Read Ebook: The Life of Me: An Autobiography by Johnson Clarence Edgar

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Ebook has 1348 lines and 102423 words, and 27 pages

During all this time Mama's younger brother Hugh was trailing along two years behind her. They were seven and nine years old when they moved back to their old home in Kentucky. There were 200 acres in the farm, and these two kids had four years in which to explore the meadows, the hills, the streams, and the woodlands. There were three springs of water, acres and acres of wild berries, wild nuts, cherries, peaches, apples, and papaws. There were many kinds of birds as well as coons and skunks. And for delicious food, there were swamp rabbits and opossums.

I was a young boy when Mama first told me that Hugh was her favorite brother. It didn't mean much to me at that time. But after I was a grown man, she told in detail how she and Hugh had roamed together over the old farm during those four years, how they had picked wild berries, and how they had carried them to the store in Hodgensville and had sold them for ten cents a gallon.

Emma's older sister and an older brother had long since married and lived far away. Henry was still at home but he was older than Emma and too busy at other things to be interested in that kid stuff. No wonder Hugh was her favorite brother. They had played together, explored together, and had grown up together.

When I was young I heard Mama tell that her brother Hugh was shot to death one day while out on his horse. I didn't know whether the Gaddies were living in Kentucky, Texas, or Oklahoma when he got shot. When I heard how Hugh had died, I was old enough to know about Kentucky moonshiners, Texas cattle rustlers, and Oklahoma desperadoes. I wondered if any of them had played a part in his death, but I didn't ask any questions .

Mama told me later that Hugh was a cowboy, had gotten his pay and was riding home when a man shot him in the back and took his money.

I was sorry I had ever wondered.

Mama told me that her brother Henry and the blacks around Duncan were not very friendly toward each other. At least one time, the blacks held hands and formed a human chain across the road to keep Henry from coming by. But Henry whipped up his horses and drove right through the crowd. After that he carried a long blacksnake whip to use on them if they ever got close to his wagon again.

Part of the tradition that was handed down to us from the Gaddies and the Johnsons was that there were only three things to drink-- water, sweet milk, and buttermilk. You might include clabber if you like. But then, clabber was more of an "eat" than a drink. Soda pop was for the wealthy and foolhardy, and coffee was not permitted for three reasons: it cost money, it was unnecessary and it was not good for you. Money was for necessities. Any drinks stronger than these mentioned were strictly forbidden.

Even the sound of the word "whiskey" carried with it an inkling of sin and dishonor. Whiskey without drunkenness was improbable, and drunkenness was about as low as a person could go.

Mama grew up to hate whiskey because of its effect on men and because it tasted bad. However, there was always a jug of it under her father's bed--for medical use only. Any symptom of disease was treated immediately with whiskey. Mama hated the taste of it.

Mama told us about a man--perhaps an uncle--who was sick in bed and who was fond of whiskey. As he lay in bed, a few friends and kinfolks stopped by to see him. And one by one he asked them to mix him a little toddy. They did.

And wouldn't you know it, five or six toddies all in one man at one time made the man forget he was sick on disease and it made him fairly sick on whiskey which was what he had planned to be.

After I came into the Johnson family, Mama's people lived so far away I didn't get to know much about them.

We didn't get around to visiting them much. But I remember we did go to Duncan one time to visit some of them. It seems that the trip was made in about the year of 1916. We went in our 1914 model Reo car.

I guess I was about ten years old. I don't remember much about the people we went to see, but I remember the white rabbits and prairie dogs they had for pets. They were running all over the place. I suppose it was Uncle Henry's place and I believe the pets were Leo's, Uncle Henry's son. Leo was perhaps four years older than I was--maybe even more.

I think I met Mama's sister and her older brother, Will, a time or two; I'm not sure. But Henry was the only one of them I ever really knew.

Henry and his wife, I think her name was Emma also, came to Hamlin to visit Mama and Papa a couple of times after I was married. Then, when I was attending college in Arkansas, my wife, Ima, and our youngest son, Larry, and I stopped by to visit Uncle Henry two or three times.

During one of those visits, Uncle Henry went out into his garage and took a book from the bottom of an old trunk. The book was similar to a ledger, about seven inches wide and ten inches long, with a flexible cover. In the book were 54 songs, handwritten with pen and ink, most of them in my father's hand, a few written by my mother.

It was my father's book which he had carried to parties and singings while he lived in Oklahoma. When he heard a song he liked, he would write the words in his book of songs. Other boys and girls had their books of songs also, including Uncle Henry.

Uncle Henry also had a mother-in-law--or rather, I think it was his mother-in-law-to-be--who gave him trouble at times. One time she got mad at him for some reason and burned his book of songs. So Papa loaned Henry his song book.

Then the Johnsons moved away to Texas before Henry returned the book. When he was through with the book, Henry hesitated to make a 400 mile round trip in a covered wagon just to return a borrowed book. So he didn't return it right away. He put it away for safekeeping. It was forgotten until Henry mentioned it during a visit to Texas to see Mama and Papa 50 years later

Mama was about 80 years old when Uncle Henry took the book from the old trunk and asked me to take it to her. Papa had died many years before.

I have one copy of those songs and there is a copy of them filed away at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.

Neither the Johnsons nor the Gaddies had any part in the Oklahoma land rush. That took place in 1889, a few years before either family arrived in Oklahoma.

I never once saw my Grandma Gaddie. She passed away in Oklahoma in 1912. She suffered a sunstroke and died two weeks later.

Some years after that, Grandpa Gaddie came to live with us in Texas. I don't remember exactly when he came, but he passed away while we were living on the Exum place, and we moved from there in 1917. He seemed quite old, maybe old ahead of his time because of hard work and the severity of life at that time in our history.

Anyhow, he could do light odd jobs about the farm. There were always outside chores to be done. We kids were glad to have him help us do them. And he kept us kids company at times when there was no work to be done.

But Grandpa was much more of a stranger to us than Grandma Johnson was. She lived only a half-mile away; we grew up with her. But I guess we hadn't seen Grandpa Gaddie more than once or twice before he came to live with us.

Grandpa was never much of a bother in any way. He was never bedfast and never had to be waited on. It didn't take much to feed him. We raised almost everything we ate and he brought plenty of clothing with him when he came. The entire family didn't require much money, and we had plenty of other things in life.

Grandpa was agreeable and compatible. He was never grouchy. He had a room and a bed of his own in our home and he soon became just one of the family and was accepted by all of us.

Then one morning Grandpa didn't come to breakfast. A knock on his door brought no answer. Had he slipped out and gone for a walk? No one had noticed him out anywhere. This was unusual for Grandpa. He was usually there on time for meals so the rest of us wouldn't have to wait for him. In our home no one ever started helping his plate at meal time until all were seated and the blessing was asked.

Papa knocked on Grandpa's door again, then he called to him, but there was still no answer. As Mama and Papa opened the door to his room, there he was, still in bed, still asleep--but he was not breathing. It seemed that Grandpa just went to sleep and didn't wake up.

Papa went to Hamlin that morning in a wagon and brought back a casket. The women dressed Grandpa in his best suit. Some men went to the graveyard and dug a grave. Others went to tell the preacher, and found him plowing in his field. He stopped plowing and went home to clean up and eat dinner.

Grandpa was placed in his casket and loaded into a wagon. Then about three o'clock we drove him to the Neinda graveyard where the preacher and other friends were gathered. And there, that afternoon, we laid him away in his final resting place.

It's amazing sometimes, how a very little thing can stick in the memory of a little boy, and that's the way it was this time, just a simple little statement made by an older brother one morning--a couple of mornings after we had buried Grandpa. Four of us boys slept in the west room of our home, the room usually referred to as "the boys room." We boys were getting out of bed and getting dressed when Frank said, "Well, Grandpa's in heaven by now." That was all he said. That was enough. After that, an air of reverence filled the room. And as we finished dressing, we left the room one by one, in complete silence. Frank had no way of knowing how much I honored and respected him for that little statement and the thought that went with it. I was too young and timid to know how to tell him.

That's about all of my childhood memories concerning the Gaddies. In later years I had a desire to learn more about my mother's people. But as I began digging into census records, I soon found that Grandma Gaddie had a first cousin by the name of Jesse James- -yes, that's right--"The" Jesse James. So my desire suddenly changed to fear and I gave up digging into records.

EARLY CHILDHOOD AT THE FLINT FARM

The first farm we owned, the one where I was born, is still spoken of as the Flint place, because we sold it to a family named Flint. So at times I may refer back to it as the Flint place.

Since I was only five when we moved away from the Flint place, I remember only a few things which took place while we lived there.

I remember we had old hens that laid eggs for us to go gather up and take to the house in a bucket. Sometimes the bucket would get so heavy I couldn't carry it. And sometimes we had to get eggs out from under old setting hens that wouldn't get off their nests. They would peck me to keep me away. I was too little to get those eggs. Mama or some of the bigger kids would have to get them.

But if the old setting hen was off the nest, I knew which eggs to get and which ones to leave in the nest. The ones she was setting on to hatch out little chickens were marked all over with a lead pencil. The ones that didn't have marks on them were fresh eggs that had been laid that day.

Some city folks are confused at times about some of the words we farmers use. For instance, take the words sitting and setting. The truth is, if an old hen is on an egg that she has just laid, and if she is planning to go away in a minute or two, she is just sitting on the egg. But if she is on the egg or eggs with the intention of hatching out little chickens, then she is not sitting, she is setting.

I told her, "Lady, you may know your English, but you sure don't know milk cows."

Now back to the Flint farm.

I was so little that, when I would throw out corn and maize seed to feed the chickens, I couldn't throw it far enough away from me. Some of it would fall at my feet. So the big chickens would crowd around my feet to pick up the grains and I was afraid of so many big hens so close to me. And I really got scared when they started pecking the feed out of my feed bucket. Sometimes I would drop the bucket and run away.

I remember seeing Papa digging up big trees where he was going to make a field. It wasn't far from our house. Sometimes I would go take him a drink of water. And sometimes Mama would send me to tell Papa dinner was ready.

While Papa was drinking his water and resting a bit, I liked to get down in the big hole he dug around the bottom of a big tree. The dirt was damp and cool in the hole. Some of the holes were so big and deep it was hard for me to crawl back out.

Sometimes our old surley was close by and I was afraid of him, so Mama would leave me at the house to watch after Albert while she took Papa a drink. But if the cows were way over in the other side of the pasture, I wasn't afraid to go.

I remember our garden just outside our yard. I was big enough to pick fresh beans and peas. The older ones in the family taught me how to break the peas off the vines without breaking the vines. Mama could pick them so easily, with just the right twist of her hands. But I had to hold the vine with one hand while I twisted the peas off with the other hand.

I had the smartest Mama. She could do so many things, and she could do them so easily.

I especially remember one little incident that took place in our home when I was three. Most of the things I remember from my early childhood have been almost forgotten and I now remember them through special effort and recall. But this one brief moment has lived with me and was never put aside to be recalled later.

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