Chapter 7
DESPAIRED EVEN OF LIFE.
(From the beginning of my 5th grade of school in
September 1956, until I start the 7th grade entering junior high
school in September 1958. Daddy and we his sons tear down our old shack and
build a new house for our family. Daddy remarries.)
After becoming
our pastor in 1952 or 1953, Pastor Cobb invited the men’s quartet (college
boys) from Free Will Baptist Bible College in Nashville, Tennessee to come to
our church a few times. One quartet member would blow on the pitch pipe and the
4 of them harmonized so well as they
sang old hymns acappella. One or more of those young men would preach the 2 or
more church services they attended. Bobby Jackson was a member of the quartet
with a good singing voice. He was also a powerful preacher boy. For 2(?)
summers, Pastor Cobb had Brother Bobby come as the evangelist to preach our
annual revival.
At this young
stage of my life, The Holy Ghost powerfully convicted me of my lost
condition and easily convinced me of the reality of eternal Hell
fire that awaits each soul that dies lost. I knew I was headed for that place of eternal
torment. Time and again, when the invitation was given at the end of a “Hell
fire and brimstone” sermon, I would go to the altar and kneel and pray,
confessing my sins and asking forgiveness. Each time I did so, I felt
forgiven and saved (from eternal Hell fire). That sure felt good
to this little sinner.
But within a
week or so, sins of hatred, meanness, anger, harsh words, fist fights with my
brothers, and possibly lying would come forth from my being. The devil would
then accuse me of losing my salvation and reverting to a lost Hell-bound
sinner. And the evidence sure was strong enough to convince me
that was the case.
Also, Free
Will Baptist doctrine teaches that a saved child of God can lose his or her
salvation by sinning. In the 1950s, a good number of the adult church members in my church
(including my Dad) were “repeated regenerationists” who believed that a
person could be saved, then lost, then saved again, but lost again if they went
back into sin. They believed any soul could continue that
horrible cycle any number of times during a lifetime. And it was
most easy for the devil to convince me of that, mainly because the Holy Spirit so wonderfully, clearly and
fearfully convicted me of my sins.
The result was
that most of the time I felt “hopelessly” lost for all eternity, because I
was totally failing as I tried to hang on to my salvation by not sinning.
All the adult Christians around me appeared as saints to sinful
brat me. I would never have thought that any of them had been as sinful as I,
when they were 9 years old. More and more, I became convinced that I
would never be able to make Heaven my home.
Such “hopeless”
thoughts endlessly weighed heavily on my mind, especially during
long hours of the drudgery of hoeing cotton in that hot sun. I just knew that
my life on earth would be nothing more than this present drudgery and that when
it soon ended, I would be tossed into eternal Hell fire. Thus, for a period of
7 years or so (say from 7 to 14 years of age), I wished I had never been born.
If eternal retribution was to be my certain fate, it would have been
best had I never been created at all. “Therefore I hated life”. (Ecclesiastes 2:17)
(From the
start of the 2nd paragraph of this chapter thru the previous
paragraph, are the reasons for the title of this chapter, not the fact that Mother had died.)
Thank God that
His Hand was upon me for good, thoroughly convincing me that I was the chief of
sinners and in need of a Saviour. This caused me to desperately seek the
Saviour, and to be found of Him and to be eternally
saved by Him. “If you cannot tell the time and the place you got saved, then
likely you are not saved.” From pulpits, multitudes of well-meaning preachers
have bellowed out the previous sentence (or one similar to it). Their motive is
good. They want all the lost souls under the sound of their voice to get saved.
I
cannot tell the time I
got saved, because I went to that altar many times to get saved. Praise
God that I do know for a certainty that (somewhere along the way) a Loving God
saved me, made me His child, and daily (and nightly) is guiding me on my
earthly journey to God’s Glorious Heaven. I am most thankful to God for saving
me eternally. And as I pen
these words at age 78, I invite you to “Come thou with us!” Please call on The Saviour of the world to save
you. Please join me on my journey to Heaven.
We’re marching to Zion. Beautiful, Beautiful Zion.
We’re marching upward to Zion, The Beautiful City
of God.
Mrs. Newman is my teacher when I enter
the 5th grade in September 1956. This year I work in the lunchroom
with another boy, taking the returned plates, scraping off the remaining
food into the large metal garbage can (for a hog owner to take to his hogs),
and then running the plates and silverware thru the dishwasher. I was appalled
to watch my fellow worker choose, take, and eat from the remaining food on
students’ plates. There was no rule against doing that. It was not stealing food (from those hogs?). Also,
it was clean food. I just
thought it too low a thing for even
a poor boy like me to do. Plenty proud I was.
But as I watched him daily doing so, the
benefit of eating free, healthy food easily overcame my pride, causing
me to lower my standards. (I caught on quickly, changing my position on that social
issue.) And when no one else but my fellow worker was watching, I too chose my
favorite scraps on those plates and partook of them. It was quite a step above
the prodigal son eating husks with the swine. I wasn’t a prodigal son,
just a poor son. In our hurried work at lunchtime, that guy and I had no
time to use fork or spoon, just pick up a food scrap by hand, shove it into
mouth, lick fingers if food remained on them, and keep busy at our work. (Yes, it certainly
would have been an interesting sight for you to have observed.)
The number of students at Vernon school
is increasing. So, this year, I watch construction workers block off a section
of our large playground and start construction on a new school building that
will become the elementary school next year. The junior high school classes
will expand into the present elementary school classrooms. There is no other
outstanding school news for my fifth grade. By the grace of God, I studied hard
and made very good grades, and thoroughly enjoyed everything at school. It was fun
being there, interacting with many people, learning, growing, and
steadily pulling myself up by my own bootstraps (or so I naively believed).
At home, the seasonal farm work
continues as usual so I will cease commenting on anything other than changes or
new developments in it. Also, I have adequately described the annual joys of
Thanksgiving and Christmas events, so I will cease mentioning those 2 fun days
unless there is significant, related news. This 5th grade Christmas,
Daddy agreed to let me buy my own BB gun at Christmas if I could save up enough
money to buy it ($7 or so). I was able to save enough to buy the Daisy “lever
action” air gun for BBs. It was cheaper than the “pump” version that had a
stronger discharge. Fortunately, I did not start out by firing it in the wrong (opposite)
direction as I did with my first slingshot.
In January 1957, I turn 11 years old. I
get no birthday presents, no news media reports it, but I still greatly rejoice
that I am growing up, something I want to do in a hurry.
However, big changes occur this year regarding our family. Daddy
begins dating a widow named Lucille, giving her a ride to church and sitting
with her in church. Soon he announces to us 4 kids at home, that we are going
to move out of our collapsing house, tear it down and build a new house. Such
news filled me with joy, highly excited over the prospects of getting a new house to live
in.
Daddy is a family man, planning to
remarry. No bride would move into this deteriorating shack that is becoming
impossible for human habitation.
I think I was the kid that brought up
the obvious question. ‘But where will we live while we tear down and rebuild?’
Daddy answered that we would live nearby in the now vacant collapsing
old house where Clyde’s family had previously lived.
I chuckled thinking that Daddy couldn’t
be serious about us living (even temporarily) in such a dilapidated house.
Why, I had already personally mentally condemned that vacant shack as
being unfit for human habitation, and even furthered its awful condition by occasionally
chunking a rock thru one of its glass window panes when I walked past it (and
no other soul was around to hear or see my sinful crime). Though I chuckled now
thinking Daddy must be kidding, I certainly didn’t speak up about my crimes.
But (in awe), I saw that Daddy was most
serious as we soon began to clean up that old vacant shack. Daddy cut pieces of
scrap tin to place in each window frame that was void of a glass pane (while I earnestly pleaded the 5th
Amendment by keeping silent about my crimes, feeling badly about them now,
seeing that I will have to live in that house for more than a year). “Whatsoever a man soweth, that
shall he also reap.” That Scriptural Truth applies to bad little boys as well as to adults.
The east half of this shack’s
wooden front porch fell in some time ago, (but I had not
broken it down by bouncing on it). That was one of the few destructive
acts of which I was innocent. To enter this front door, we walk across the bare
earth where that collapsed section of porch is now missing and up the makeshift
wooden steps to the remainder of the porch, which fortunately extends back this
way past the front door that opens into the hallway.
There is a back door in the kitchen, but
no back porch. The back door was crudely handmade by nailing 3 boards in a Z
figure onto vertical boards to hold them upright in place. (I pretended that Z
stood for Zorro.) This personally handcrafted Zorro back door had no
doorknob. Instead (about 4 feet up the door facing) one nail in the
center of a short portion of wooden board (about 10 inches long), held it in
the “facing” (frame) of this door. That board was the door’s latch. Rotate it
by hand (pivoting on the nail) straight up and down the facing to release the
door for opening it. Rotate the board 90 degrees crosswise across
the door to hold the door shut. Simplicity to the highest degree.
Due to the fact that this shack was
slowly collapsing, this back wall was leaning a few degrees inward.
Thus, we had to keep this back door latched when we wanted it closed, because
the door automatically opened inwards
(into the slant angle) when the latch was rotated to the vertical, releasing
the door. I wonder if we could have gotten a patent on that type of “automatic opening” door, but not
automatic closing?
The faithful slop bucket was placed in
this kitchen to receive scant food remains for the hogs. But we were missing
the convenient sewage water disposal device of a funnel thru a hole in the
kitchen floor thru which to funnel kitchen wastewater downward to the earth. No
problem. Just rotate door latch to the vertical, releasing the automatic Zorro door to
swing open inwardly of its own accord, and fling the pan of dirty dishwater out into the small
backyard of weeds (which seemed
to thrive on it. (Perfect modern conveniences, and most cheap to boot.)
We pack our clothes and such into
cardboard boxes to haul them to this house in the car, and we move larger
household items by horse and wagon about 400 yards out to this house. This
shack has a fireplace in the west wall of the living room for heating instead
of a wood stove. Daddy places his and Mother’s double bed in the corner of that
small living room. Janiece sleeps there. We place the other 2 double beds in
the only small bedroom across the hall. Daddy and Joe sleep on one bed. Sid and
I sleep on the other.
Daddy and we boys set in tearing down
our family house. We continue the farm work in the fields and vegetable gardens
as well. All our farm animals, chickens, hogs, cows and horses stay
in place. Sid and I now walk that 6-minute walk to our barn early in the
morning to milk cows, feed animals, and then walk back to our temporary house
to eat breakfast before catching the school bus on the road behind that house.
(The back of the house is toward the highway. A narrow dirt road is in front of
the house.)
Summer of 1957, we work all our crops in
addition to tearing down the house. We were plenty busy. Daddy buys a used
chain saw (ever so loud and noisy that old saw was), and with it, he cuts down pine trees
in our woods, hauls them to a “sawmill” where he and the sawmill’s owner saw
them into appropriate sizes of lumber to use in building our house. Sidney and
I help. I am fascinated with the sawmill’s operation.
One summer day, Daddy let Sidney and I
go fishing with Uncle Hershel. And the next evening, Aunt Virgie fried our
catch of fish at their house, for our family of five to eat that delicious fish
supper with Uncle and Aunt. I stuffed myself with fresh fish and the good vegetables.
At the end of the meal as the adults are
talking, Aunt Virgie announces some delicious news. “We’ve got ice cream in the
freezer.” How my ears perked up and my taste buds instantly began savoring that
store-bought ice cream. But regretfully Aunt Virgie has more to say. “I’ve heard that
eating ice cream after eating fish can kill a person.”
For the first time in my short
life, I was faced with a cause for which I felt willing to risk giving my life (eating
delicious store-bought ice cream, after eating fish). Daddy spoke up saying
that he didn’t think there was any truth to that fable. I didn’t speak up, but
I sure was willing to be a guiena pig by stuffing myself full of ice
cream to see if that might be my last act on earth (parting this life in such a
delicious and satisfied manner). I hung suspended in hope for a minute
or 2 as the 3 adults debated back and forth on the subject. But in the end Aunt
Virgie dropped the idea of an ice cream dessert, much to my disappointment
(missing my chance to possibly become a martyr to “ice cream following
fish”).
At this time, at church Lucille is
teaching the Sunday evening children’s League (Training Union) class that I am
in. She arranges with the small TV station in nearby Columbus, Mississippi for
our class to be on their live Saturday morning children’s program. I got all excited about
that.
The day of our dazzling performance, Daddy takes Lucille and a carload of us
kids. Two other church adults chauffeur kids in their cars, a total of about 12
of us kid movie stars making our first debut onto the screen. The studio workers arrange us
seated center stage, rehearse that show’s theme song with us a couple of times,
and “presto” the show goes live on the air with a studio worker banging on a
piano and us country hick kids enthusiastically singing.
“Welcome to
Channel 4, where everyone always sees more.
Every day of
the week, throughout the year,
Channel Four
is always here to bring you loads of cheer.
We are so glad
you’re all here! Open the door!
Welcome you
all! Welcome to Channel Four!”
(Isn’t it amazing, the way dumb, vain
ditties tend to lodge in our minds forever.) Then the host comes to each seated
child with the microphone, has the child give name and age, and interrogates
each kid concerning that which their lives consist of. Hogs. Pigs. Horses.
Cows. Fishing. Playing. Such made up the content of our amusing answers to a
small TV audience.
Also, each child was allowed the
opportunity to give a short individual performance (if they desired).
But only a few of us country
kids were talented enough to even think
up an individual performance. Of course I was one of those few. (No, I did not replay my first
shot with a slingshot.) Rather, I recited the poem, “What Is A Boy?” (I will
spare you the boredom of reading it here, simply because I have forgotten most
of it.) But this rural hick kid actually stood holding a microphone, dead center in
front of a real TV camera on a live broadcast (just like presidents of
nations do), and clearly cited my poem from memory with no glitches or
mistakes. (Some presidents have done worse with some of their deliveries.)
Back in the Vernon area, our church
people who had a TV were glued to it, proudly watching their own church kids star on stage. We Yerbys
had no TV in our shack. Janiece was older than Lucille’s kids’ class, so she
stays home. But she walks the shortcut, thru the woods to Mr. Ormond’s
house on a dirt, side road, tells wife Annie that we kids are appearing on TV
this morning. So, Annie tunes in Channel Four in plenty of time for us to sing
our welcome song to her and Janiece.
While I am reciting my poem, Mr. Ormond
walks in from where he was working outside. He briefly stares at the child star
on his TV screen. “That looks like Richard”, he says (thinking it couldn’t possibly be this barefoot
farm boy).
“That IS Richard!” Annie answers up
loudly in her slow Southern country drawl. Greatly amazed that I have made the “Big
Time”, Mr. Ormond continues to stare and listen to “What Is A Boy?” Less than 4
years ago, I briefly watched TV for the first time. Now I is appearing on TV. Marvels do happen, even to poor country kids.
My speech lasted only about 4 minutes.
But upon handing the mike to me, the show host walked gracefully off camera,
then hurried further away in the studio and quickly “lit up” to quench his “nicotine
fit” (still in our sight) (such a fine example for the host of a children’s
show). Anyway, my eyes sort of became glued onto him (puffing hard offstage
to get his fix), wondering if he would get back to me by the time my speech
ended. But because he has practiced those brief puffing breaks many times, he
has them timed perfectly. This time he gracefully arrives back at my side with a few seconds to
spare, before taking the mike from me and complimenting me on my fine speech.
Though this boy could smell
the stench of the cigarette smoke on him, none of the TV audience can smell it. I
reckon that fact has some
merit to it.
A herd of talent scouts soon descends
upon our farm shack with lucrative contracts for me to sign. Disregard that previous sentence
as fancy fiction. Having been
a child star for 30 minutes, I quickly revert to my opposite Cinderella outfit
(barefoot in ragged farm clothes), and just keep slaving away at my summer farm
work, while the entertainment world continues to turn as usual, totally
ignoring my fine talent, much to their detriment.
Though my farm family is poor
financially, each summer I can eat to the fullest of delicious apples,
peaches, grapes, watermelons and cantaloupes that God’s nature produces in
abundance on our farmland. We grow many other fresh veggies that grace our meal
table, but I considered the above list the most delicious treats. Some on the
list were set out (or planted) and cultivated by us. The previous owner of our
farm had set out the fruit trees, a scupidine vine (similar to muscadine, but
sweeter), and a grape vine. I delighted to stand at either of those vines,
picking the sweet fruits off them and eating them on the spot.
Wild dewberries, blackberries,
huckleberries, mulberries, plums, muscadines, and such, abounded in the
meadows, woods, bushy areas, on ditch banks, and such. But chiggers (redbugs)
abounded more, and delighted to attach themselves to my body and eat away at
me, causing irritating itch. We made jellies, jams, and preserves from many of
these berries and fruits, and occasionally baked a delicious pie from
them.
When we get our old house completely
torn down, the county road commissioner for our district hauls a bulldozer here
on a truck. Big Man Austin is its operator. With the bulldozer, Austin grades
the house and yard area level to accommodate building a new house. No longer is
there a large rock under which earthworms find food and shelter.
We dig foundation trenches by hand (pick
and shovel). Then we haul rocks in the wheelbarrow down from the hill behind
the house place, and line those trenches with rocks (freely given by God) to
reduce the amount of money-bought concrete that would be needed. We mix
concrete on site and wheelbarrow it to the trenches, dump it in and smooth it.
After it hardens 2 days or so, then Daddy begins laying the concrete block
foundation. It sure looks different from the piles of rocks on which our old
shack set. ‘This is great!’ My heart proclaims within me as I look at those
straight and level rows of concrete block foundation. ‘We are going to have a grand house!’
In the hot summer sun, under our straw
hats, Sidney and I brush creosote onto the wooden pillows that are to be placed
on top of the rows of concrete blocks. The creosote burns our skin badly as we brush
it out in that hot sun.
These wooden pillows were 6 inches by 8
inches (I think). They were heavy. It was an immense relief to me to finish
brushing creosote onto the final one, because then the painful blisters on my
face, hands and arms would start healing. All workers present would together
lug the heavy pillows one by one and place them in line on the rows of concrete
blocks. (At times, one or 2 other men would help Daddy, Sid, and me. Lucille’s
youngest son, Rayburn, helped on occasion.)
Upon placing the last pillow, Daddy soon
begins nailing on the subfloor. Our old house had no subfloor. Our poor family
is moving up in the world. As the area of completed subfloor increased, it felt
so good to be able to walk around on that floor (as opposed to walking on the
ground below it as we had been doing). We tote more boards and stack them on
the floor, along with our water jug, tools and such. ‘Truly, a new house is
shaping up right before our eyes!’ That was most exciting to watch.
One summer day, Joe walks from the house
down to the field where Daddy, Sid, and I are farming to bring news to Daddy. “Brother
Ritch came to look at the house. He was walking around on the subfloor and a
board broke thru under him, skinning his leg.”
Our Pastor Ritch was a carpenter in
addition to being a preacher, doing carpentry work to supplement the low
income he received from the church. In addition to observing our poor family
bettering our lot in life by building a new house, he also wanted to look
over Daddy’s carpentry work. So, this day, he came to look at the
construction.
As we tore down the old house, Daddy
saved every wooden board and every nail from it that could possibly
be used in building our new house. I think every board we now put into
the sub floor came out of the old house, each of those boards
being in varying stages of rottenness. As Pastor Ritch walked the subfloor checking
it out, unfortunately he stepped on a board in an advanced rotten stage.
As his foot broke thru it, the board’s jagged edges scrapped the calf of his
leg plenty. Regrettably, that is how
his inspection of our “new” house construction turned out → “New sub floor, falling thru!”
Several months ago, when Daddy first
announced to us kids that we were going to build a new house, that
news was an immense
joyous surprise to me (having lived all of my short life in a dilapidated,
leaking shack that was collapsing on us). ‘A new house!!’ In my excitement, my simple child’s mind
more or less equated newness with grandeur. ‘The newer a
house be, the grander it be.’ That was my simple thinking. I had seen several very nice houses.
And I sort of pictured our upcoming house being nicer than any of
them simply because it would be newer than any of
them. So, I excitedly looked forward to soon living in the nicest house in the
area.
But upon the tragic result of Pastor
Ritch’s inspection visit today, I was instantly enlightened regarding reality.
Newness does not equate with
grandeur. In fact, regarding my family’s new farmhouse presently under construction using old rotten boards, newness does not even equate with newness. It was a
letdown to this little boy to obtain the knowledge of this disappointing
reality.
Daddy replaces the broken board with a somewhat
less rotten board, and our new house
construction proceeds in all its grandeur and rottenness.
And with time, Pastor Ritch’s wounded leg heals, thank God.
At the start of September 1957, I enter
Mrs. Woods’ 6th grade class. This is my 2nd time to have
her for a teacher. She is a most fine teacher and I’m glad to be in her class.
And the elementary school is now in its new building (for the 1st
time). But, the new brick building with concrete tiled floors did not
have enough classrooms (likely because the governments that paid for it didn’t
have money to build enough). So, they moved a 4 room, square wooden building
(intact) from the nearby existing school grounds and placed it near this new
school. Till now, it was high school
classrooms. The 5th and 6th grade classes (2 sections
each) are in these 4 classrooms. I like being in class in this old wooden
building, its floors not yet rotten.
This year, as the school day ends each
day, I go sweep one of the 2nd grade classrooms to earn my lunch in
the school lunchroom. Regretfully, there were no
food scraps lying around on this classroom floor for me to pick up and eat as a
fringe benefit to this job, like I ate scraps off of plates when working
in the cafeteria.
Each school year, one or 2 movies are
shown in the auditorium for students who can afford the admission charge. When
I was in grammar school, I think the cost was 15 cents for kids thru grade six
and 25 cents for 7th grade thru 12th grade students. Each
movie time, kids who didn’t attend sat in their classroom during the movie. Usually,
it was same poor kids sitting
in a classroom with teacher and same rich kids attending the movie. You can guess that I sat in the
classroom, but not every time. Sometimes I had money for the movie. Awe struck,
I watched the devil’s friend Peter Pan (pan god) do all his dazzling flying and
such. I got to watch the touching movie of the black sheep that won the blue
ribbon at the fair. Each year, there might be 1 magician show. More than once,
I had the money to be fascinated by his trickery.
Daddy and Lucille’s dates become more
frequent. During my 6th grade year at school, late most every
Saturday afternoon our family would stop our work, take our weekly bath, eat
supper and then Daddy would go to Lucille’s house in town to visit for 2 or
more hours. We kids could tag along with Daddy if we wanted, and each of us did
go at times. I often went because I wanted to watch Matt Dillon (and
others) on Saturday night TV in that house. At this time, Lucille lives in
Vernon with her youngest son and her mother. They don’t have a car. Lucille
works at the garment plant in Vernon and rides with another worker on that
short commute. On Sunday afternoons, often Daddy and Lucille go for a drive or
go visit someone. If we kids want to go, we’re tolerated. I enjoy meeting new
people, as we visit several of Lucille’s acquaintances.
On the farm, I continue to shoot BBs at
birds and such, but I long to fire heavier artillery. (Growing boys
desire to move up to mightier warrior status.) At this time, Daddy owns
only one firearm; a very old 12-gauge double barrel shotgun. It has been years since he had
fired it. I had never known him to fire it during my short lifetime. It just
stood (stock-down), leaning against the wall in a corner of his bedroom.
Occasionally I would pick it up and shoulder it. ‘Heavy! And they say a 12-gauge
“kicks” hard!’ (Recoils sharply)
Sidney and I both grow into a desire to
fire that shotgun. We ask Daddy if he thinks the old gun is still safe to fire. Soon
Sid or I buy a couple of shells for it. Sid or Daddy test fires it. Upon doing
so, the barrels and chambers stayed intact (as opposed to blowing apart,
killing or injuring the Shooter), causing us to deem it still safe to fire.
Daddy gives Sidney and me permission to hunt with it.
As twilight falls one evening, I take
the heavy shotgun out of its lodging place in the corner of our bedroom in this
temporary house. Outside in the yard, I load one shell into one chamber only, and start walking down the Old
Road. Rabbits are known to hop out of the bush and sit in the dirt road when
twilight comes. I walk quietly, squinting down the road in the failing light. ‘There’s
a rabbit!’ The lovely bunny is only
doing what it enjoys doing each
evening, but today it will play the fatal role necessary in this historical scenario of promoting this boy into the role of a successful “big-eared” game hunter.
I have not yet fired this piece of heavy
artillery and am plenty fearful of how hard it will “kick” me. Older,
experienced shooters had told me to pull the stock tightly against my
shoulder, so as to not give it any room at all to pick up speed as it kicks back
and hits me. I ease the safety off, shoulder that heavy gun, and firmly
gripping the appropriate place with each hand, I pull the stock tightly
against my shoulder, and place my trigger finger on the front trigger that
fires the right-side barrel. I did not load both
barrels because upon firing one barrel, the recoil can cause the trigger finger
to accidently slip, pulling the second trigger also shooting from the second
barrel (instantly), giving a double
punch to the shoulder. I made sure to avoid that possibility.
Having acquired the safest and most
likely accurate stance possible, I again squint down the road, just barely able
to make out the lovely outline of that bunny still sitting there in the
increasing darkness. If he had known that this ferocious hunter was gunning for him, he would have hopped 2 farms away by
now. I squeeze the trigger.
“Ka Boom!”
‘That sure was loud! But I can handle the kick OK! It hurt,
but not badly! I can
shoot this big gun!’ (I’m elated to just have successfully fired this big
shotgun, no matter if I missed my target.) ‘I wonder if I hit him! Probably
missed! That’s a lot of smoke! The smell of that burnt gunpowder sure is
strong!’ In the dim twilight, I squint thru the gun smoke, but can see nothing.
I keep squinting as I walk that way, but see no deceased rabbit yet. ‘Likely he jumped into the bushes when
I shot (but missed), and is long gone by now. Too bad!’
But as I get closer, I see the bunny
lying on the road, restfully
sleeping forever. The peaceful look on his lifeless face assures me that he was pleased with having played his fatal role so well,
and that he no longer has any worries or cares of life. ‘I got him!’ This little
hunter had bagged his big-eared game. I
happily and proudly carry my hunting trophy home and lay it on the front porch.
I walk on air out to the barn to do nightly chores where Daddy and Sid are
doing the same, in the dark.
‘Did you hear that shot?’
“Yeah,” came a disinterested reply.
‘I got a rabbit!’ Neither of them is
very excited about it. When we soon walk back to the house in the dark, I
excitedly look on the porch where I laid my kill (wanting to show it off to
family). But no kill
is in sight. In our poverty, our poor dogs stayed half-starved. No
doubt Blackie happened upon that bunny of mine, carried it out to the edge of
the yard and happily, instantly set about making it his fast-food supper.
The next morning, in the daylight I walk
around the yard area looking for any remains of my rabbit where Blackie had
feasted on him. But I find no remains. Starving Blackie likely ate all that rabbit; hide,
hair, bones, buckshot and all! But no doubt the bunny was
doubly pleased that his very last act on earth was
one of benevolent domestic aid,
providing a “well-balanced” meal (the above ingredient list) for a poor,
half-starved Yerby dog.
Throughout autumn, we busily
harvest our farm crops as usual, and keep building the house as time permits. Sidney and I each
want a .22 caliber rifle of our own. Daddy tells us both that he will now let
us have our own .22 rifle, but that he is not able to buy them for us as
Christmas presents from him. So, Sid and I each scrap and save our pennies
while Daddy helps us look around for used .22 single-shot rifles (the cheapest
of rifles).
Used firearms for sale abound in this
rural area of hunters and riflemen. I find a used one in a store in Vernon that
I like, priced at $12. Daddy looks it over carefully, approves of it at that
price, and I happily buy it. In a few days, Sidney soon buys a used rifle from
one of our neighbors for $10. Each of these is a .22 caliber single shot rifle.
So, in December 1957, about one month before I turn 12 years old, I obtain my first “real” firearm of my very
own, making me happy and proud.
Overjoyed upon buying my first real
rifle, along with a box of 25 cartridges (ammo), I’m most eager to fire it when
we arrive home from town after dark. “Try to hit one of those hickory nuts.”
(Tho it’s dark, the nuts hanging in the tree are plenty visible against the
lighter sky background.) With that urging from Daddy, I load a cartridge, take
hurried aim at one nut on the hickory tree in the yard, and squeeze the
trigger.
“Bang!” No kick. Not so loud. Just a
little smoke. Missed. In my excited
rush, I completely miss the hickory nut in my sights. (I guess that rabbit days
ago wished I had clearly missed him in like manner.) Daddy asks me to donate
one cartridge to him. He loads, takes good aim and shatters the nut he had put
in the gun’s sights. No problem with the sight alignment. This little novice
shooter will just have to aim better. Getting a real firearm is the highlight of my 6th
grade Christmas of 1957.
In January 1958, I turn 12 years old,
rejoicing to add another year to my age. I want to grow up! Hurry! Am I the
only child that ever felt that way??
Thru out the winter, Daddy and his crew
of little sons continue to work hard building our new house. My heart delights
to help nail together and raise the frames for the walls and see them standing
in place. Now we have some “height” in place, not just the flat floor. Next,
the ceiling beams and rafters. Many of the boards we nail down for the roof’s
decking are used lumber. Thankfully none is rotten enough for a foot to crash
thru as we walk over them as we work. Then we cover the roof’s wood decking
with black felt paper (tar paper) and Daddy tacks on asphalt shingles to finish
it. Those shingles will not be prone to split like the wooden ones on the old
house. We could not use the fragments of those wooden shingles anywhere in
building this new house (which is a blessing). We use most of them for firewood
in the kitchen cook stove.
This winter or spring, one night they
held a talent show in the school’s auditorium. And of course, this highly
talented boy just had to enter that show. This 6th grade boy again
recites his poem, “What Is A Boy?” The talent show was open to contestants all
way thru 12th grade. First, Second, and Third place cash prizes were
awarded ($15, $10, and $5, I think). A small group of high school students that
played and sang together as a band easily took first place. I think 2nd and 3rd
place winners were high school or junior high students. Older kids who had a
few more years than I to refine their talents outgunned me. (No problem. By God’s
Grace I’ll just keep growing every day, and with His Help, refine my talents
and use them for His Glory.)
Parents and local adults attend the
talent show. Daddy comes. The auditorium is quite full of souls. As they
announce the 3 winners one by one and call them up front to get their loot, I
hope against hope that my name will be called. Vain was my hope. But as some
dignified person is closing down the gathering by thanking everyone for
participating and attending, one of the lady judges quietly makes her way down
the backside of my row of seats, taps me on the shoulder when she reaches me,
extends one closed hand toward me, and whispers to me.
“Even though you didn’t win one of the
three prizes, we judges wanted you to have a prize too, a fourth prize.” Surprised, I put my
open hand under her closed hand as I can readily see she wants me to do. She
slowly let the coins slip as silently as possible into my hand. I thank her,
put the coins into my pocket and wait until I get into the car to go home to take
the coins out and count them. $1.85. Likely with Mother’s death and my family’s
poverty in mind, the 3 kind, gracious judges all pulled out some pocket change
and pooled it to award me $1.85 (or thereabouts, I forget exactly). I
was touched by their kind
deed, and was most thankful to
get that spending money.
‘I wonder if the reenactment of my first
slingshot shot would have won a prize that night? If only, if
just only, I could have reenacted my “big eared” game hunter making
his first kill with that big, heavy shotgun. No doubt that talent would have
“brought the house down”.’
“Hush, Richard!”
‘Yes, Sir. Come to think of it, that sho
ain’t no indoor act, is it?’
Winter gives way to spring (1958) as we
busily build the house. But this spring, Daddy does not plant our cotton crop.
Working the cotton requires much time. This year, we need that time for
building. At this time, the U.S. government will pay farmers to not plant their cotton,
letting lie idle and fallow on his farm the field acreage allowed his size farm
by the government for cotton (a money crop that Uncle Sam “helps” keep at a
good price by controlling the amount farmers are allowed to produce). So, Daddy
takes that payment from the government this year. We do grow our other
crops of corn, hay, vegetables and such.
Seeing slow but steady progress
on building the house warms all our hearts. It’s a slow go with this limited construction crew of father and small
sons, the sons going to school and the entire crew doing a lot of farming. Upon
getting the roof “in the dry” we nail on the outside walls (used boards), tack
black tar paper onto those outside walls and install used windows that came out
of an old (small) school building Daddy got for free for tearing down the (no
longer needed) building. He also got doors, lumber and such from that school
building to go into our “new” house. “Patchwork Castle” would have been
a good name for this “new” castle of ours.
Upon installing the windows and doors
after nailing on the outside walls, we now have the house in the dry. We
rejoice to arrive at this important stage of accomplishment.
(Let me now finish up what I tell you of
this school year, as the end of it is somewhat of a milestone for my
family.) At the end of May, Janice graduates from high school. All of
our family attends her class’s commencement ceremony on a Sunday, after Sunday morning
church. Then we attend her class’s graduation ceremony a few nights later. Now
my big sister has graduated from high school! ‘Congratulations, Sis!’ (Neither
of our parents graduated from high school.)
Sidney is now in junior high school. And
at the end of this school year (at the end of May 1958), I finish the 6th grade, completing elementary school. In these
ancient days, the schools in our area have a graduation ceremony only for the 12th graders
graduating from high school. But
the 6th grade has a Formal. Each boy chooses a girl for his partner.
I ask Rebecca to be my partner and she agrees.
The two 6th grade teachers do
most of the planning and organizing for the upcoming Formal. They choose me to be the Master of Ceremonies. I am honored. We practice
several times, a few dance-like routines and such. I am to make several
announcement-like speeches throughout the ceremony. So, I carefully memorize each
announcement and practice “speaking up”, so everyone in the large auditorium
will be able to hear me. (No microphone.)
The attire is to be suit and tie for
boys and a nice, somewhat formal dress for girls. Several poor kids in our
class do not own such clothes, so we just wear the best we have. I don’t have a
suit. But borrowing one, maybe 2 articles of clothing from Sidney, I can put
together dress trousers, a white shirt and a bow tie. Such is what I intend to
wear to the Formal. (The trousers are far
down the scale of “dress” category, but at least they were not blue jeans
or ragged farm clothes.)
But several days before the scheduled
Formal at the end of May, a quite large package (that was not expected) came in
the mail addressed to me. That was the first time in my life for such to
happen to me. There was no return address on the package. We opened the package
to find a boy’s fine, brand-new suit (trousers and jacket) just my size. Well! There was no
letter, note, or name inside with this nice present (nor a return name and
address on the package), just the suit of clothes that this Little Master of
Ceremonies so badly needed. Well! Well!
Sooo, attired in that nice new suit (and
in Sidney’s white shirt and bow tie), I speak up loudly with each
announcement I make at the Sixth Grade Formal, making no mistakes with my memorized lines. Thank God I do
a good job as Master of Ceremonies, and am thankful for that honor. Parents,
teachers, principal, and students alike, all enjoy the Formal and glory in how
great we 6th grade kids are becoming. School lets out for the
summer. I successfully complete the 6th grade and look forward to
the milestone of starting
junior high school in September. Moving up in this world! It feels good!
During my 6 years of elementary school,
I seldom missed a day of school. I was eager to get out of our old house and go
to a bright and lively classroom. I “dragged myself” to school on the days I
was half-sick. I did not want to miss, and had a very good attendance record. Several
years, I had perfect attendance for the year. Some poor farmers kept their
children out of school many days each year to do farm work (especially at
harvest time, cotton picking time). Though we were very poor and Daddy needed
our help, he never
ever kept us out of school to work, or for any reason (except Mother’s
death). I am most thankful for that.
Very soon after my 6th grade
Formal (possibly the following Sunday night), my family goes over to Pastor
Ritch’s house for a visit after Sunday night church service. We do this
occasionally and it’s a fun time for us kids. Remember, Kenneth and Jerry Ritch
are the ages of Sidney and me. We play together in their bedroom on nights like
this, while the adults visit in the living room.
Likely Daddy purposely visited them this night for the
following reason. As my family is about to leave after that fun visit, Daddy
asks Pastor Ritch if he was the one who sent the nice new suit for me. “Yes, I sent it. I wanted him to have it to
wear to the Formal. And I didn’t even know at the time that he was going to be
the Master of Ceremonies. When I saw that Richard was Master of Ceremonies, I
was more than glad that I had sent the suit to him.”
Upon the surprise arrival of that suit
in the mail, simple-minded little boy Richard, didn’t even ponder “who might
the good soul be, that bestowed such great kindness upon me?” I reckon I just
thought God Himself addressed that package up in Heaven, and Personally lowered it
straight down into our mailbox with no human factor involved. But Daddy thinks
more deeply than his little son does. As Daddy ponders who could have sent it,
likely Pastor was his first guess.
Jerry Ritch is my classmate, so his
parents attended the Formal because Jerry was in it also. Thus, as Jerry’s
parents, Pastor and Mrs. Ritch are present to observe me carrying on as Master
of Ceremonies in the nice new suit they chose for me. I know God filled their hearts
with joy at that time, for their goodness to me. I am most grateful for their
kindness to this poor boy. I’m determined to repay it to every poor person I possibly can!
Anyway, tonight after Brother Ritch
humbly confesses to being the kind giver, Daddy turns to me. “What do you say
to him?” All this sudden and unexpected revealing of the source of that nice
gift to me, took me by surprise. I was getting plenty choked up on
Pastor Ritch’s complimentary words about me being Master of Ceremonies. Now
Daddy calls on the Master of Ceremonies to make an impromptu speech of
thanks to Pastor. I’m a lot better at giving a memorized speech than an impromptu one. Also, I’m
choking up by now. So, when I should shine forth with an elegant speech, thanking Pastor for
such great kindness he bestowed upon poor me, instead I fight back tears as I
mutter, ‘Thank you’ (one of my shortest speeches ever). And I head on out to
our old car as soon as I can.
At the end of May, school dismisses for
summer vacation. Janiece has graduated from high school. Congratulations, Big
Sister! By God’s Great Grace, I have sailed thru grammar school with flying
colors. Thus, big changes are occurring in our family this late spring, summer,
and early autumn of 1958.
Janiece has finished her education and
gains employment. Daddy buys new, planed (smooth) tongue-and-groove lumber for the floors of our house. I
rejoice as we steadily nail those nice boards into place, covering up the rough
(and somewhat rotten) used boards of the subfloor. It’s nice to actually see new building
materials going into our “new” house, amongst so much used (even rotten) materials.
Daddy and we boys work the farm also
(all except for a cotton crop). Upon buying that old hay baler a year or more
ago, we sort of inherited more farm work. Other farmers ask Daddy to bale their
hay for them, as bales are easier to handle and store than loose hay. Daddy’s
kind nature made it hard for him to turn down any reasonable request anyone
made to him. So, we begin to pull that hay baler behind our car to other farms
to bale hay (there, hooking it to their tractor to pull around in the
field). Daddy charged a price per bale of hay, but it was a most small fee (not
very much above the cost of the baling wire and cost of running the baler).
Anyway, one hot summer day, Daddy,
Sidney and I are baling hay on the Chandler farm about 3 miles past our farm.
Come lunch time, we kill the engine to the noisy baler and sit under a shade
tree to eat the simple lunch we brought from the house in brown paper bags. As
we finish eating lunch, Daddy announces to Sidney and me that he is going to
get married. This news didn’t really surprise us boys. We three talk a little
about what that is going to mean to us as a family, soon start up the noisy
baler, and get back to the dirty, hot work of baling hay.
Daddy desired to live a married life.
Likely about a year or so after Mother died, he began to look around for a
Christian woman to possibly marry. With his quiet nature, he did not discuss
such with us kids along the way (till this day in the hayfield). He had been
dating widow Lucille well over a year. I don’t know how long they had been
discussing marriage. Likely, before he
made any definite moves toward building a new house, he proposed to
Lucille and likely she readily
said, “Yes”. Only
then, did he start making plans
to move out of our shack and tear it down.
Daddy knew our old collapsing house
would not last much longer, and that no woman would agree to move into it. Thus, a new house
is in the making. (Had Daddy not remarried, I
do not even want to
ponder how long we 5 poor Yerbys might have continued to live in that old house that
was leaking and collapsing on us.)
This summer, Daddy is now rushing the
building work to get us five moved into the new house first, and then to soon
marry Lucille and move her three in with us. Upon getting the floor boards
nailed down in most of the rooms, we 5 Yerbys move out of the old, temporary
house into our “new” one. Cardboard boxes and such that will fit into the car
get moved in our 1940 Nash. Beds and other large items are moved on our 2-horse
drawn wagon. All 5 of us are most happy to make this move (to put this great joy simply). We are the last
humans to inhabit this old house with its automatic swinging back door, so
convenient for flinging dirty dishwater from the pan into the tall, lovely (?)
weeds in the lovely (?) back yard.
Daddy buys a used gas cook stove,
obtains an outside tank for it, and thus
we will no longer have to cut stove wood year-round to cook on,
or endure that hot wood cook stove in the house during hot and warm weather.
That era ends. This is a major change for our family, going modern.
Upon moving in, we are now living inside a construction site, a new adventure. We continue to nail down the remainder of the
floor boards in all the rooms (having to move beds and such back and forth to
get them out of the way of construction. Then we nail on the boards for the
inner wall partitions between the rooms and along the hallway. We rush as much
as possible to get each room walled in to gain necessary privacy, while trying
to keep sawdust from falling onto beds and such, and continually sweeping up
sawdust from the floors as we saw lumber. You would have been plenty amazed if you could
have beheld the marvel of those
happenings.
When we get the house completed enough
to decently house three more people, Daddy gives us kids a day off. That
must have been on a Saturday. He spends the day with Lucille. Later, the talk
is that he and Lucille went to a Justice of the Peace (accompanied by 2 or 3
friends to be witnesses), got married, and then spent the remainder of the day
as a short honeymoon time with each of them returning to their respective
houses that night.
Mr. Golden Maddox graciously offered
Daddy the use of his large truck for moving Lucille’s family’s belongings to
our house. Daddy accepts the offer with thanksgiving. Lucille’s mother (Mrs.
Ryan), Lucille, and Lucille’s 17-year-old son (Rayburn) move in with us.
(Lucille has 4 other older children, all are grown, 3 married with kids, and
the 4th soon gets married).
In our new house are two front rooms
(side by side). Each has a door opening onto the front porch. One room is the
living room. The other becomes Janiece’s room. Each of these rooms has a brick
fireplace, the 2 fireplaces being back-to-back joining one chimney above.
(Months ago, we boys helped Daddy pour
the concrete footing that the fireplaces and chimney would rest upon. Then
Daddy himself laid each brick all way to the top of the chimney. I admired him
as a Jack-of-All-Trades. He could do many practical
jobs, and do them well.)
The fireplaces are inset 8 feet or so
from the front wall of the house, leaving room for 2 closets in a row (each the
width of the 2 fireplaces), between the fireplaces and the house’s front wall,
one closet opening into the living room and the other opening into Janiece’s
room. Firewood was stored on the floor of each. Janiece hung her clothes in her
closet. We mainly hung coats in the living room closet.
A narrow hallway (the width of those
closets) ran from the “rear” of the fireplace area to the house’s only
backdoor. Behind the living room was
a half partition with an opening (no door) into the kitchen/dining room. Behind the kitchen was Daddy and Lucille’s bedroom. Those 3 rooms composed the west
side of the house.
As for the east “half”, behind Janiece’s room was Mrs. Ryan’s room. Behind it was the bathroom. Behind it was the last room, which became the boys’ room. We put 2 double beds into
it. Rayburn and Sid slept on one, Joe and I slept on the other. The boys’ room
was plenty
crowded with us 4 souls in it.
A front porch and a back porch each run
the entire width of the house. And we now have a carport built onto the
east side of the front porch where Janiece’s room is. Don’t have to walk to the
car in the rain any longer. Modern!
Out goes much Yerby junk. Our noisy refrigerator is set on the back porch to be
used as a storage cabinet. The crudely built meal table is set on the back
porch to set things on and under. (Daddy
throws away almost
Nothing!) The nail keg Janiece sat on at the
meal table (and on which we boys sat for haircuts), the worst of the chairs,
and other various treasures of junk are put on the back porch or in the crib in
the barn. (Should have put that infamous antique wooden nail keg into the Smithsonian Institute to
let the entire nation awe at it.)
In comes Lucille’s quiet and larger
frig, and her dinette set of table (with 1 removable leaf) and 6 matching
chairs. (No doubt that nail keg
was sadly weeping in the lonely spot, stored
in the barn.) In came Lucille’s sofa and matching “easy” chair. We had never before had a sofa or easy chair. Nor (since I was old enough to remember) had
we ever had a living room with no beds in it. Truly, we were moving up in this world.
When we saw Daddy rushing to move us
into this house that was far from being completed, we kids were somewhat
disappointed about that. “After we move in, we’ll keep working on it till we
finish it.” Daddy said something to that effect, trying to make us feel
better about it. But that new house never ever
got built to completion. I plan to tell you more about that, about 6
years from now, when I graduate from hi school.
The TV in Lucille’s house (which I had
previously watched on several Saturday nights at their rental house in town)
belongs to Lucille’s mother. Now it is set up in a corner of the living room,
and stays ON much of the time Mrs. Ryan is up and about each day.
I told you of viewing a TV for the first
time when I was in the 2nd grade and then I told you of watching TV
at the Stacys’ house several Saturday afternoons that Mother walked us kids
there shortly before Mother died. As time went on after Mother’s death, (one by
one) other neighbors up and down this country road got a TV, and I had scant
chances to watch TV when visiting one or two of them. Now as I am set to enter
junior high school, a TV set is placed into our living room. Most regretfully an era passed,
the era of Daddy’s family living without that one-eyed monster with its strong
allurement, exercising its
powerful worldly influence over our
lives.
Early next year before spring crop
planting time (1959), Daddy will buy a tractor for the first time. Though he
will keep 1 or 2 horses for several more years, next year he will switch to “tractor
power” for doing the vast majority of his farm work. “For the times,
they are a-changing.” They certainly are!
I was most blessed and privileged to start my earthly
journey in the setting of an old-fashioned poor farm. (Back in
Chapter 3, I endeavored to describe the most prominent “old fashioned” details
of my early life to you.) Being reared in God’s nature naturally caused me to
be an outdoors person from the start. I deemed it a waste of time to be indoors
during daylight hours (and even some of the “dark time” that I wasn’t yet in
bed). I relished being out in nature every minute, enjoying the many
God-ordained pleasures derived therefore, free of monetary cost (even if it was
just gazing heavenward at ever changing daytime cloud formations or the lovely
moon and stars at night, and such).
From now on till I move out of Daddy’s
house after graduating from high school (a period of about 6 years), the allurement
of that television set in our living room will constantly call on me to come
inside out of God’s nature to sit immobile before it, and to stare at the
manmade artificiality its glow presents to me (damaging my eyesight as I stare
at it).
Tele-vision was not the only “tele” to
come into our house at this time. The tele-phone was also installed for the
first time. These worldly devices brought new excitement into our lives. Lucille previously
had a phone in her house. At this time, I do not think Daddy would have
gotten a TV or a phone (of
his own will). Can you believe that when they installed our 1st
phone late this summer, we were on a party line with 8 other houses? People eavesdropped on
conversations they had no business listening to. People got mad and said
horrible things on the phone to (and about) silent listeners. Horrible, what these devil devices do to serene life! But isn’t it even more
amazing how that we just love to have it so?! The love of the world and
the things that are in the world. (I John 2:15-17)
The first twelve years of one’s life are
definitely the most formative twelve-year
period of life. I Thank Thee, Almighty Lord God,
that my first 12 years of dire poverty on an old-fashioned farm were exactly that. In spite of Mother’s death, Daddy’s much silence toward me, and
much hard labor and the misery of poverty, I was a happy
child. Thank Thee, Lord Jesus, for
enabling me to be happy amongst those trying circumstances. I give God the
Glory for that blessedness of not despairing and being generally happy, never
feeling hopeless. Truly,
Thou hast done all things well. I heartily thank Thee for the many kind souls Thou didst lead to help our family in many ways. I
desire to be like them and (for all the days of my earthly journey) do all I can to help all the suffering and needy souls in this world that I can possibly help. Please enable me to do so.
So, it has come to pass that eight
souls now abide in the Yerbys’ new, large
(6 room, 4 bedroom) house that is far
from being finished. At the very start of doing the foundation work, we
installed drainage pipes and lines for wastewater from the kitchen sink and
waste and sewage water from the bathroom. Daddy installed a new double sink in the kitchen. That sure
is a far cry from that stinking slop bucket I first got acquainted with in our
old kitchen. We installed an ancient cast iron
bathtub in the bathroom, connected to drain pipes underneath. We have future
plans for hot and cold running water in the kitchen and bathroom, and a flush
commode in the bathroom. Those niceties do not materialize
till long after I move out of this house.
Presently all eight residents dutifully
trod the path out back toward the hog pen to the outhouse, where an out-of-date
mail order catalog lies on the floor, always on duty to serve this secondary
purpose on the farm. Lucille’s nice dinette set has 6 matching chairs. There is
no room for any more chairs around the table. The times when all eight of us
eat a meal at the same time, Janiece and I set our plates and glasses on the
counter adjacent to the double sink and eat standing there (the counter being too high for us to sit in chairs
to eat from the counter).
I don’t recall if all 8 of us ever rode together
in that 1940 Nash, but 7 of us often did (to church and back), we 4 Yerby kids
in the back seat, Daddy driving, Lucille sitting beside Daddy, and either Rayburn or Mrs. Ryan sitting by the front
passenger door. It
was crowded.
“Elementary School Elite Graduate
Richard Boy, with 8 such diverse souls brought together to live under
one roof, perchance were there ever any conflicts
amongst you all?”
‘There certainly were!’
“Perchance, would you care to tickle our
itching ears with the juicy details of those conflicts?”
‘I
certainly would not, you nosey
Busybody!’
The End of Chapter 7