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Richard Harding Davis - "My Buried Treasure"

E. Phillips Oppenheim - "Project Gutenberg surfs with a modem donated by Supra."

Isabella L. Bird - "A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains"

John Goodwin, this is an Alpha test version, your - "July, 1993 [Etext #75]"

THE LIFE OF ME, AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

C >> Clarence Johnson >> THE LIFE OF ME, AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY




We went to town about once a week, but most of our time was spent
on the farm working, playing and going hunting. Joel was
harrowing in the field one day, walking barefooted behind a
harrow in freshly stirred soil. The harrow ran over a
rattlesnake, just a small one, about 18 inches long or so.

Well the snake was running for his very life--being tumbled and
tossed this way and that way. Joel saw the snake, so he ran way
over to the right to avoid him. About that same time, the snake
tumbled out from under the unfriendly harrow, still fighting for
survival. And he didn't care which direction he went, so long as
it was away from the harrow, so he too, shot out to the right.

Now, when the snake got tangled up with Joel's bare feet, there
were about two or three seconds when it was hard to tell whether
the boy or the snake was trying the hardest to get away from the
other. They both succeeded--momentarily. But as soon as Joel
could stop the horses and tie up the lines, he went back and
demanded that the snake pay the supreme penalty. Not that Joel
didn't appreciate the fact that the snake had not bitten him, nor
did Joel have anything personal against the snake. It was just
that, since the snake was a snake, he had to go.

Earl, Joel, Clarence (that's me) and Albert were generally spoken
of as the four boys in our family. Ollie Mae was younger than
Albert, and since she was a girl, she was sort of a different
kind of link in a long chain of boys. And William Robert was
much too young to be in our group. So we were the four boys.

Looking back, I am amazed that we four all reached adulthood. I
don't mean from germs we got from not washing our plates--I mean
because of guns and knives and rattlesnakes and wild horses and
cows.

For instance, we boys were roping and riding horses one Sunday in
our horse lot. We had one little mule colt about a year old that
was a real pet, and at times somewhat of a pest. He was gentle
and liked to be curried and petted. And naturally we enjoyed
feeding and petting him. But on this particular day we were
roping and riding and, in general, scaring the horses, and some
of the time the horses were scaring us.

When the going got too rough for the little mule colt, he took
off and jumped the fence. Now we didn't want him to run away, we
wanted him back in the pen. So we thought we'd better get after
him in a hurry. But our hurrying wasn't necessary. Before any
of us could even get out of the pen, he was back at the gate,
looking over it and wanting back in. We opened the gate and let
him in and the fun started all over again.

Of course we had neighbors on the plains, some near and some not
so near. One neighbor was the Nolan family. They had four or
five kids, and a reputation for stealing at times. I was told
one farmer missed some oats and corn from his barn one time. And
about that same time the Nolans began feeding their horses oats
and corn. Most of us couldn't afford such feed for our horses,
and the Nolans were poorer than the most of us. They said some
wolf hunters had given them the feed because they didn't want to
have to carry it back home. The Nolans explained that the
hunters said the corn was to keep their horses fat and the oats
were to make them long-winded for chasing wolves.

One of our roads to Lamesa went by the Debnam place, the home of
another neighbor. One of the Nolan boys often walked to town for
the mail. It was only eight miles. Mr. Hamilton told us that
one day the boy was riding with him in a wagon, and when they
were near the Debnam home, the boy pointed way over toward some
sand drifts and exclaimed, "Look, I see a hammer handle!" Mr.
Hamilton stopped the wagon and let the boy go get it. Only the
tip of the handle could be seen. It seemed quite obvious he
could not have known it was a hammer handle from that distance
unless he had seen it before with more of it showing. Anyway, he
pulled it out of the sand and shouted, "And there's a hammer on
the other end of it!" We thought maybe he had stolen the hammer
from someone and had buried it there so he could pretend to find
it later.

Some time later we Johnson kids were hoeing in the cotton patch
with the Nolan kids and their mother. And as usual, we talked
about everything, including the hammer incident. And I, as could
be expected, not having mastered the art of keeping my big mouth
shut, said, "Yes, and we know where you got the oats and corn."

What happened next took me by surprise. Now, it's one thing to
have an older brother whip you in the cotton patch when you yell
to him, "Come and make me!", as I told you earlier. But it's
altogether a much more serious situation when you look up to see
a mad mother coming toward you with a hoe raised high in the air
and with fire in her eyes. I believe to this day, if I had been
wearing shoes, they might have delayed me just enough to have
allowed her to hit me. But I was barefooted and I took off like
Moody's goose. The woman slammed her hoe down where I had been,
but wasn't any more.

We didn't visit the Nolans much, especially for meals. In fact,
I think we only ate one meal at their house, and that was before
she got after me with the hoe. At the close of the meal, Mrs.
Nolan went around the table pouring up the few drops and swallows
of milk which were left in each and every drinking glass,
explaining that there was no need to waste anything, she would
use the milk to make bread next time. So, I can't remember ever
going back to the Nolans for a meal after that.

Along with all our other activities, we had to get a little book
learning. So we four boys went to Ballard School, three-and-a-
half miles away. It was a two-room school house but we had
classes in only one room. The teacher lived in the other room
with her little five-year-old girl, her two-year-old boy, and a
pig. The little boy needed attention periodically, you know,
like bathroom attention. Sometimes his mother took him to the
bathroom and sometimes one of the older girl students took him.
And if you think the bathroom was in the house, you are wrong.
Now the pig needed to go to the bathroom too at times. But he
didn't go anywhere--he just used the bathroom wherever he
happened to be at the time. Nor did he seem to understand that
one room was the schoolroom and the other room was his. He
didn't seem to realize he was a pig. He thought he was a
"people" like the rest of us. And when his little brother and
sister were in the schoolroom, that little pig wanted to be in
there too. Needless to say, when he brought his bathroom
activities into the schoolroom, he disrupted the entire learning
process as prescribed by the school board and the State Education
Agency.

Ollie Mae was not quite seven when we boys started to school at
Ballard in the fall of 1917. Mama thought it was too far for her
to have to walk. So she taught Ollie Mae at home through the
third grade. Our little sister was deprived of all the higher
learning we others got at Ballard.

It wasn't all book learning at Ballard either. One day a couple
of girls had to "be excused." In a minute or so, they came
running back into the schoolroom with the news that there was a
rattlesnake in their closet. (In those days they were closets,
not toilets. And no one had ever heard of "rest rooms.") Anyway,
we got out there as fast as possible, some through the doors and
some jumped out the windows. Sure, we killed the snake all
right, but it was hard for us to settle back down to school work.

Uncle Simpson was visiting us at that time and he was on his way
to Lamesa in his car and he happened to be passing by Ballard
School when we got news of the snake. When he saw us leaving the
building as we did, he was somewhat shocked at our seeming total
disregard for discipline and order. He thought we were getting
out for recess and he was used to seeing kids march out in a
straight line and stand at attention until the teacher said,
"Dismissed." But back at home that night we told him he had
witnessed a crash operation in an emergency. He was relieved to
learn that it was not always that way at our school. We didn't
dare tell him how nearly this procedure approached the normal at
Ballard.

On our Lamesa farm, quite a lot of our raw land had catclaw
bushes on it. When clearing the land for cultivation, we would
cut the bushes off just under the surface of the ground and wait
for strong winds to roll them away like tumbleweeds. They would
cling together because of the claws on their branches, and often
long rolls of them could be seen rolling across the prairie.
Then they would collect against our fences and we would pitch
them over the fences and let them continue on their way.

And also, there were many whirlwinds on the plains--perhaps no
more than in other places we had lived, but they were more
conspicuous. I was plowing in the field one day when I saw a
whirlwind coming across the field about a hundred yards away from
me. At first it looked as though it had hit one end of one of
those rolls of catclaws and was rolling it along on the ground.
But a second look revealed that this was not the case. The roll
of bushes seemed to get shorter and shorter until it was
completely gone. All this took place within a short ten seconds
or less.

Then I realized that there had not been any catclaw bushes at
all. The whirlwind, at its bottom end, was bent at a right angle
and was whirling horizontally along on the ground. The balance
of it was standing upright. The horizontal part quickly became
shorter and shorter until the entire whirlwind was standing
upright.

Do you think I rushed to tell my family about seeing this strange
thing? Goodness no! They wouldn't have believed me. Why should
I make myself subject to being a bigger liar than I was thought
to be already? I didn't even mention this incident until I was
grown and had kids of my own half grown. I really believe to
this day this little story is one of the reasons my kids think I
am untruthful at times. I don't really expect anyone to believe
it. I sort of wish I had never told it. But it really did
happen, and I hadn't been sucking the old sow, either.

The wind blew more and stronger on the plains than it did most
places. So from the time we moved there we began to hear stories
about the wind. For instance there was the story about the
family in the covered wagon who camped one night and tied their
horses to a bush. About bedtime the wind came up and the sand
started blowing. And next morning they were surprised to learn
that the bush was really a tall tree which had been almost buried
in the blowsand. Through the night the sand had blown away and
by morning their horses were hanging 40 feet high up in the
tree--both of them dead.

Before they could cut the tree down and recover their ropes and
harness, the wind changed and the sand came back, burying the
horses and the tree.

Then there was the story about the family who went to their storm
cellar during a wind storm. The wind blew harder and harder
until the cellar shook as if by an earthquake. The man opened
the door to see what was happening. The cellar was rolling
across the prairie and the man fell out. He ran back to get in
the hole where the cellar had been, but the hole had blown away
too.

The same wind blew the man's well up out of the ground and
wrapped it around a telephone pole. Most of the water ran out
before he could get it plugged up and put a faucet in the bottom
of it. After that he didn't have to pump water, he only had to
open the faucet and let it flow.

The story was told on us boys that we were not used to the strong
wind and were always asking Papa if we could quit work and go in
the house until the wind calmed down. They told that Papa
settled the question once and for all one day. He hung a trace
chain on the clothes line and told us, "As long as the bottom end
of the chain is hanging down, go ahead and work. When the chain
blows up in a horizontal position and waves like a flag in the
wind, take off a few minutes and wait for it to settle back down
a bit."

One man told us he had a rainwater barrel by his house. And
since it hadn't rained for six months, the barrel was empty. One
night about bedtime a southwest wind hit with all its fury and
blew the barrel away. It continued to blow for three days and
three nights. There were no fences, so the barrel rolled on and
on. Then the wind changed and there came a blue norther from the
northeast. Three days and nights later, about bedtime again,
they heard something bump against their house. They took the
lantern and went out to see what it was and found that their
water barrel had returned home, but it had rolled so far it had
worn down to about the size of a nail keg.




CHAPTER 10

SOLD FARM; MOVED TO HAMLIN

By the summer of 1919 things were looking somewhat better. Papa
had ordered two new tires for the Reo. They had come in but
there had been no hurry to put them on the car. They were lying
there in the garage beside the old car which had been mothballed
for quite a few months.

Then one Sunday afternoon we saw an airplane flying around over
at Lamesa. It was a small two-seater like they flew in the war.
Anyway, there we were sitting at home and watching the action
from ten miles away, when Papa asked if any of us would like to
drive over there and watch the airplane. OH BOY! Would we! We
got busy right away putting the new tires on the car, pumping up
all four tires, and getting the old car to run again after quite
a spell of sitting. Then we drove over, watched the action from
up close, then went back home.

While in Lamesa watching the plane, we learned that the pilot was
taking up passengers, that is, anyone who wanted to pay ten
dollars to ride. And he would loop-the-loop for an extra ten
dollars each loop. One man paid $40 to ride and loop three times
in rapid succession. It was hard for us to imagine anyone having
that kind of money to spend for so little in so short a time.

Our parents wanted to be good to us kids, but being good to us
didn't include spending a lot of money on us. By their ingenuity
and hard work, they had a way of stretching a few dollars beyond
contentment and happiness, almost to abundance. We each had a
saddle and a horse to ride, including Ollie Mae, but not William
Robert. Papa braided quirts for all of us. He would take the
leather uppers of worn-out shoes, cut them into long strips, and
make quirts as good as the best. He cut up Ollie Mae's old high
top red shoes and made the prettiest little red quirt you ever
saw. And as I mentioned before, we boys had our guns.

The Higginbotham Ranch was in a rundown condition and was being
sold piece by piece to farmers. Most all the ranch houses were
vacant and much of the pastureland had become a dust bowl.
Tumbleweeds had caught against the fences and sand had drifted
into the weeds, burying both the fences and the weeds in many
places. There were abandoned houses here and there on the ranch.
The vacant houses had most all the windows broken out. Most of
the doors were off their hinges or broken or had been taken by
someone who had a need for them. We boys often took Old Scotch
and our guns and our horses and went to a lot of the old houses--
just exploring to see what was there.

In one of the old houses, behind a door casing, I found a 22
rifle. It worked but not well. It wouldn't shoot where I aimed
it; the barrel had a curve in it. If I had found the old gun
when I was younger, I might have thought I could shoot around
corners with it. But I was much smarter now and I knew you
couldn't shoot a curve with a gun. no matter how crooked the
barrel was.

Actually the curve in the gun barrel was no problem. Papa showed
me how to straighten it by placing it on a four-by-four, then
placing a block of wood on it at just the right place and hitting
it with a big hammer. Oh, yes, I got it fairly true, but not
true enough for hunting rabbits. But then, I had my good new gun
for rabbits. I learned a lot about guns by having the old gun
around to play with.

One day we four boys got off out behind the barn, hiding from
Papa, and made shotguns out of our rifles. We would take the
bullet out of a 22 shell, place the shell in the chamber, pour
some powder from a shotgun shell down the barrel, stuff in a
little paper for wadding, then put in a few shot from the shotgun
shell, and a little more wadding to hold the shot in place. Then
we would aim and fire. But the little birdshot wouldn't even go
through an old rusted out washtub. After a couple of tries, I
put more powder in my gun next time. They still wouldn't go
through the tub. The other boys were afraid to put a lot of
powder, but I wasn't. So I put twice as much powder the next
time--I really put in an overdose and a few extra shot.

Well, yes, the pellets went through the tub this time for sure,
but the gun went the other way--right through the stock. The
metal body of the gun split the wood stock and came almost to my
shoulder. Smoke filled my eyes and a cloud of smoke rose above
my head like an Indian smoke signal. It seemed that maybe it was
trying to tell us something, so we listened, and we stopped
muzzleloading our guns.

Once during a big, big rain the swamps caught a lot of water, and
ducks became plentiful on them. A neighbor man and Frank and we
four boys went duck hunting. The swamps were four or five miles
apart. There was a lot of water and plenty of ducks, but there
were practically no trees or bushes to sneak up behind. The
ducks could see us coming and fly away. We met with failure at
swamp after swamp--no ducks for us, anyhow not many.

By two o'clock in the afternoon we were circling back toward home
but were still about seven miles from home, and with only three
little ducks about the size of quail--well, maybe a little
bigger, and we were very tired and hungry. We had been walking
since early breakfast. It had been a long day and we had covered
many miles.

Finally we decided to eat the ducks we had. At a vacant ranch
house we found a rusty syrup bucket. There was water at the
windmill. And in the barn we found some cattle salt with some
black stock powder mixed in it. First we built a fire. Then we
picked the ducks and boiled them in the rusty bucket, salting the
stew with the black and white salt. We could hardly wait for it
to cook.

We had walked at least 25 or 30 miles, and if you think walking
that distance in eight hours doesn't make victuals taste good,
you are plum loco, no matter what they are cooked in or seasoned
with. That was, beyond a doubt the best food I had ever tasted
in my life. We divided the meat as equally as possible, and it
came out to about one fifth as much as each of us needed. Then
we drank the soup--two swallows for you, two for him, two for me,
and so on, right out of the rusty bucket. When a feather came
floating along, we didn't risk wasting a single drop of soup. We
would let it go into our mouth, suck the juice out of it, then
spit it out.

We always had some good neighbors wherever we lived. One fall we
headed maize for a good neighbor. He was to pay us $2.50 for
each wagon load. But the stalks had fallen down so badly in
places that heading went very slowly and we couldn't make much
money at it. Papa tried to get the man, Mr. Wood, to pay us
three dollars a load. Mr. Wood thought we were just trying to
get more pay for less work, and he wouldn't pay it, so we quit.
Then Mr. Wood finished heading the maize himself. Now, I say he
was a good neighbor because, when he saw how much trouble it was
to head the fallen stalks, he came and paid us fifty cents extra
for each load we had gathered. My parents made a practice of
praising the good in people and they taught us kids that "By
their fruits ye shall know them."

Yes, our parents taught us a lot of things. But there were other
things which were not taught in our family. We kids just had to
learn about these things as best we could. Along about my early
teens, I began to learn about new-born calves and colts and
babies. Up until then, all I knew was that horses and cows found
their babies out in the pasture, and doctors brought babies to
women at times. And about Santa Claus, I wasn't curious about
him, I was just happy about him. I well remember how
disappointed I was when I learned the truth about Santa. And my
newly acquired knowledge about babies brought a bit of
disappointment concerning the moral character of adults.

We learned some of our lessons the hard way. I remember one
Sunday afternoon we boys were riding young unbroken horses while
Mama was away from home and Papa was sleeping. We knew we were
not supposed to ride wild horses unless Papa was with us. He had
told us never to do so. It wasn't that we deliberately disobeyed
Papa. It was that we thought we had learned a lot since he last
told us that, and perhaps the rule didn't apply any longer. And
besides, we were riding a real gentle unbroken filly.

Anyway, Joel was on the horse and we were holding the reins when
she went sideways and fell and rolled over on Joel. She mashed
the wind out of him and left him unconscious. It looked bad to
me. There he was, just lying there doing nothing. I knew Papa
would be unhappy with our disobedience, but when there is
something that needs to be done, you just do it. I was scared
and I hated to have to face Papa but I didn't hesitate a second.
I ran as fast as I could to get him. I was about 12 or 13. Was
I scared? Brave? Loyal to Joel? Trustworthy? Devoted to duty?
I don't really know. I only knew there was something that had to
be done and my sense of duty was stronger than my fear of having
to face Papa with my confession of disobedience, so I did what
had to be done.

Lucky for all of us, Joel went down lengthways in a furrow
between two ridges. The ridges held the horse up somewhat. Joel
wasn't really hurt--just had the wind knocked out of him and it
left him unconscious for a few minutes.

Along about this same time in my boyhood, I had something that
one of my brothers wanted to buy from me. I don't remember what
it was but I do remember I offered it to him for eight cents. He
offered me a nickel for it. He had a nickel and four pennies. I
finally offered to take the nickel if he would pitch the four
pennies up and give me all that fell "heads." We didn't make the
deal because Earl learned what I had offered to do and he shamed
me scornfully. He said, "That's just the same as shooting dice
or playing poker." I didn't know how to shoot dice nor play
poker. I only knew that either one was a bad thing to do. I was
deeply hurt, not because Earl had scolded or shamed me, but just
to think that I would bring dishonor to my family by even
thinking of gambling, after all the moral training my parents had
given me. Also there was the element of ignorance. I hadn't
realized that such an act would be gambling, and I was too proud
to admit my ignorance.

Anyway, I resolved to myself then and there never to do a thing
like that again as long as I lived, never to gamble in any way.
But, like Adam in the garden of Eden when he blamed a woman for
his disobedience, I too can say, "A woman tempted me and I did
gamble." I'll tell you about it later.

This last year we were on the plains, it looked like we were sure
to make good. But it seemed that fate was trying our patience.
I think the devil also had a hand in the turn of events. I never
did like that guy. Sometimes I think he is still after me.

Anyway in late summer Papa and the neighbors looked at our cotton
crop and came to the conclusion that we couldn't keep from making
100 bales. And cotton sold that year at $200 a bale. It looked
as though the Lord had finally smiled on us as he did on Job.
But I guess we hadn't suffered as much nor repented as well as
Job had. When the Lord favored us with a good rain one Sunday
afternoon, our neighbors saw the rain and said, "Man, that
Johnson family sure must be living right. Look at the rain the
Lord sent them."

But what the neighbors didn't know was that the devil had put a
boll worm in each and every drop of that rain. None of us knew
about the devil and his pesky worms until later.

What happened? We made 20 bales instead of 100, about enough to
pay the taxes, interest, and the annual note. If the devil had
left us alone, we would have had about $16,000 left over.

So now what? Sell out, of course--sell out and get out. We sold
the farm for $25 an acre; we had paid $18. That would have been
a good profit on the place except for the fact that the
improvements we had made on the place cost about as much as we
made on it. So we just about broke even. But the value of land
had begun to rise and we didn't know it. Before we moved off the
place, even before Mama signed the deed, the farm sold again for
$10 an acre more than we got for it. When Mama learned about the
last price it brought, she said, "I don't think I'll sign the
deed."

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