Part 13 (1/2)

But Mama didn't want to be on the Abbie farm without Papa there Of course he couldn't stay because he just had to o back So we all loaded back into the car and drove all day, back to the wet tent in a pasture about a half-

When it didn't rain so much, we boys walked fro so much money in the cotton patch that our parents reasoned that we all, working together in the cotton patch, could do much better than we could with the fa

Knowing that the cotton crops were good in parts of Oklahoot therethat the cotton was really good-fields hite beyond our expectations Many people were in ork and there was a shortage of laborers for the harvest

But before we got to where ere going, we lost a suitcase off one front fender and hadn't noticed it was gone The loss was discovered by one of the older boys e stopped for one of the little ones to hide behind a bush Naturally, we couldn't just drive on and leave the suitcase We had to go back and find it And about fiveon a fence post

It see for bushes and culverts I elve years old and there were three others in the car ere younger And no two little kids ever have to ”go” at the same time So it was stop here for one and stop there for another one Lucky for us, we had to stop for another one before the suitcase got many miles behind

There were no service stations with fancy restrooasoline pumps out in front on the curbs and two-holers out back by the alley, all of which were dirty and s the road were e that had indoor pluo, when I was just a little kid nine years old, Papa had gone to a garage to get the carburetor adjusted on his car Joel and I ith him And since it took the ood thing there was a place for little boys to hide

The niceon our car must have been a little boy himself at one time or another, or maybe he had little boys of his own At any rate, when he sahispering so up to a storeroom, in one corner of which was a little boy's rooht-and we used ”the thing” in the roo out how to operate the thing There was a wall-tank six-feet high on the wall, with a lever extending outward fro down fro else to do, so we tried pulling on the cord That was the secret-it worked Water came down frousto and noise

Noe had another problean to e had not The boas filling up fast We couldn't stop the floater True, we had pulled on the cord to start it, but we couldn't push up on the cord to stop it The boas al

Just before the bowl ran over we ran downstairs We looked back, expecting to see the water coh the upstairs floor, or otten scared all for nothing It was years later that we learned about indoor plu autoetting back to our trip-before we found a farear in the differential of our car We were familiar with the sound-it had happened before But we drove on, listening to the click, click, in the car's rear end every time the wheels went around Soon it ceased to be a click, click, and became a wham, wham That o on

With the differential sounding like it o to pieces at any minute, we decided that perhaps this was the cotton country we had been searching for So we spotted a large patch of white cotton and inquired about picking it The ht Mr Hammond wanted some pickers He lived about three miles on down the road

We phoned Mr Hammond and found that ere in luck He wanted us, and we certainly needed hiht a teaan picking iathered hundreds of pounds of cotton

Papa caught a ride to Durant the next day and ordered a ring gear for the car Before we had finished picking Mr Haear came by mail Papa jacked up the car, crawled under and ht there in the cotton field by our camp

When we finished that patch, there were other fields waiting for us We werefrom 30 to 40 a day The as hard but we didn'ta little e, I enjoyed helping the fa up I was picking more cotton in a day than I had ever picked before I enjoyed figuring howI kneouldn't behowcotton in tio by our farm at Abbie, but est into the Texas panhandle Then we turned south to our Lamesa farm

All in all it was an easy trip One stretch of road in Oklahoh sandy post oak country Soe, otherwise the land was like Texas shi+nnery The county road didn't go through the worst of the sand but detoured o around it In soher than our car top One h his pasture so people could cut through and save many miles He had built wooden runways over the sand hills so cars could travel easily He charged a toll of one dollar for each car We paid the toll and saved a good many miles

And then, of course we came to the Red River that forms the boundary between Oklahoma and Texas Now, in that part of the country there is just one way to get from Oklahoma to Texas and that is to cross the river And I don't know of anyone ould choose to stay in Oklahoo to Texas And that included us So we crossed the river

I ree made of wood It never occurred to me at the time just why it was made of wood instead of concrete, this perhaps because I had never seen a concrete bridge, and didn't know at that tis ine, there was a road where people could cross the river in the mud and shalloater if they wanted to

Now the next thing I kneere down there in thatacross on the bridge I wondered e didn't ride across on the bridge We didn't even ride across the river-well, yes, the driver rode-that was Papa, but the rest of us didn't ride Papa was smart He was not only smart, he was the only one who could drive the car The rest of us didn't walk, either, we ran and pushed Part of the ti to keep up The rest of the ti and sinking into the quicksand

I think the bridge we didn't cross on was a toll bridge My e, but by way of reasoning I can only conclude that it was Otherwise, ould we Johnsons have been down there pushi+ng in the e? And why did that et down to that e like the other cars were doing? Yes, it all adds up, that e

But we didn't pay the toll And we had very little trouble crossing on the low road Matter of fact, we didn't even stop, that is, Papa didn't, except for us to catch up and load back into the car We saved our ot into the Texas panhandle, we headed south toward Lamesa We stayed awhile with Susie and Dode and then went on to the rented farm at Abbie