Part 26 (1/2)
”What if you have a flat? Can you put the spare on?”
”Oooh, I hadn't thought of that We better not try it”
Now, if Anita had known at that ti I had done alone when I was not ued that Hamlin was not nearly as far away as McCaht up that argument, I think I would have handed her the keys and said, ”Good luck Be careful”
At that age Anita hadn't yetand practicing Dennis was going to town one night to a show or soo But she said, ”No, Vera and Coy are coht and I want to stay houe”
She listened well and learned fast I don't believe I have won an argument with her since that ti on the farot so cheap that I couldn't resist the urge to buy some of them and let them run wild about the place At the Abilene auction sale, I bid on a bunch of the prettiest little black pigs I ever saw They were selling by the pound I usually bought the ones that sold by the head, because I didn't have h out But this bunch only cost 116 each There were eight in the bunch I took theht others fro all over the place Of course, when they got older, we put thes in her car one day and killed him He was about a 25-pounder We butchered hiood size to butcher next tis running around the place, he asked about letting him take so box in the back end We told him to come any time and take all he wanted He sold them at five dollars each and paid ht back the ones he didn't sell each day and turned theain He and I both picked up a few dollars onhbor boy and Dennis were out in our pasture one day with their 22 rifles, hunting rabbits and snakes and whatever After hunting for hours, they ca to the house all excited and out of breath, and told us they had killed so, they didn't knohat it was, but wanted us to come quickly We went and found that they had killed a bobcat He was the first one we had seen or heard of in that part of the country, and it was the first one the boys had ever seen
They had been up on Cedar knob Mountain looking around, and there was that bobcat 12 or 14 feet directly below thee Apparently the cat didn't see the boys They stepped back quickly and planned their strategy One boy had a pule shot They planned to advance quietly to the spot above the cat, take good aiun carried an extra shell in his hand ready to reload as quickly as possible Then they walked slowly to their vantage point and carried out their un had reloaded and fired his second shell, the other boy had eun-all 15 shells, and the bobcat lay very dead But they didn't knohat it was that they had killed, so they didn't go near it, but ran hoet his pelt, and would you believe it, we found two bullet holes-and only two-in his head, and none anywhere else We believe that the boys killed him with their first two shots and missed him completely with all the others
We lived on that farm 17 years, and if we had lived there 50neould have happened the last day we lived there, as well as each and every week during that tiin I hadtorch and all in cotton I was repairing ginload bales of cotton on trucks to be hauled to the Hae truck and trailer jobs We stood up one layer of bales on the truck, then we stood up another layer of bales on the first layer Then we placed another layer lying down on top of those two layers Now, doing all that purely by y and manpower By the end of the day I was possessed with a lot of aardness, and all one So I used my head
At the close of work that Saturday, I took all my tools home, and Sunday after church I built an A-frah to lift bales of cotton three-layers high up on a truck The tractor motor did all the work Noas I worked there Theso lazy After that they said, ”Give Johnson the hard jobs, he'llwith all our work, we had our share of fun Clarence Clark was a farmer who lived about a ood joke as much as or more than the next fellow And he also liked to play practical jokes on other people Nor did he seeht in his face
One day a bunch of us were sitting around outside the store waiting for theand ”spittin and whittlin,” when aused, wooden icebox in his pick-up Clark didn't er, in a loud voice, ”How much for the icebox?”
The man said, ”I'll take ten dollars for it”
Now Clarence didn't need the icebox-he didn't even want it He had one just like it, only better So, his idea was to play around with the stranger awhile, exchange a feords, sort of horse-trade with hio on his ith his icebox
He reasoned that if he offered anywhere near 10, the stranger ht accept his offer and he would be stuck with a box he didn't want and wished he didn't have But by any standard, no horse- trader is going to sell anything for half what he's asking for it- -leastwise, not without coht five dollars would be a safe offer So, when the man said, ”I'll take ten dollars for it,” Clark didn't hesitate to say, ”I'll give you five”
Nor did the stranger hesitate to say, ”I'll take it”
Clark said, ”You'll have to deliver it”
”Sure will Where to?”
”About a mile Follow me”
Clark drove his car and the man followed in his pick-up As the man backed up to the back porch, Mrs Clark caot here?
Her husband said, ”We've got an icebox”
”We don't need it We've got one icebox”