Part 12 (1/2)

It was reported that one rancher near Laht from the cold and the snow

On one side of our house snow drifted into a huge pile halfway up our s After it melted, the sand which bleith the snoas at least two feet deep That was the first time I can remember when snoas so dirty we couldn't make snow ice cream However, there were many other times later on

Here is another little rabbit story On one occasion when Frank was ho with the other four of us boys We hadn't had much luck until almost sundown By that time ere still about four or five miles from home and we caebrush around the waterhole and jackrabbits began to hop up here and there This place was so far from civilization the rabbits were not much afraid of us They would hop off a way and stop and sit up and look back at us

We all spread out and took a swath about the width of a city block and circled the waterhole one time-and killedsome of them over our shoulders, tied some to our overall suspenders and carried so way ho our stay on the plains, tractors had not yet established themselves on American farms, at least not in our part of the country Men were still raising fine work horses and looking forward to raising even bigger and better ones A neighbor na h to touch his nose, and few men could reach the top of his shoulders He was one of the six largest stallions in the United States and he cost the hed 2600 pounds, and his feet were about as large as a cedar water bucket

Now Papa needed at least four of those fine work horses but he didn't have the et the money And farm tractors were almost unheard of before the late 1920s However, there was a coo on a Model T Ford car which was supposed to make a tractor out of the car The ” was ”Pull-Ford” Papa heard of a man who had such a contraption, so he went to look at it

Now, the fact that theMoreover, the fact that he illing to sell it at a bargain should have told Papa so more And finally, when he went and looked at it and saw that it was practically unused, that should have been the final ood He was a man in trouble Dry weather and sand colic had clai for a lot less than four horses would cost Anyway he bought the attachment and made it fit on the Reo I suppose he reasoned that a Reo owner had more sense than a Ford owner, and even if it was not a success on the man's Ford, he could ht it and brought it hoed on the old car and ready to go It didn't prove to be the best tractor in the world, in fact, it ht coht Brothers' first flying machine would compare with a superjet

Anyhoorked some It took one to drive the car and one to ride the plow It didn't replace the horse in the field half as well as the Reo car replaced the horse on the road Yet it filled in somehen feed was scarce and horses were tired This et water and cool off As a tractor it wasn't so hot-it only got hot

We didn't spend all of our time at hard work on the farht up with our farm work, ould spend an hour or two in Lamesa

I remember one time ere in Lamesa, when I was eleven years old I had spent all my money except a dime I wanted to buy a pocketbook to put my money in There were four stores in town that sold pocketbooks and I went to all of them but it was of no use The cheapest one any of them had was ten cents Now, if I spent my dime for one, I wouldn't have any money left to put in it And if I didn't buy one, I was apt to losedecision for ain, hoping to find a five cent pocketbook I had overlooked before But it just wasn't there And I don't recall whether I bought a ten cent one or kept my dime

Now you ht the purse, how can you remember it was on a Saturday?” That's easy Saturday was about the only day ent to town I was a big boy before I learned that there were people in town on other days of the week I hardly knew that stores opened except on Saturday

I reravating rew up not knowing how to fight, not wanting to fight and thinking that boys who did fight were bad boys And here I was, faced with the stark realization that I needed so I didn't have-the ability toas he was, but I was afraid he had the kno to fight in a way that could hurt a country boy like ht the boy I only wanted hio away and leavethe cars parked by the curb I was always in the lead, he was after me So back, pinching and hittinghiot me out behind the cars, out near their back wheels, and he was just about to really let me have it People on the sidewalk couldn't see us It was just hi-so I hit hi I could have done He caht hit me but he couldn't hit me in the face and bloody my nose-I had my back to hiht on my heels The firstyou?” Before I could answer hi away He didn't bother er was a friend of mine and that he had better leave et him

On another trip to Lamesa I ith Papa one day into the back of a hardware store-back as Way back there were stacks of silver dollars and half dollars and other coins, lying there on a shelf where the store was only half lighted Papa and the clerk were around behind some other shelves They couldn't even see me It would have been easy to slip some money into my pocket and walk away But I didn't, and I have wondered a lot of times just why I didn't

There was no question but that I kneould be the wrong thing to do Yet I don't believe theat least some of the money That is to say, I could have lived with my conscience but I could not have lived with the condeotten from my family, once they learned about it And I knew that somehow they would learn about it Then there would have been the ”dishonoring” of thy father and thy , like talking back to Frank in the cotton patch years ago That was an isolated case of one boy doing wrong and receiving his punishment It was my punishment alone, it hurt no one else in the fa any part of the ether different There would have been no way for me to take some of it, then take my punishment and not hurt my folks

Until the depression years of the 1930s, merchants never fooled around with pennies If the wholesale cost of an item was four cents, he would usually sell it for ten cents Then he could sell the iteood profit

Well, Papa wanted to buy us kids soone froe With six kids at home, that would put quite a strain on Papa's pocketbook So while he was figuring howwith the clerk

”Two for 15 cents?” he asked

”Yes,” cauess so”

”Nine for a half dollar?”

”Well, yes, okay”