Chapter 6
THE GOD OF ALL COMFORT.
(From
Mother’s death in March 1954, until I start the 5th grade of
elementary school in early September 1956.)
God
ordained that the living go on living, so by His Abundantly Sufficient
Grace, our family did so. After we returned home from Mother’s funeral on Thursday
afternoon, I told Daddy I wanted to go to school the next day (Friday). “No,
this is too soon. You 3 can go back to school on Monday.” So, the following day
(Friday), I forlornly watch the school bus go by our house, wishing I could get
on it. But at home, a few people come and go all day. I enjoy their company
(and especially the delicious food they bring).
The
next day (Saturday), there was some kind of rally in Vernon. Daddy took us
children to it, a few friends hung around with us at the rally, and the gala
atmosphere there helped much to take our minds off our deep sorrow. Most folks did not yet have a TV in their house to vainly stare
at, so the few fun events in town easily drew a good crowd eager to enjoy it, and enjoy seeing many other people whom they rarely see.
On
Sunday, Daddy took his 4 children to church, of course. Long after I became an
adult, one day in 1977 Daddy and I visited Pastor and Sister Cobb at their home
in Columbus, Mississippi. Reminiscing, Pastor Cobb remarked that it deeply
touched his heart seeing our family file into church with no Mother
that first Sunday we came to church after Mother’s death.
Come
Monday morning, I delighted to climb onto that school bus, and distance
myself from our gloomy, dilapidated shack that had become sadly quieter. Everyone
at school (teachers and kids) was so kind and gentle to me.
Several days later, classmate Kaye (sitting nearby me in Mrs. Duke’s room)
spoke up to me “out of the blue”. “Richard, I’ll marry you.” Many years later
when Kaye was an adult, she told my sister that she felt extremely sorry for me
because Mother had died. Her 8-year-old mind thought so hard on what she could
do to aid me. And that was the solution she came up with. Sure
was sweet of her. Kaye was a most compassionate and pretty girl, and I
claimed her as my sweetheart off and on during my school years.
Twelfth-grader
Mary rode my school bus on past my house to her house. Now, on the bus,
she would make a point to smile often at me to cheer me up. Both she and her
smile were ever so lovely, causing me to fall deeply in love with her. So,
I soon announced at home that I was going to marry Mary. Upon hearing that, my
14-year-old sister Janiece spoke right up. “Mary is a lot older than you. She’ll
get married before you get grown.” Her blunt news broke my heart
(but it soon mended).
Mother
was a talker. She habitually talked much
to her 4 kids, which generally was good for us and naturally needful to
little children. Daddy was not a talker. Now with Mother gone, our home became morbidly
silent. That made me sadder. Daddy (in deep sorrow over Mother’s death, and
likely worried and in deep, serious thought about how to rear us 4 kids alone,
in poverty, without a helpmeet), became even more silent.
Upon
Mother’s sudden death, likely much remorse and regret
came over him, because he and Mother had argued a lot. (Daddy never
spoke to us about such heart matters of his own. So, I am only guessing at my
following words. Also, my young immature mind did not perceive much that wasn’t
on the surface, in their marriage relation and such.)
Likely
much of their arguing stemmed from Mother nagging Daddy to improve our living
conditions, her wanting to “feather the nest” better. But Daddy just simply
didn’t do well enough financially to better our lives. Not long before Mother
died, she and Daddy argued at home quite heatedly one Sunday afternoon. Mother
got mad, cried, and told Daddy that she was not going to church that night.
That
was a major deal, for her (a faithful church member) to deliberately
stay away from church. Daddy tried to make her go, but she was adamant. Come
time to leave for Sunday night church, we 5 got into the car without Mother.
Daddy started the engine, hesitated to leave, and told
7-year-old me to go back into the house and tell Mother to come
with us. If we 5 walk into our small church without Mother, the nosey
questions will fly as to “Why?” Daddy is trying his best to prevent that
embarrassment.
Darkness
had just fallen. This Little Boy walked alone back into that dark, drab, dilapidated shack (not a light was
on), all way back to the kitchen to find Mother sitting in an old, worn cane
back chair in the dark (close to the wood cook stove for the warmth it
radiated). She was quietly sobbing alone in the bleak darkness in our shanty of
a house (a most touching, gloomy, and sad sight to my little soul).
‘Daddy
said to come on and go with us.’
“Tell
him I’m not going!” She was adamant thru her tears.
Back
thru the dark house I trod and got back into the car with the other four. ‘She
said she ain’t going,’ I reported to Daddy. After briefly pondering silently,
Daddy drove on to church with us four kids. I am amazed
that dark, depressing scene and those words did not plunge my little
heart into grief. Thank Thee, Lord, for guarding over my tender, little heart to
prevent such actions of my Christian
parents from grieving this little child unduly.
I now write of such, mainly
so that when you Christian parents read this, you can listen to The Holy
Spirit clearly speaking to your heart, telling you that
with the Help of Almighty God in Heaven you can of a certainty do much better than that in front of
your children. And I am praying that you will constantly seek that
Divine Help and thereby do much better. Doing so will richly
benefit each member of your precious family.
After Mother’s death, likely such memories of him and Mother arguing
“haunted” Daddy with guilt to some degree. He was plenty silent when our
family was together at home. That tended to make me sad. So, the cheerful
atmosphere at school helped me tremendously. I happily continued on in Mrs. Duke’s 2nd Grade class till
the end of May when school let out for the summer.
(Enough said of my 2nd grade schooling.)
Attending church 3 or more times each week was certainly
a spiritual lift for all my family. Almighty God Himself and the Christians at
church all comforted us with God’s True Comfort, and we received the rich
blessings that come from singing, praying, and learning of God in church,
worshipping God and fellowshipping with kind, loving Christians. There was much
godly comfort in that, thank God.
Kind people continued to bring delicious food to our house daily
for a few days (and afterwards “off and on”). For several Sundays straight,
different church people invited us to go home with them for Sunday lunch after
the morning church service. Thanks be unto God that He had made us into a
Christian family. “What would we do without the Lord?”
Soon after Mother’s death came time for Daddy’s strenuous
task of breaking and disking the fields for planting (with the horse-drawn
heavy breaking plow and disk). But this year, several neighborly farmers
came with their tractors and did that preparation as a kind deed to us, each
paying for his own tractor gas. At one time, I think I counted 7 tractors
plowing and disking in our fields. Generous men (and their machines)
made short work of the breaking, disking, and section harrowing (instead of
dragging) all our fields, which Dad would have done with his horses.
Then Daddy planted (and did the following cultivating) with his pair of horses.
Each weekday this Spring, when we 3 older kids went to
school, Daddy had to watch after Joe alone while he did his farm work.
On school days this spring, he would take 5-year-old Joe with him to the field
and keep an eye on Joe as he plowed with the horses. One day, Uncle Kilby Yerby
and Aunt Olivia from Birmingham came to visit Daddy while we 3 were at school.
In talking, Daddy told them of constantly glancing in Joe’s direction off and
on while plowing back and forth with the horse. One time when Dad looked that
way, Joe was not in sight. Concerned, Daddy hurriedly walked to that area. He
found Joe lying prone in a bare dirt furrow in the field, asleep on the dirt,
taking the nap that his little body called for.
“He’s going home with us to stay a while,” Uncle and Aunt more or less decreed to Daddy. They took Joe (and a
brown paper sack of his clothes) to Birmingham. Likely Joe stayed with them
till school let out for summer. (Then Janiece would be
home every day.) Uncle Kilby had a nice house and Joe played with Cousin Danny
(4 years old or so). Being with them was good for Joe at that time, no doubt.
Mother’s
Day soon came. Our church had this Mother’s Day custom...People whose mothers
were living wore a red rose on their lapel to church. Those whose mothers were
deceased wore a white rose to church each year on Mother’s Day. It saddened
me to now start wearing a white
rose. We 4 kids now penned on a white rose each year, but Daddy wore a red
rose till his Mother died 11 years later in 1965 (when
I was in college).
After
school let out for summer vacation at the end of May 1954, all 5 family
members slaved away at the much farm work that had to be done. We children were
promoted into many of Mother’s jobs, Daddy doing the ones we were not
yet able to do.
He
would arise early each morning, build a fire in the
wood cook stove (and in the living room stove in cold weather), make and bake
fresh hot biscuits for breakfast and cook the eggs and meat for that early
meal. But we 3 older kids were trained to bake a pone
of cornbread, boil peas, beans, turnip greens and such, doing much of the work
that put dinner and supper on the table. And any child that has started walking
can wash dishes, can they not? So, we 4 kids inherited that job.
Janiece
(along with Mother) may have already been milking cows before Mother died.
Daddy now taught Sidney and me how to milk (by hand, not with a milking machine
that was unheard of on our small poor farm). There is a knack to milking by hand. One doesn’t simply squeeze and tug.
If you have never been there, you wouldn’t understand.
Each
week, we kids now help much
with washday. By now, we have obtained a used crude washing machine (nothing
automatic about that washing machine made in the 1940s). So, we still fill the
2 black wash pots in the back yard with water, build a wood fire under them to
heat the water, and hand carry the hot water in a
bucket to the washing machine on the back porch. We had a clothesline on which
to hang our best clothes to dry. We hung many of our work clothes on the barbed
wire pasture fence at the back edge of our narrow back yard. The wire barbs
pierced the fabric, helping hold the garment in place. (Quite durable fabrics,
back in those ancient days!)
We
kids hoe the grass in the garden, pick vegetables, shell peas and beans (and
such), and help Daddy to the best of our abilities with canning vegetables to
eat during the winter. Sidney and I chop and hoe cotton in earnest most of the
summer. Janiece has been promoted into many of Mother’s jobs at the house,
including watching Joe. So, she doesn’t often chop cotton. Natural physical
growth monthly makes each of us 4 kids into a more profitable
slave labourer, and Daddy was most skilled at exacting the entire
extent of each of our abilities.
A
Yerby family reunion was held each summer in late July on a Sunday afternoon in
the house of Aunt Rosetta and Aunt Elizabeth Yerby (old maid sisters of my
Granddad Yerby, I guess) in the Crossville community 7 miles east of Vernon on
Hwy 18. It was our custom to drive there after Sunday morning
church, just in time for lunch. It was this summer (1954) (or the next) that
our car’s engine quit right at the foot of the hill going up to Crossville.
Daddy tried in vain to restart it, flagged down a passing car, asked the
driver to stop at the Yerby house less than half mile ahead, and tell them we were stranded. In a very few minutes, Uncle Denzel
came for us in his car. (Later that afternoon, Daddy got our car chugging
again for us to return home in it.)
I took
much from the abundance that was spread on the tables in the yard, stuffed
myself as full as possible with the delicious food, and then played with
cousins and listened to the adults talk as they sat in chairs and on simple
benches under the oak or pecan shade trees.
“They
say the new model cars are going to look really modern this year.” I recall
Uncle Denzel saying that. Soon, in September 1954, the 1955 model cars make
their debut on the market. You can “search” pictures of 1955 model cars and
pictures of previous models up to 1955, to compare them to see a bold
“leap ahead” in modern design of one of the main inventions of
the world that the common man uses to “run
to and fro” unto his destruction. .
The mid-1950s was a crucial
pivotal time in our nation’s history (sending more of the populace
speeding toward Hell), as much of its population began to daily
stare at length at a moving picture screen (at home and at the
local theater), enjoying viewing and lusting after the “world” portrayed
on that screen, and lusting after the many new machines (inventions, devices) of the world that the advertising on the
screen enticed the buyer to go into debt to buy, and then to love
and enjoy to the fullest, picking up speed as they head to destruction.
I think it was in 1954 that devilish rock music first entered our nation
in the form of the song, “Rock Around The Clock”.
Meanwhile on the pore farm, our 1937 car becomes hopeless. So Daddy starts looking for another car to buy, causing us growing children to look around at the attractiveness of newer model cars and hope our next car will not be extremely ancient. But Daddy must buy the cheapest, which again equates to the oldest. So, he buys a 1940 Nash Ambassador that is presently 15 or 16 years old. But it is much better than our 1937 car that just died on us, so we are plenty happy with it. Dad will drive that car till about 1971. Of a certainty, he got his money’s worth out of it.
When
school starts back at the beginning of September 1954,
Janiece starts the 9th grade, Sidney starts 5th grade, I
start 3rd grade, and Joe now
starts school in the 1st grade. That was a tremendous
help and relief to Daddy for Joe to be in school. Daddy (now alone on
the farm when we 4 are in school and thus totally able to devote himself
to that work), daily
toils ever so long and hard at the
farm work, typically quickly eating lunch alone each day, to then hurry
right back to work. This autumn all 4 of us kids earnestly pick cotton. This
year, some church people (especially kids & teens, but Pastor Cobb also
among them) come help us pick cotton on Saturdays, because Mother is gone. I greatly
enjoy their company in the cotton patch, and enjoy
picking that fluffy white cotton. Oh, life IN CHRIST is good!
God ordained
that grief and sorrow (brought on by tragedy or such) gradually heal with
time. I thank God this was true for Daddy (as an adult). As for us kids,
with each passing day we grew physically. God ordained that this
physical growth also aid in overcoming the searing grief of Mother’s
death. Children physically outgrow traumatic events. With each passing
day, it became easier for each one in my family to believe that life will
go on (and hopefully will get better with passing time). And it
did, thank God! As I daily gained a little more maturity, I steadily felt less
helpless (and less hopeless). That
felt good.
When I
start the 3rd grade in September 1954, Mrs. Chandler is my teacher,
a kind and diligent teacher. I’m glad
to be back in school. (Every
September I’m happy for school to start back). I enjoy the 3rd grade
from start to finish (this year, learning to write in cursive letters,
as opposed to block print).
This
year may have been the first time I worked in the school lunchroom for
about 30 minutes each lunch period. I got my lunch in return for that work. The
school would allow about a dozen students to “work for their lunch”. Poor
families asked for those jobs for their kids. I think all 4 of us Yerby kids “worked”
for our lunches some of the years we were in school. We didn’t get a job every
year we asked for it. I am thankful for the years I got to work for that
delicious, healthy, balanced school lunch. It wasn’t pizza one day, and spaghetti
the next day, as I hear is the case in many schools now, because that’s what
the kids demand. (Isaiah 3:12) “Children are their oppressors, and women rule
over them.” Such is SO prevalent in this end-time age.
In the
3rd grade, I study hard, make good grades, and immensely
enjoy school. (Enough details of my 3rd grade.)
Pleasant
autumn time in the cotton fields was plenty enjoyable for me. As soon as we
finish picking all our cotton, Daddy (with Sid and I) start pulling the corn
and hauling it to our barn on the wagon to store it in the corncrib, working
fast trying to harvest all the corn before the weather gets very cold, and
before much rain falls on the ripe corn (worsening it).
I look
forward to Thanksgiving (2 and half days off from school). Friends bring
delicious food to our house. I more
eagerly look forward to Christmas time, with Christmas (and New Year’s)
vacation from school about 2 weeks long, plus presents and
delicious food made Christmas nice for this boy.
This
year was our 1st Thanksgiving and Christmas without Mother.
Thus, on each of those holidays, friends and relatives heaped kindness upon us,
more so at Christmas time. During this Christmas season, one afternoon Uncle
James Yerby and wife came with much delicious Christmas food. They ate supper
with us, their food being most of our supper. (And they left the remainder of
it for us to eat in the coming days.) That evening, Uncle James drove us all to
Columbus to see the city’s pretty Christmas lights and decorations. It was much
bright fun, cheering my heart.
A few “extra”
people gave us children presents this Christmas, because Mother is gone. Many
good people bestowed much kindness upon us. It all helped tremendously. By now
there are several new, sleek-looking 1955 model
cars around. Each time I see one; I marvel as I gaze
with desire upon its worldly beauty, and newly
determine that I will not be poor all my life (like my Daddy). I’m
going to work hard (at anything except
farming) to become richer in order to gain much better material
things in life. I’m NOT going to drive a 15-year-old car, like Daddy does!
I
enjoy the 2 weeks of Christmas Vacation to the fullest, and
return to Mrs. Chandler’s 3rd grade classroom the first week in
January as the year of 1955 gets going. My 9th birthday soon arrives
in mid-January. I get no presents, but Daddy
planned a small special treat. At Christmas time, kind folks brought us
cakes, pies, and candy, which we quickly devoured. But Daddy secretly
took a few sticks of peppermint candy (that will keep well),
and hid them well on an upper shelf in the kitchen (near where Mother
had hidden her coffee from Jack). After supper on the night of my birthday,
Daddy brings out the hidden treasure, announces that it is for my birthday, and
each of us enjoys 2 sticks of that delicious peppermint candy, living ever
so luxuriously.
Upon
Mother’s death, Daddy started the custom of faithfully putting flowers
on her grave each Sunday, without fail. After Sunday
morning church, as our family headed back home, Daddy drove by the cemetery and
we 5 “visited” Mother’s grave as Daddy took up the week-old flowers and
replaced them with fresh ones, God-created flowers, not artificial
flowers.
We had
various flowers growing in our yard. Daddy would choose the loveliest from
among them, often choosing roses that Mother liked best. Mrs. Parson grew many
flowers in her large yard. At times, she would give us a bouquet for Mother’s
grave. Church people also did so at times. During the hot and warm seasons, it
was quite easy to obtain fresh flowers in season. But with the onset of winter,
that became more difficult.
So
there comes a cold winter Saturday night when Daddy has no flowers at
all, and no likely prospects of being given any at church on Sunday. He
brought that need to God when he prayed before going to bed. During the night,
Daddy dreamed that the next morning, he went out to the upper edge of our
vegetable garden (next to the hog pen fence), and
picked lovely yellow flowers to take to Mother’s grave.
He
awoke early Sunday morning somewhat amazed by his dream. He quickly
built the 2 fires in the living room and kitchen, and
soon took the water bucket and headed out the back door to pump a bucket of
fresh water from the well. A white frost covered the ground. It was cold
winter. Exiting the back porch Daddy would turn left to go to the water
pump. But before turning left, he looked to his right (toward the place the yellow flowers had been in his dream).
And
there they were,
lovely yellow flowers growing out of the ground, the surrounding plant
life and grass being winter dead with white frost on it. Never before had there been any kind of flowers there. Dad
cut those flowers and we put them on Mother’s grave
after the morning church service. Almighty God does work miracles today, and He
will readily
do so for a Christian farmer in poverty, grieving over the loss of his wife.
Daddy
buys a double tombstone for Mother and him, a big expense for his extremely
thin wallet. He asks us children what “writing” (from the Bible) we would like
engraved on it. Each of us has his and her personal opinion.
Daddy kindly guides in the final decision: “Not my will, but Thine be done.”
Tho Mother’s death meant much sorrow and hardship to us, God laid this most
appropriate Scripture on Dad’s heart regarding her death. Praise God for
Victory in Jesus, even in bitter death.
An
alert salesman keenly observing obituaries waited a “decent” amount of time
before paying us a visit. Sitting in our living room he explained how that he
could enlarge a picture of Mother and put it into a nice frame for us. He quite
easily made that sale. We chose the picture of Mother among her roses. (There
were ever so few photos to choose from.) The salesman studied the
picture. It was obvious from the well-known simple design on Mother’s dress
that her dress was homemade from cloth fertilizer sacks. My
precious Mother made it herself ever so plain and cheaply.
The
kind salesman said that he could enhance the enlargement by “coloring” the
dress pink (implying that we could disguise the “fertilizer sack” homemade
dress that reeked of poverty). Our poor family was highly in
favor of any free “enhancing” we could obtain at that time, so we happily
agreed to that. Soon we receive the finished, framed, colored, photo, and hang
it in our living room.
Presently
(2024), we 4 children still have that large picture of Mother in its oval
frame. The “color enhancing” work was not very advanced in 1954; thus, it did
not reach into the 2 “shadowed” areas of the dress under each of Mother’s arms.
When I now look at that area, the “fertilizer sack” design is highly visible
and brings back “fond” memories of those sacks. I greatly rejoice that the
lovely pink color could not totally conquer the “lowly fertilizer sack dress”
(her very own poverty induced handiwork) that Mother was wearing.
Along
about the time winter gives way to warm spring weather (about 1 year after
Mother’s death), the special attention and kindness everyone bestows on our
family naturally steadily declines along about now.
Almighty God knew just how much we needed, and for how long.
This
spring of 1955, Uncle Hershel may have been the only farmer who came on his
tractor to break and disk some of our fields before planting. To plant the
cotton and corn, Daddy 1st ran the fertilizer distributor (pulled by
one horse) that plowed a small furrow for each row (dropping a small stream of “powdered”
fertilizer into that furrow). Sid and I would pour fertilizer from the sack
into 2 buckets and have them waiting at the end of the row for Daddy to dump
into the “hopper”, and then go the next round.
“Greater
Yields from Roster Fertilizer.” I would gaze at that printed on the paper
fertilizer bags. At this age, I learned many words by looking at them in the
hymnbook as we sang in church. “Yield not to temptation, for yielding
is sin...” I had no idea what
the words “yield” and “yielding,” meant. But I knew for certain
they were sin, because it was right there in the hymnbook. So now
when I am able to read that this fertilizer gives
greater “yields,” I wonder why Daddy is using sinful fertilizer.
“Amazing,
what flows thru your mind, Little Boy!”
School
lets out at the end of May 1955 and I finish the 3rd
year of my schooling with flying colors and rejoice that summer is here. Though
we children are made to work harder each summer (because we are bigger and
stronger), we also are more able to enjoy God’s wonderful nature all around us
(absolutely free of monetary cost, that being a rich
blessing to poor farm children).
I like
to fish in the streams, creeks and ponds that are in walking distance of our
house. We kids would put together our own simple fishing tackle (pole, line,
bobber, lead and hook). We caught crickets or dug earthworms to use for bait.
Quietly watching that bobber from the bank 10 feet away, can anything match the
thrill of this boy seeing it start bobbing (greatly increasing my heartbeat)?
Then to see the bobber plunge down below the water’s surface, signaling that it
is time to jerk on the pole, and upon doing so, feel the resistance on the
other end that assures the fish is hooked. ‘Must be a hundred pounder!’ When I
get the 5-ounce perch to the surface, I am not one bit disappointed that it is
far short of 100 pounds. What a joy to catch 4 or 5 of them, take them home,
clean them, and eat them at our family’s supper table.
In the
summers, we (often with neighbor kids) swim in those streams. At some “swimming
holes”, we could tie a rope to a tree limb over the stream, swing out over the
water (grasping that rope), turn loose, and drop into the water.
Occasionally
while swimming, we would sight a water moccasin (poisonous water snake)
swimming with us, and that snake didn’t appear happy that we had invaded his
domain. We stayed on the lookout for such danger, and upon sighting that
scary-looking serpent slithering thru the water, the great fear that instantly
permeated a boy’s entire being seemed to give a boy the miraculous ability to rise up out of the water and “run on water” toward the
shore. Likely the serpent was amused at our rapid fleeing ability.
We had
mud ball fights while swimming. Going under water was a natural way to take
cover from incoming mud balls, the downside being that a body soon has to breathe. And as soon as the head surfaces for
a fresh breath, an enemy artilleryman is waiting to send a mud ball straight
for that head. Fun beyond compare!
Though
my family lived in poverty, we were richly blessed to be living
out in the wonderful and beautiful nature that God created (where blessings,
fun, blackberries, huckleberries, plums, mulberries, muscadines, and such
abound for free), as opposed to being captive in the ghetto slums of some large
city where hardtop, boredom, vice, violence, and sin abound. I
lived, worked, and played out in God’s blessed nature. That made for a most
blessed and rich childhood and youth. I thank my God for it.
In
1950, it was common for a farm man to make a slingshot and keep it handy in one
of the many pockets in his overalls. Our neighbor, Mr. Ormond, was a crack shot
with that simple weapon. He could hit a snake right in the head with the small
stone that sailed forth (propelled by releasing the tightly stretched rubbers).
Farm men (and boys) would use their slingshots against various animal pests.
Seeing
slingshots and their use as a weapon caused me to want my own. So, on my
own, I selected a small forked branch in a small
hickory sapling in the pasture behind the house, cut it to size for the yoke,
cut 2 rubbers from an old useless inner tube lying around, cut a pouch from
some kind of scrap material, and tied it all together. I was so happy to finish
it and now eagerly wanted to “test fire” it, of course. I chose a small stone
of appropriate size and loaded it into the pouch.
With
my loner’s nature, I am prone to do things alone (tho at times it is wise for a
little boy to have an older, wise advisor). Loner nature Daddy (not being prone
to help me with such) “lent” to my tendency to do things alone. This was one of
those exciting, dangerous times. ‘Let’s see now. I want the rock to fly away
from me. So, I guess I had better stretch it in that direction (away from
me).’
Possibly,
I had never actually seen anyone shooting a slingshot. And if I had previously
observed that, I certainly didn’t observe it close enough. So…using such
childish wisdom as my above “guess”, I grasp the stock in my
right hand, hold it at chest level, and with my left hand grasping the pouch, I
pull that pouch straight out front away from my chest as far as my short
arm can stretch the rubbers. I’m now ready to “fire”!
You
see, I had not yet learned in science class at school that for every action,
there is an equal and opposite reaction. But let me tell
you something, Reader Friend. As soon as I released that pouch and that stone
flew straight into my chest (bull’s-eye), it instantly imparted that direly
needed scientific knowledge unto me. I learned that science lesson in such
a painful fashion that the theory lodged in my brain much better than it would
have done from classroom instruction only.
Ever
since that day, I have always remembered to pull the
slingshot harness in the opposite direction I want the stone to fly.
(Nothing like trial and error to “drive the point (stone) home”.) I am
most blessed that God saw to it that I pulled that stone straight out at chest level. Had I held
it higher at eye level, pulled it straight away from my forehead for
better sighting advantage, and thusly released that stone, I might have been as
successful at slaying my own self as David was at slaying Goliath. (On
that day, I again possibly came close to sparing you the dull drudgery
of reading my life’s story.)
I
would search out an appropriate size hickory (hickory is limber) for making a
bow. I made arrows from the most appropriate stiff, slender and straight
reed-like “growth” I could find. Because we saved
everything, various kinds of “bow
string” were available in the house from which to choose. I enjoyed playing
with my handcrafted bow and arrows, but I have no “narrow escape from death”
story related to that weapon with which to amuse (or bore) you.
We
grew hay to feed the horses and cows. Daddy cut the hay with the horse-drawn
hay mower, let it lie in the hayfield a day or two to dry, and then raked it
into rows, and then the rows into piles with the horse-drawn hay rake. (This
was a time to pray hard that it would not rain on the cut hay lying in the field, and ruin it.)
Then
Sidney and I would go to the hayfield in the wagon with Daddy to haul in the
hay. Daddy put the high sideboards on the wagon for hauling hay (or for hauling
a bale of cotton). As the horses pulled the wagon from one hay pile to the
next, Daddy would throw the loose hay onto the wagon with a pitchfork, while
Sid and I tromped it down. Hay was light, so Daddy made us boys tromp it with
all our might in order to get all we could onto the
wagon before each trip to the barn. By the time Daddy said
“That’s enough for this load”, the hay rose above the wagon’s sideboards,
causing childhood fear to again rise high in my heart, because
I knew what life-threatening danger lay just ahead on each trip to the
barn.
I personally
preferred to walk to the barn rather than to “present your bodies
a living sacrifice”, by participating in the upcoming tumbling act (from a greater
and more dangerous height than the barber’s chair) (also with a
sharp, dangerous 4-prong pitchfork joining me in the tumbling). But Daddy
made Sid and me to ride on the wagon with him so we
all three could vainly try to hold down the loose hay to prevent the top
portion of it (above the sideboards) from sliding off the wagon when we exited
the hayfield angling sideways up a short, somewhat steep, incline to the road.
I
could have told Daddy that this high of a load will again slide
off the wagon at that crucial tilting place, exactly like several
previous high loads had done. But Daddy had no regard for this little kid’s
advice. He chose what he considered the most effective spot atop the
mountain of hay for each boy to sit (to hold the slick hay in place, presenting
his body a living sacrifice), and Daddy jabbed the
pitchfork down into another chosen spot in an effort to hold that area
of hay, and thus we were all set to go tumbling again (from a much
higher vantage point than the barber’s nail keg atop the rickety chair, and
in unison with a sharp 4-prong pitchfork). What an adventurous life!
Actually, we didn’t tumble every time we negotiated that short
incline at an angle. But we tumbled too many times for my pleasure, if I
may say so. As we neared that incline, I crossed my fingers, prayed, spread out
my hands and feet and dug them into the hay in a feeble effort to hold
it in place, begged God to keep me from getting killed, and soon began to feel
the hay under my dear body start to slide toward the lower edge of the
tilted wagon. Whereupon Fear engulfs my soul!
‘Here
we go again. Lord, I’m coming home!’ More
than once, that top portion of hay slid off the lower side of the wagon angled
on the incline, taking Sid and I and the pitchfork with it (a dangerous
combination). Daddy was always able to hold on to the horses’ reins and the
front boards of the wagon. I don’t think Dad himself ever joined
us boys in that fun tumbling act; tho Sid and I
practiced that stunt several times. (We should have joined a circus and gotten
paid well for our variety of dangerous tumbling acts.)
Either
boy could have landed upside down on his head and thus permanently ended
his heyday on this earth. Also, the interesting combination of 2
boys and 1 pitchfork doing the tumbling act together in “helter skelter fashion”
was an excellent combination for one boy to permanently
end his tumbling acts in a grand finale with a 4-prong pitchfork thrust
thru him. O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy
endureth forever.
Thank
Thee, My Precious Lord Jesus, for Thy Great Mercies shed abundantly upon our
poor farming family, time and again preserving our lives in dangerous
situations.
In
1950 (about the time my infant memory kicked in), natural water springs and
artesian wells abounded in our area. (We had an artesian well
outside at school.) As the devil’s world’s progress called for man to use more
water and enabled man to invent machinery to drill deeper wells and pump more
water out of the earth (lowering the water table), one by one most all of those
bubbling fresh water sources dried up. Our water spring back in the corner of
our pasture steadily became less dependable as a watering hole for our cows and
horses.
We set
a tub just inside the pasture fence near our water well beside the house and we
children received an additional chore of pumping water into a bucket and
dumping it into that tub for the livestock to drink there. But when the heavens
withheld rain for a spell, when slacking the thirst of both man and beast, we
sometimes pumped the well dry. So, Daddy dug a second well down in the east
edge of our pasture near the road.
He dug
it by hand with pick and shovel, 3 feet or more in diameter. When the well got
too deep for him to toss each shovelful of dirt up and out of the well, he tied
a rope onto the handle of a 5-gallon bucket. Down in the well, he would shovel
loose dirt into the bucket. We boys would pull the bucket up to the surface
with the rope and dump the dirt nearby. He nailed together a makeshift ladder
from boards, to use to go down into and to climb back
up out of the well.
As
Daddy kept digging deeper, we boy helpers excitedly looked forward to him
striking water, and soon he did. He then dug a little deeper with the
cold water rising up close to his knees. Then we
installed a short handle, short hand pump with its pipe
down into the well, brought the tub down here, led the horses and drove the
cows down here to introduce them this new place
to come quench their thirst. Those smart animals caught on quickly.
This
lower well had a better stream of water under it than our well next to the
house (higher uphill). Sometimes (on wash days and such) we still pumped our house well dry. At such times we boys lugged
buckets of water 100 yards (plus) from that lower well, up the hill thru the
pasture and veggie garden to the house. Returning to the house with that heavy
bucket of precious liquid, exiting the pasture at the vegetable garden required
me to negotiate that 3-strand barbed wire fence.
The safest
strategy would be to set bucket on the ground right under the bottom strand of
wire in line with fence, slither my body between strands of sharp barbs free
of heavy bucket, then carefully pull the bucket thru from the far side of
fence. But sometimes, I would lift up heavy bucket
trying to get it over top strand of wire. If my tired arms couldn’t get bucket
high enough, bottom rim of bucket would catch on a barb, causing me to spill my
precious cargo, walk back to well, fill said bucket again, and negotiate fence
more carefully next time. Never-ending fun and challenge!
A
neighbor lady living a short distance past our house occasionally dropped off
her son (about 6 years old now) to play with us when she went to town to shop.
One day while he was at our house, he began to miss his mother and started
crying. Janiece and we boys tried to cheer him up in various ways. I soon stole
the show with my destructive act.
We
were on the front porch, so I started jumping up and down on the wooden porch
at its west rear corner next to the wall of the house, knowing the old
floor would spring and bounce a little as I jumped. I hoped Crybaby would join
in and jump also to make it bounce more. But about that time, the nails that
were holding up a 4-foot-wide section of that back edge, pulled out from their
rotting wood pillar mooring, causing the back of that section to crash down to
the bare ground about 3 feet below. That sudden crash shocked us all. The boy
instantly stopped sobbing and laughed at it. I was thankful I didn’t get hurt,
and more thankful that Daddy didn’t hurtfully whip me when he came from
the field and saw the damage I had done to our decaying porch.
Shortly
after Mother died, one day Uncle Hershel was talking about that night she lay
in state in our non-sturdy old house. “When Austin was walking around in the
living room, I felt the floor give way a little each time he took a step. And
I got up and went outside.” Austin weighed 250 pounds or more. The weight
of the casket and several people in the living room was
straining the old weak floor (close to its limit, Uncle Hershel thought). So,
Uncle thought it wise and safe to subtract his weight (and
his presence). Thus, the floor would be more likely to hold up. And if
it didn’t, he would be much safer out in the yard when that old
floor collapsed under weight of coffin and several mourners. What a spectacle
that would have been at Mother’s viewing! Possibly increasing number of
corpses in the house, but not the number of caskets.
Daddy
didn’t bother trying to repair that section of porch that I broke loose. He
just stayed busy farming. The leaky roof steadily worsened. Each time it
started raining, the family “pot, pan, and bucket brigade” went into
action bringing out and placing those vessels in our attempts to catch every raindrop
falling on our heads (inside our house). As a child, my simple mind just
took each day at a time, not worrying about how much worse the roof (and entire
house) will be next month or next year. “Sufficient
unto the day is the evil thereof.”
At the
supper table one evening, I carelessly dropped one of our few
precious plates, and it broke. Striving hard to be ever so frugal in his dire
poverty, even such a small loss as a dish devastated Daddy plenty. (And this
wasn’t the first time for a kid to break a dish or glass.) So, anger arose
within him. He didn’t whip me, but he gave me a good tongue lashing about how
we can’t afford any such loss amidst our poverty. “Ya’ll keep
that up, and we’ll soon be eating out of bucket lids!” Two-gallon bucket lids
and larger 5-gallon bucket lids (made of tin, unbreakable) abounded
about our shack and barn, most being rusty.
Anyway,
that final word of his tongue-lashing struck Janiece as being ever so funny a scenario,
causing her to burst out laughing. Daddy didn’t like her laughing at it, so he
threatened her with a whipping. So, she straightened up her face and herself
(perched atop her “royal” inverted wooden nail keg throne at the
opposite end of the meal table from Daddy), but
continued chuckling under her breath as she ate her meager supper.
Sitting near her on my bench, I could hear her uncontrollable snickers continuing to roll as she ate. If Daddy heard them,
he graciously ignored them, and went about eating his fare.
Soon
Daddy turned away from the table for some reason. When he did so, Janiece
reached to a nearby shelf to the right of her and picked up a lard bucket metal
lid. Laughing silently, she shook it at us boys and quietly returned it to that
shelf before Daddy looked back her way. (Such were the
exciting, fun evening family events spun from our
lives of dire poverty.)
“Last summer”, I told you about the annual Yerby
reunion in late July (when our old car quit on us). Mother’s family held
the Cash family reunion each year on the 2nd Sunday in August
at the old country home place, where Uncle Vade Cash and family now (1955) live
(between Millport and Kennedy). I enjoyed it more than the Yerby reunion
because there was a pond down in Uncle Vade’s pasture and several of us kids
often swam in the pond that afternoon. At the Cash reunion, I enjoyed playing
much with many country cousins on Mother’s side of the family. This summer of
1955, I have much fun (and more tasty food than I can eat) at each of those two
separate, family reunions.
When September
1955 arrives, I am happy to return to school to Mrs. Woods’ 4th
grade class.
Each spring,
Daddy seldom got his crops planted “on time” (at the optimum planting
time, by the almanac). Most other farmers around us were timely in their
planting, resulting in them starting picking their
cotton before our cotton was ready to pick. A few farmers close to us
would hire pickers at 2 to 3 cents a pound for each pound of cotton picked.
Daddy would usually let us kids “pick for hire” for a neighbor until our cotton
was ready for us to start picking it (usually 2 weeks or so later). That way we
could earn a little money of our own. I was eager to do that. We picked cotton
for Mr. Tenniel, Mr. Ormond, Mr. Dewey, Mr. Gene, and maybe others. With the
pay incentive, I would snatch as much cotton as possible when picking for hire.
This
autumn of 1955, we labor busily to pick all of our
cotton and then pull the corn. Each afternoon when we 4 kids stepped off that
school bus at our empty house, we knew to hurriedly change into our work
clothes and head to the cotton field to join Daddy picking the cotton till
quitting time after 5 PM, and then return home to feed
farm animals before supper. We picked cotton all day on Saturdays, weather
permitting.
About
the time we finished picking all our cotton and payment for each bale of cotton was coming in to Daddy, it was a family
custom to sit down with the large Fall and Winter Sears and Roebuck catalog (or
their Christmas catalog), to order some clothes and shoes we needed. When each
kid was too small to make the right choice, Daddy would let the little kid pick
(a pair of shoes) by looking at the picture. Then Daddy would order appropriate
shoes. It may have been this autumn that Joe chose a picture of one shoe. (Only
one shoe was pictured for each pair.) “Now let me find another one to go with
it.” He chose another picture also (a different design for each foot). Daddy
told Joe OK, and then ordered a pair of shoes appropriate for Joe.
All of
us children wore “hand me downs” (used clothes and shoes handed down from an
older “family” child who outgrew them, or from friends who gave them to us pore
kids). Each fall when our order arrived from Sears, it was exciting to open the
package and see the nice new things we were getting to wear.
Seeing an older boy receive nice clothing or shoes, a younger boy often called
out, “I want that when you outgrow it!” One year, Daddy’s new pair of
work gloves looked nice to Joe. “I want those when you outgrow
them!” Joe quickly put in his bid to Daddy. Daddy simply told him “OK”, and let it go at that. Much about life is simple.
Holes
would wear into the soles of my shoes (and my brothers’). We would cut pieces
of cardboard to fit inside the shoe and walk on that cardboard. Each piece of
cardboard didn’t last long, especially when it rained. So, we just cut another
2 pieces and inserted into the old shoes. Life
does go on. By the Grace of God, people survive in harsh poverty.
As a
growing child, I constantly dreamed of the day when I would rise
above poverty. That was one of my main goals in life. With great
desire, I would stare long at the toys, bicycles, hunting and fishing equipment
(and such) pictured in those mail order catalogs, and
dream that one day I would have enough money to order all those things my
heart desired. One can always dream. But tragically,
all dreams and desires outside of The Lord Jesus Christ are basically vain.
Lost friend without the Saviour of all the earth; Jesus Christ is the One
Thing you need.
This
winter (as usual), I enjoy all the niceties of Thanksgiving
and Christmas to the fullest extent of my abilities (mainly my ability
to eat). Mother strove to get each child a “fun” Christmas present that the
child wanted. Now Daddy strives to get each of us one new article of clothing
for Christmas, the article each child needs most. Now, my one
Christmas present at home might be a new warm flannel shirt.
In
January 1956, this 4th grade boy turns 10 years old. Seems like a spurt
of growth to suddenly have 2 numerals to my age instead of just one. ‘I’m
getting big!’
We kids always longed to have company (visitors) come to our
lowly abode. It was easy to hear a car stop at our house because cars
were louder then, and our thin, ventilated walls readily allowed sounds
to come in. When we heard a car stop, we boys would run to the front window and
peer out. Janiece strictly told us that it was not good manners to stare
out the window to see who had arrived. She had a most difficult time
trying to “culture and refine” her 3 little brothers.
The
few occasional visitors usually came after supper, or on Sunday afternoon
(those being our “leisure” times). No telephone, so most visitors came totally
unannounced. Some Sunday afternoons we kids would sit on the front porch
and cross our fingers each time we heard an approaching vehicle, in
hopes that it would stop. We also played a game of each kid choosing one
vehicle name (Ford, Chevrolet, Dodge, etc.) and then each kid would count the
number of his or her vehicles that come by to see who scores the
highest. Simple fun and pleasure.
This
year at school (4th grade), Daddy lets me take piano lessons and pays
the one-dollar per week for one lesson per week. That
was most kind of Daddy in his dire poverty to pay for piano lessons for me. I’m
delighted to take them and learn well. I would have done much better if I could
have practiced those lessons on my own at home (or anywhere). We didn’t have a
piano, of course. We talked about me practicing on the piano at church, but
that opportunity was rare.
Come
December, my piano teacher asked me what I wanted for a Christmas present.
Almost never, did anyone ask me that. I felt like I
had an open ticket for anything my heart desired. ‘A
baseball, a bat, and a glove!’ I had never owned any one of those items, and it
seemed like a dream that I could just ask for them and get them. The piano
teacher gave me exactly what I asked for. She found a “miniature set”
of those 3 items together in one “display” box. They were almost simply toys,
the bat about the size of a policeman’s “billy club”,
and the rubber ball being just larger than a golf ball. Regulation size
baseball, bat and glove (that I pictured in my head) were not in
her budget for my Christmas present (she receiving
only a dollar a week from me for teaching me for an hour). Still, I was happy
to get the nice present she gave me.
Toward
the end of the school year, my piano teacher had a Piano Recital on a weekday
night and each of her students played their “piece”. I practiced my song much (“A
Hunting We Will Go”) and played it well at the recital. That night, Daddy
drove our family to the school where the recital was held in the auditorium.
(Admission was free.) So, family and lots of friends heard me play my piece
(for whatever historical value that may be). After that one year of piano
lessons, I was not able to continue taking lessons or
practicing what I had learned.
By God’s
Grace, I excelled in my 4th grade studies, generally considered each
school day to be fun and thrilled to be at school instead of on the poor farm.
Still, I was happy to see the school year end in late May
1956, and then start summer’s hard work (along with sufficient
fun times out in God’s wonderful nature).
Last
summer, or this year, Sidney and I graduated into Daddy’s job of planting our
cotton fields and cornfields with the horse-drawn planter. Daddy himself would
first “run the rows” with the fertilizer distributer (that being a heavier “machine”
and a more difficult job to accurately space the rows apart). The fertilizer distributer and the planter each required only one horse to
pull them. So, with the 2nd horse hitched up to the planter, Sidney
would grasp the 2 handles of the planter’s stock, I would grasp the 2 plow
lines and guide the horse straight down each row as Sid held up the planter
(the heavier and more tiring job). So, when Sid tired, he and I would switch
jobs, and thus we 2 boys now help Daddy in planting the crops.
Daddy
bought an old (much used) hay baler, not an
automatic bailer, but a motorized bailer that packed the hay into bales as
Daddy threw the hay into it with a pitchfork. Sid and I would run the 2 baling
wires thru the blocks and tie off each bale with the 2 wires. Daddy hooked the
bailer onto the back of the wagon and the horses
pulled it from hay pile to hay pile in the field. When we finished baling all
the hay, Daddy would kill the baler motor, unhook it, and then we would load
the bales of hay onto the wagon and haul them out to the barn loft to store
them there. I don’t recall if we did any tumbling acts from atop the bales of hay on the wagon, (therefore I will
not traumatize you with the scary details thereof).
We
spent much time chopping and hoeing the grass in the cotton fields, working in
our vegetable garden to grow and put away as much food as possible, and doing
various other “summer work”. Still, we got to go swimming or fishing at times.
Along about this summer, Daddy starts allowing each of us kids to go to a
relative’s house for a short summer vacation of 4 days to a week. I looked
forward to that fun time each summer. I recall staying with Papa and Mama Yerby
near Belk. Papa would walk with us kids down to the “channel” and watch us swim
in its chilly, clear, fast flowing waters.
We
boys would catch crickets in our fields and sell them to Uncle Hershel and
Uncle Robert as fish bait for a penny each. Sometimes those uncles would come
dig earthworms from under our rock under the kitchen funnel (for fish bait) but they seldom paid us anything for the worms.
Occasionally 1 or 2 other neighbor fishermen would buy our crickets. We boys
would pick up soft drink glass (returnable) bottles tossed on the roadside and
try to find a grocery store that bought them for 2 or 3 cents each. We strove
in every possible way to gain any little amount of relief from our dire
poverty.
Pastor
Cobb announces to our church that he will resign as our Pastor. The deacons
search for a new pastor and the congregation votes on Brother Ritch. He agrees
to become our Pastor. His family of four moves into the parsonage. His son
Kenneth is Sidney’s age and his son Jerry is my age. So,
Sid and I each gain another pal at church and enjoy being around Kenneth and
Jerry. Some years at school, I am in the same class (section) as Jerry.
Summertime of 1956 passes into the history books, as
we all steadily journey toward our Eternal Abodes.
The
End Of Chapter 6