Part 3

School was a new experience for me. I was seven when I started and could already read beginning school books. I knew my numbers, how to count, and had learned to phonetically "sound out" words for spelling. Mother and grandfather had taught me these things before there was ever a school to go to in our area.

Our first teacher was Miss Eula Mae Pittman. School was held in the Ranger Lake community building. Children from beginners to eighth grade, with one teacher instructing all the classes in a single room, learned what interested them most from whatever was being taught at the moment.

School was not held during periods of heavy snow and extremely cold weather. The distances were too great, and with roads virtually nonexistent traveling to and from school in bad weather was out of the question. Our woefully inadequate school system was a worry to parents in the community, all of whom wanted their children to receive a good education.

Mother was a tireless worker for a better school system, and took the lead in organizing a consolidation of local community schools. A single school district was formed, complete with rural buses hauling farm and ranch children back and forth to Tatum. There we enjoyed proper school buildings, and teachers with real "certificates" and "degrees" instructed the classes. Mother saw to it that a consolidated school district became a reality by the time I was in second grade.

Our first consolidated school system bus was a Model T Ford truck outfitted with wood benches to seat seven children on each side in the back. This passenger section had a wood frame with a canvas cover. Tie-downs on the inside were used to close the rear flap. Our morning ride to the school in Tatum during the winter was bitterly cold traveling over frozen slush, ice and snow.

Paved roads did not exist, just well used deeply rutted tracks across rolling pasture lands. Heat in our pioneer bus was from hot irons that mothers would heat over their cook stoves of an early morning and send with us in metal buckets wrapped in old blankets. These fireless heaters quickly grew cold, doing little to keep us warm. We had to huddle close together in the back of that Model T truck to keep from hurting with the cold before arriving at school in Tatum.

Returning home after school was a completely different adventure. By four o'clock the dirt roads had usually melted into slush and mud. When the bus got stuck, as it almost always did, everyone had to get out and push. I became acquainted with the shocking force of electricity while pushing that old Ford bus. Touching a sparkplug while the engine was running I received a bone jarring jolt. I thought I might have ruined the engine as it stopped running smoothly after that, however our driver told me it had a bad plug.

We often arrived home after dark in the winter, having left for school before daylight that morning. Mother became disenchanted with this unsatisfactory way of getting her children to and from school, and set out to solve the problem by moving our family closer to the school. Before another school year passed we moved into a nice farm house only a mile from the Tatum school grounds. Although we were still relatively close to our home ranch, and continued to work it while spending as much time as possible with grandfather Hodge, we never again lived permanently at our childhood Ranger Lake home.

For several years we lived "in town" while attending school. For me these years were filled with the many things grade school boys find to do. Our new place belonged to Ben and Era Alford, close friends of our family. They had to move to Fort Worth, Texas and were pleased to have our family in their Tatum home to care for it.

About this time dad received a contract to carry the rural mail route from Tatum to Ranger Lake where grandfather served as Postmaster. We soon became the proud owners of a 1917 Model T Ford Touring car, one of the first in the area. Dad often stayed overnight at the ranch to take care of the livestock and tend to chores. However as time passed we became less dependent on the ranch and more dependent on the mail route and dad's freighting business for our family’s livehood.

Whenever dad was on a freight run to Roswell or Lubbock, mother drove the mail route. It was my privilege to help her since there were a great many gates to open and close and frequent flat tires to change. I was good at cranking the engine as well, and never once did I sprain a thumb or break an arm as so many Model T engine crankers did in those days.

I learned to drive the car on those trips with mother, and she was proud that I could drive as well as I did. One day I turned suddenly to avoid hitting a cow and a tire rolled off of a front wheel. I remember the great ball like balloon of salmon red rubber inner tube that came out of the tire when it separated from the wheel, and was sure that I had ruined the car. Soon we had the tire repaired and everything turned out just fine, the car wasn't ruined after all.

Automobile tires in those days were of questionable quality at best, and roadside tire repair skills were often tested. Tire tools and patch kits were survival gear that needed to be carried at all times. The best roads in our area were no more than rough trails strewn with sharp rocks. Nearly flat Devils Head cactus waited in hiding, no taller than the low growing grass, for the unlucky driver who dared leave a well traveled track for any reason.

Mother tried to teach grandfather Hodge to drive the car, but he never could get the hang of turning the steering wheel in the direction he wanted to go. His reflexes were those learned as a long time riverboat pilot, and after nearly 80 years it was hard to forget that the stern doesn't swing in the opposite direction from where the bow is supposed to go. He was determined however, and would have wrecked himself and anyone he chanced to meet had there been any traffic to contend with.

Flat pastures were a perfect place for him to learn. There was nothing to bump into except cows, and they generally managed to get out of his way even though he gave a few a real scare. When he was alone he would come back thoroughly convinced he had mastered the art of "steering". However when he drove with someone he invariably got excited, and turned the wheel in the wrong direction, going around in a big circle until he came back to the track. Then once again he would feel he had things thought out and could "steer" a straight line, that is until the next lapse of attention when his old riverboat reflexes took over and around he went again. It was all great fun at that time and place, and just about the only thing grandfather could not do well.

Grandfather was my best friend, comforter, teacher, confidant and companion, and we shared many pleasant hours together. From my earliest memories he was there to help me do and make things, all the while teaching me what it meant to live a happy life. He was physically sound and active, doing much of the gardening and caring for the orchard.

Grandfather taught me to wrap fruit trees so winter cold would not freeze and split them. We dug potatoes from the garden putting them in a pile that we covered with straw. A final covering of earth completed a potato mound. There the potatoes were safe in the darkness from spoilage until needed. Through a hole at the base of the mound we could reach the warm dry potatoes. When the hole was uncovered to retrieve some of the potatoes we would always push a stick in first to see if by chance a rattlesnake had its found a way into the mound.

Grandfather taught me how to shoot rifle and shotgun as we hunted rabbits, geese, prairie chickens, and ducks for winter food storage. The tender loins of rabbits we shot, packed in layers in empty 10 gallon lard cans, were covered with newly rendered lard. As the lard was removed and used for cooking, the rabbit loins would be uncovered and ground up to make chili meat and other delicious dishes. We hunted ducks on our pond as well as on his, and among the shocks in the corn fields we shot geese. Prairie chickens were a rare treat found in the Shin-oak areas up in the sand hills. They would burst into flight from under our horses feet and sail away before we could fire a shot. Sometimes we were lucky enough to get one or two of these scattered game birds, finding them particularly delicious.

Summer months were working months. With school out we often stayed at the ranch to plant crops, care for the orchard and garden, and tend the livestock. Summer days were happy and busy, filled with adventures as we learned new and exciting things.

When I was 9 years old I was given my own colt to break and train, and helped my father in the fields, weeding and cultivating our grain crops with a two horse drawn "go devil." Riding a "go devil" pulled by a team of horses required skill and focused alertness. This was my first man sized job. The “go devil” was made from two 2x12x8 inch planks set on edge, 14 inches apart. These were held in place by a steel framework on which was mounted a seat for the operator. Sharp edged, 3 inch wide steel blades swept back from the center of the machine on the side of each runner. The front of each runner swept upward and the full length of the bottom edge was faced with a steel strap.

Crops were planted in the bottom of the furrows, and with a “go devil” runner on each side of a row of corn, maize or cotton, the horses were to move steadily forward down the row as the swept knives sliced under the beds between the rows, cutting the roots of growing weeds. If the Go Devil was pulled to either side of its proper track the cutting blades would cut the roots of the crop as well as the weeds. I quickly learned how to talk the horses around turns at the ends of the field, then line them up carefully, resting them for a few minutes before starting to the other end.

Our fields were on mellow soil at the edge of sand dune pastures. The warm earth with growing crops was a haven for rabbits, field mice, and various snakes. Bullsnakes, black racers, brown racers, diamondbacks, sidewinders, and hognose snakes were those we saw most every day. We killed all the rattlers we could because our colts were at times bitten on the face as they curiously nosed a coiled snake. A snake bite made them very sick. Their heads would swell up until their eyes were nearly closed, and their lips became so large that they could hardly nurse their mothers milk.

We were curious about snakes and learned they were rodent eaters, so we encouraged some of the bullsnakes to live in the barn and the feed storage areas. We would catch them behind the head and they would coil themselves around our arms as we carried them from the fields.

As we became more familiar with snakes we would sometimes catch a rattler. Once we tied one to the top wire of a pasture fence to see how long he would remain there. Several days later we found he had loosed himself and crawled away. Another time we found a large rattler with a grown cottontail rabbit he was trying to swallow. The snake had the rabbit halfway down and could not spit it out or swallow it quickly. In this condition he was completely helpless. A coyote happening onto the scene would have made a quick meal of both rabbit and snake. We watched him for a long enough time to see the rabbit completely disappear inside the snake and the snakes head once again shaped itself into a normal appearance. With the rabbit inside the snake was still extremely sluggish, moving with great effort.

We picked up a large bullsnake one day and took it into grandfathers bedroom where we placed it under the covers of his bed. We waited for days, hoping to hear him say something about a snake in his bed. However he never gave any hint of such a thing, so we could only guess that the snake had crawled away before being discovered. However knowing grandfather as we did he may have found it and decided not to say anything about it. Such occurrences were rather ordinary, and snakes hunting mice often found their way into houses, so such an event would hardly be worth mentioning.

The only snake bitten person I ever saw was our friend Glendon Hooper. Just at dusk one evening a rattler struck him on his bare right foot. A hen was quickly taken from the roost and killed, and a sharp knife used to enlarged the puncture wounds on his foot so they were bleeding. Then his whole foot was placed inside the warm body of the chicken, which acted as a hot poultice to draw blood and poison from the wound. An hour later another freshly killed chicken was put on his foot.

All night Glendon was kept awake with coffee and conversation. By morning the poison had swelled his foot and leg nearly to the knee, and appeared to have localized in that area. About 2:00 p.m. that day my father returned from Tatum with old Dr. Rumph, who immediately put Glendon to bed so he could sleep. I have no memory of what medication he may have been given, but we were reassured that he would be well again soon. In a few days he was hopping around on a crutch, but the swelling and discoloration lasted for several weeks.

I was extremely happy when Glendon was well again, for he was an imaginative and exciting companion. The youngest child in a family of six boys, he had a decided advantage in general knowledge that was refreshing to me. Although he was somewhat bored with the games we played, he was never critical or demanding. Only when we were riding, working or building something did he seem truly comfortable. He did not seem to know how to enjoy playing, preferring instead to work at something constructive. He was a visionary and a dreamer, and a friend I enjoyed greatly.

Once when we rode to the cliffs near Ranger Lake, after having tired of jumping into and rolling down the sloping sand dunes at their base, we were lying on our backs resting, looking into the bottomless blue of the sky and talking of things we would do one day. Glendon said he was going to build a building so tall the top would be out of sight in the clouds. He also said he would make a machine you could ride in and just wish you were any spot on earth, and you would be there in a few hours. This was far fetched for me to think about, yet somehow I never doubted that Glendon would or could do the things he dreamed and spoke of.

Sharing ideas and dreams with a good friend constituted an unspoken bond of trust, and I was very sad when I heard that Glendon had died of pneumonia after getting drunk and wet and cold one night when he was only seventeen. He didn't live to build his tall buildings or his travel machine, but had he lived I'm sure he would have become a hard driving successful man, a business executive. I have known several highly successful men in my life who exhibited the sort of drive and impatience with small everyday things that Glendon seemed to have. Many times such men exhibit a singleness of purpose that causes other people hurt when they find themselves positioned in such a way as to impede the accomplishment of that purpose.

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