Part 7 (2/2)

So, the rule about not playing in the cottonseed had its effect on cultivating our dishonesty It was so much fun, ent ahead and played in the cottonseed bin anye thought the coast was clear And I can't reht at it

I can understand it all now If we had been allowed to play in the cottonseed, weseed out the door ere having a cottonseed fight And, more than likely, ould have left the door open at tiet in And of course, a cave-in in one of our tunnels ht have trapped one of the se ones around for rescue work We hadn't thought of that

But we couldn't understand it at that time, and it seemed to us that this cottonseed ”don't” was not an absolute ”don't,” but perhaps ht to” kind of a ”don't” So, when viewed frouilty We just played in the seed and enjoyed it

But since there was at least a half-hearted rule against playing in the cottonseed, we didn't dare leave the door open ere playing inside Papa could have spotted that open door a quarter-mile away and, come supper time, we kids would have had to answer a question or two Also, a few seeds outside on the ground could have been seen by conservative parents oreven” with another brother, and at the sa a fresh shi+ne on his little halo by tattling

In spite of all the drawbacks, we played in the cottonseed, and naturally we stirred up dust And when the sun shone through the cracks onto that dust, it was hard to see through it-it was sort of like a wall that you could walk right through

One day ere playing in the seed when the sun was shi+ning through a horizontal crack in the boards The dust in the sunshi+ne looked a lot like a large board, lying flat above the seed I tried to crawl up on the dust as though it were a table top But of course, it wouldn't hold me up

I couldn't understand it So I stirred upup on it But it still wouldn't hold me up

Years later, I learned why The dust wasn't as dense as I was

I have told you about a three or four-year-old boy planting with a t planter, a dog plowing for his o away, I have other true stories to tell you

As Inear San Angelo, Texas He was just a lad at that time-couldn't have been more than 17 or 18 years old Here is what he told me about 35 years later:

One time when they were on the trail, they had bedded their cattle down one night near San Angelo and were sitting around the cao into town and get so to drink”

Another one said, ”Good idea, but we're all broke and the boss is two days behind How you gonna get whiskey without o with , so quite a few of the boys rode with his half full of water

History tells us that along about that tielo was made up of at least 20 saloons and fewer than that number of all other stores combined

Before the cowboys reached town, they all knew just what to do After hiding their billfolds in their saddle bags, they each took a jug and split up, one going to this saloon and one to that saloon and so on

Then each in turn told the bartender that they were out on the trail with only half a jug of whiskey, and would he finish filling it up? After the jug was filled, the coould reach for his wallet only to ”discover” that he had lost it The bartender would just have to take back his half-gallon The poor boy would have to ”allon

Noith quite a fepokes pulling this little stunt in about half the saloons in San Angelo, you can bet your boots they rode back to camp with plenty of what they came for, a little weak, but free

When Papa was a boy, the lives of his entire family had to do with saddle horses and cattle Even the little girls liked to ride horses and play cowboy The youngest girl, Annie, was one of those little girls But when Annie becah to do chores, one of her chores was to churn the milk that made the butter for the family And she hated to have to stay home and churn while her brothers rode out into the pasture after the cows

Now, I' Papa as I do, I wouldn't be surprised if he had so his little sister solve her probleirl happy She would tie a jar ofher horse do the churning

At the Exum farm Mr Whatley's pasture joined our field And in his pasture he had an old cohich ell educated in the art of breaking through fences And she see into our corn patch

Now, the nore farmer was to put a yoke on the neck of such an anie across the wires and stop the cow froh the fence

But this old cow soon learned to use the yoke to break the wires so she could get through the fence easier And she had been spending entirely too much of her time in our field Mr Whatley either could not or would not keep her out Papa thought he ought to keep her out