favorite of us boys He was Papa's youngest brother and was only eight years older than Frank We liked just about everything about him, especially the way he paid us orked for him When we hoed or picked cotton for hih, and he paid us in cash, never by check We hated checks Soured in together, usually along with Papa's Then we had to wait for Papa to go to town and get the ht be as much as a week later

But not so with Uncle Robert When time came for him to pay us boys-as soon as the job was finished-he made it a point to have a pocket full of coins so he could pay us then and there There was no piece of paper, no writing and no waiting And he paid each of us separately

Another thing I was too little to do was go upstairs at Grandma's Yet, I didn't mind that so much because I wasn't the only one Even Earl and Joel couldn't go up there

Robert and Ed were still living at home and not married Their roo around up there Besides, there was danger we et hurt

I didn't know at the tio upstairs They didn't tell us the truth about it What they told us was, ”If you go up there, the Old Bootjack will get you” Well, I was alrown before I learned what a bootjack was Then it was easy to see that a bootjack wouldn't hurt anyone, especially little kids But the fear of it served its purpose And I suppose ere notbeen fibbed to

We learned other lessons also-some the expensive way I remember, some of us Johnson kids were at Uncle John Hudson's house one day, playing with all his kids, e discovered a pig out of his pen

Now, Uncle John ay fro favor and get his pig back in the pen with its , he was too sht to be in his pen So we got after him

It was a hot day In fact, it was so hot that the sandy ground burned our bare feet We were suffering froht hi back in his pen

We chased hiht hiround was hot, the weather was hot, butwas hot

We carried our little prisoner and we all got under the shade of a peach tree We kids cooled off right away, but the pig was so tired and was breathing so fast, we thought we ought to cool him off with soood, cool water right out of the well Then we poured it on the little pig-and he was dead in about one minute flat

We were sorry, but hoe to know that cold water would kill a hot pig? No one had ever told us it would We learned that lesson the hard way-that is, hard on Uncle John And we learned so Oh yes, he told us a few things he wanted us to know

Regardless of all the little enerally had the run of the fars which were not allowed One of these was, ”Don't climb on the feed stacks” That would destroy a lot of the feed and allow rainwater to run in and ruin even more of it No proble But another ”Don't” that was not so easily understood was, ”Don't play in the cottonseed”

What could it hurt to play in it? It was in a nice bin, and ould leave it in the bin Walking on it wouldn't hurt it Digging holes and tunnels in it wouldn't dae the seed This was forbidden fruit we just couldn't understand