Chapter 10

Paradise Lost

I never dreamed we would ever go to Texas, but one day a cloud came over our paradise.  One Sunday afternoon Uncle Bill Pritchett and Aunt Etta, Uncle Scott and Aunt Bertie Clark and their smaller children came to our house.  Uncle Bill and Uncle Scott had the “Texas fever” in a big way and began begging Papa to go with them to Texas.  They had lived in Texas in the past, and that was all they talked about.  After they left Papa began thinking and talking about it.  Mama didn’t want to go, and I felt that I would die if I had to.  Chester and Elsie thought it would be fun—Easter was little, and wanted to go if there was any going to be done.

Finally, Mama agreed to go and wrote Uncle Dock Elder at Fairy, Texas.  He was thrilled that we were coming, and got us a place to live and a farm to work.  The world was coming to an end for me.  This place and the ancient hills around it had placed a claim on my heart.  They were all a part of me and I felt that no other place on earth could ever be home to me.

Why would anyone want to exchange this place for a place with no trees—nothing but level land covered with fields and broomweeds?  Uncle Hartwell Elder in Midland had written that there were no trees or rocks.  Aunt Lula Strickland at Cranfills Gap had written about broomweeds and live oaks.  Since there were no trees, we though live oaks must be some type of weed.  No trees to climb, or hang rope swing to, no cool shades to play in and no leaves to play with.

There were jackrabbits in Texas, we had heard, but no rocks to throw?  What was there to do for fun?  Besides, here we had our grandpas and grandmas, uncles and aunts, and cousins by the dozen, and friends by the score, and they were all so dear.  We just couldn’t leave them!  I would slip off down to the woods to dream long dreams, and listen to the fairies and pixies whispering in the pines, and watch tem splash their paints of gold and red over the sweetgums and the sassafras, and to talk to God about the mountains and the trees that I would have to say farewell to.  How could I?

I would sit on the doorstep and look at the things around me, and these beautiful things I strung on the golden cord of memory to keep forever.  I studied the mountains and hills, picturing them behind my eyelids where the pictures would never fade.  I drank of their beauty, of the beauty of every tree and every form, cherishing them deep in my heart where they would never perish, thinking that if I should come back sometime a long time from now, and this house and all the people I loved should be gone, these mountains would still be there, and I wondered “Are these the hills we sang about at singing school ‘I will look unto the hills, God’s holy hills’?”  To me they were God’s holy hills.

Papa went to Oxford and got us all some new clothes, and brought home some big boxes for Mama to start packing.  It was near Christmas, so she sent us to the woods to get some holly branches to take along.  We got the holly with bright shiny leaves and red berries, thinking this would be the last holly trees we would see.  And it was, for me, so far.  I see holly shrubs in yards, but no big holly trees.

We had a sale, with Mr. Tom Elliot as auctioneer.  We sold our cows, horses, wagons and buggies, farm equipment and household goods.  Sold the organ, which was like slicing a piece off my heart and selling it.

We couldn’t stay at home any more, so we stayed with relatives until time to go to Texas.  On Saturday night we stayed at Grandpa Strickland’s and went to Mt. Zion church on Sunday morning, and Papa preached.  The house and yard were full of people.  The windows were raised so those outside could hear and see.  After services we lined up, twenty-one of us—three families: Uncle Scott Clark and family; Rufus Moore, wife and baby, Clealis; our family and three young men, Arch Dover, Charlie D. Shaddix, and Brooks Carter—all going to Texas.  (Uncle Bill Pritchett had decided not to go.)  Across the front of the church building, and the congregation sang, “Good-by”, marching by and bidding us farewell.  The song rang out:

“Once more we give the parting hand,
Once more with tear-dimmed eye
We have to say reluctantly
Good-by, dear friends, good-by.”

One by one they came with tears streaming down their faces, old men, young men, women, girls and boys, singing and crying.

“As we have been together here
How swiftly time did fly!
We scarce believe that we must say
Good-by, dear friends, good-by.”

Friends, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces, cousins, schoolmates and playmates, they came, some shaking our hands, and some holding us close and crying with us.  The sound of feet shuffling up the aisle coming from outside.  It was like dying, listening to the words:

“Good-by, good-by, dear friends, good-by.
This is our parting cry.
Remember us when ‘you’ [we] are gone.
Good-by dear friends, good-by.”

We went back to our seats, and they sang “God Be With You”.  Then it was over.

Though this is a story of Shinbone Valley, I must tell of our exodus and something of our life in Texas.

Early on the morning of the fifteenth, Mr. Charlie Hall took us to Pyriton, and we, with the other fifteen, boarded the train for Texas.  At Birmingham we walked, all twenty-one of us, carrying our bags several blocks from one station to another—looking up at the skyscrapers, and at cars crawling in the street like bugs.  We stayed in Birmingham until 10 o’clock that night, then got on a chartered car of an emigrant train.  There were about forty of us on the train bound for Texas.

Riding in the train was something else.  We were soon settled and enjoying it, especially the kids.  We played games, and stuck our heads out the windows and watched the black smoke puffing from the big locomotive and felt the cinders in our faces.  Wednesday morning early, we crossed the Mississippi River at Memphis, Tennessee.  A misty haze hung over the water, so we couldn’t see across, but a steamboat was on the water with black smoke pouring from its smokestack.  Sometime in the night, December 16th, we crossed the Red River into Texas—and about sunrise on the 17th, in Dallas, our coach was switched off and coupled to another engine which was to take us to Fort Worth.

We walked over the town of Fort Worth, seeing the sights, then separated—each family going to a different place.  Uncle Scott and family, and two of the other men to Ringgold; Rufus Moore and family to Haskell.  Brooks Carter came with us and a Mr. Wright, his wife and two daughters we had met on the train, came as far as Waco.

Because of a freight train wreck, we had to spend the night in Waco.  The hotel room was cold.  The beds were hard and we didn’t have enough covers.  We piled our coats on the beds but still were cold.  The next morning we ordered ham and eggs for breakfast—the ham was so rare blood was running out of it and there was not enough bread.  This was our first experience dining in a hotel.  We didn’t ask them to recook the ham and pushed it aside.  Mama then opened up the box of food we had eaten from on the trip, and we ate it along with our eggs. 

It was cold and frosty as we rode in a taxi from the hotel across the Brazos Bridge to the depot.  But, when we got on the train it was warm and comfortable and seemed like home.  Papa told us we would soon be there.  I didn’t want to get there.

I hadn’t wanted to start, and now I didn’t want to stop.  Riding the train was great, I was sure better than arriving anywhere in Texas.  It seemed I could ride the train forever, but we did arrive at Hico around one o’clock in the afternoon, Friday, December 18th.  After Birmingham and Fort Worth, Hico was a desolate looking place, and oh, so cold!  Uncle Dock and son, Joe, were there to meet us in a wagon to carry us to his house, about fourteen miles.  The Bosque River flowed at the edge of Hico and along its bank grew trees.  To our great surprise, we had already seen a lot of trees in Texas.  Once what we thought was the largest peach orchard we’d ever seen was, according to Uncle Scott, not a peach orchard at all, but a mesquite grove.  We had never heard of mesquites.

We had seen cedars growing on white hills in Hill County, and even a wild deer among them.  Now there were trees along the road, small trees, but they were trees.  Also, rock houses, rock fences and rock piles.  Before we reached Uncle Dock’s, though, we had left most of the trees and rocks behind.

Riding fourteen miles in a wagon through steel-blue cold was no fun, especially after riding a warm train, sitting on plush seats for nearly a week.  We wrapped up in the quilt we were sitting on, but almost froze before getting to Uncle Dock’s after dark.  There was a red-hot heater and a warm supper waiting.  Uncle Dock’s was a large and jolly family.  The boys came down from upstairs and Uncle Dock introduced them—there was Aunt Mantie, Electa, Myrtle, Russel, Bill, Tennie, Levena and Sam.

The next morning it looked like we were on top of the world—right up against the sun though it was still cold.  Even the sunshine looked cold.  Some chinaberry bushes and some peach trees grew around the house.  Beyond the fields and pastures on every side were things that looked like potato hills.   They called them “mountains”.  We had never heard of mountains in Texas.

Uncle Dock pointed out shell rocks around the house, which he said proved that the country once was covered with water.  He said there were water rings on the hills and mountains to further prove it. 

I was filled with fear, thinking that if it was once covered with water it might be again.  Also, it was a scary looking country.  The ground was too high.  Back home we looked a long way up to the top of trees and mountains.  Here we were walking around almost level with them.  I felt uneasy as I have always felt on high places.  What if we should fall off the world?  I didn’t tell anyone, but I was scared.

Christmas Eve day we went to Uncle John Strickland’s at Cranfills Gap.  They were glad to see us and we were them.  They didn’t believe in Santa Claus, so we didn’t hang up our stockings that night.  Papa had some candy and nuts and fruit for everyone, so it seemed a little like Christmas. 

Velma, Ella and Ista took us over on the hillsides to play in the ditches.  It was all white gravel and petrified shells, fossils, and scraggly cedars right up against the sky.  The sun still looked cold.  Was God here?  I had though he was everywhere, but this land looked so forsaken.  Surely he was not here.  Then we climbed a tree and found a screech owl in a hole in it—I knew then that God was there, for he takes care of the birds.

On January the first, we moved into our new home…a three-room house on a rocky knob in the middle of a thirty acre pasture in the Agee community in Hamilton County, two and one-half miles from Uncle Dock’s.  There was not a tree in the pasture, nor a bush, except some polecat bushes about knee high at the south side.  Prickly pears grew so thick over part of it we couldn’t walk through them.  We had never seen prickly pears before and suffered some painful experiences getting acquainted with them.

There were no rocks in the field and the dirt was as black as tar.  A cottonwood grew by a well at the far side of the field, a half mile away.  There was a well and a dirt tank below the house, but they were dry.  A corncrib sat at the edge of the yard with a shed on the south side for the mules and cows, and an outdoor toilet.

Not much of a home, but Mama swept up the trash from the floor and put it over the door, and we ate black-eyed peas for dinner.  Uncle Dock and our landlord, Mr. Porterfield, were there to help us, and told us to do those things for luck.  They also told us we would have to be good, for Mr. Grogan, the sheriff, loved just across our field on the south, and Mr. Kavenaugh, the deputy sheriff, lived in the house at the edge of our pasture on the north.  This was all so different from what we had known.

But, this was Texas and a new adventure.  All our furniture was new—new shiny beds with brass knobs, new mattresses, cook stove, cooking vessels and dining table, and new dishes.  Papa got Mama a big white milk pitcher trimmed with gold.  She was so proud of it and told us that whoever broke it would get a whipping—it hasn’t been broken and we still have it.

Somehow the meals tasted different cooked in these new utensils on that new stove and eaten off the new table in our new home in this new country.  We were full of enthusiasm and wonder.  Even I became interested.

We spent the next two days exploring and watching the neighbor’s houses for a glimpse of their children.  Wondering what they would be like.  We could see a one-room schoolhouse out across the fields.  Excitement reigned Monday morning as we got ready for school.  Papa went with us as far as Mr. Porterfield’s.  We walked the road through the field.  It was foggy and we could see only a short distance ahead.  The road was covered with dead grass and our shoes were new and slick on the bottom, so we slipped down a number of times.  It looked like a short distance across the field to Mr. Porterfield’s house, but that morning it seemed like picking up our feet and setting them down in the same place.  Seemed as if we would never get across those fields.  That was the longest mile we had ever walked.

Finally, we reached the schoolhouse so scared we were almost shaking.  There was not a soul there we had ever seen and we were not accustomed to strangers.  A number of boys stood in front of the door.  One red haired boy tipped his cap and said, “Good morning, boys.”  Chester spoke to him, but Elsie and I pretended not to hear and almost fell down getting into the house away from their eyes.

Inside, a tall girl with a kind voice and sweet smile, who, we later learned, was Emme Porterfield, our landlord’s daughter, came and took our lunch kits and wraps and put them away.  She then took us to the teacher.  To us, she was a shining angel and from that day to now I have remembered her as one of the sweetest persons I have ever known.

The teacher, Mr. Robert Foster, was only eighteen years old, but was a very kind man and we loved him from the first.  He showed us to our desks and rang the bell.  After we had studied awhile the teacher said something I didn’t understand and everybody jumped up, yelling at the top of their voices.  I frightened, jumped up too, wondering what in the world was happening.  Everyone seemed to be saying something different, like, “First batter, second batter, third batter, pitcher, etc.”, all yelling as loud as they could.  I said nothing.  I soon learned it was recess and everyone went out of the house pushing and shoving.  We were accustomed to getting out of the schoolhouse quietly and this was something else!

The boys ran down across the road and started playing ball.  The girls climbed through or rolled under a barbed wire fence, grabbed a bat and hard rubber ball and were soon batting and running screaming at each other.  Elise and I had never played ball, except anty-over with a cotton ball, so we just watched.

At noon, everyone was nice to us.  The big girls sat us on a table and stood before us asking questions and admiring our complexions.  We were not sun-tanned like the Texans.  Before many days, we forgot to be afraid and were soon playing and yelling like the rest of them.  School was great and Texas began to seem like a pretty good place.

Besides the schoolhouse, Agee consisted of four residences, a store, blacksmith shop, and Baptist church house.

On Sunday we went to church at Fairy, four miles away.  Mr. Porterfield and his family were there to welcome and introduce us.  He was an elder.  Everyone was nice and made us feel we belonged from the first.  Papa was soon directing the singing and then was the minister for the church until we moved away.

Our well was dry, so Mr. Porterfield made arrangements for us to get water from Mr. Kavenaugh, our nearest neighbor.  Papa made a sled and got a barrel, and with that and a gentle old mare named Diancy, we could haul water more easily than we could carry it.  In spite of that, we still carried quite a bit because of the difficulty of catching and harnessing her.  Though she was thirty years old, she sometimes had to be run down on horseback and roped with a lariat.  Mr. Porterfield had to do the roping for Papa was not a rider and roper.

One beautiful, warm Sunday afternoon in early January, a little before sundown, we noticed a dark bank across the north and though a sandstorm was coming.  We had heard of Texas sandstorms.  Soon the cow came running across the yard, going to the shed.  Then the wind struck and all outdoors turned blue.  There was a strong odor in the air, something like the scent of sparks from flint or steel, a scent peculiar, as we were to learn, to blue northers. This was a blue norther and not a sandstorm.  The barrel of water we had in the yard was solid ice the next morning.

We had never used a hearting stove, but had always had fireplaces to keep us warm in winter.  Our heater didn’t throw out any heat.  It all went up the pipe and outside where it did no one any good.  With the wind blowing up through the cracks in the floor we were about to freeze to death when in walked Ike Porterfield, the landlord’s ten-year old son.  He had walked a mile through that cold wind to bring us a damper for the stovepipe.  Papa had to take the fire out of the heater and put it in the cook stove and let the pipe cool before he could install it, but the damper helped.  Mama covered the floor around the stove with ducking, tacking it down, and that helped, too.

We ran out of water in the house and couldn’t get the ice out of the barrel.  The wind was so high the windmills couldn’t run and the water pipes were frozen.  Papa and Chester went to Mr. Blacklock’s another neighbor, where there was a wooden tank and climbed onto the tower, broke the ice, and dipped water out and brought it home.  It was ice before they could get it home.

We thought of the well we had left, where we could draw water any time we wanted, warm water in the winter and cool in the summer, and Grandpa’s spring across the road where on cold mornings steam rose from the water continuously, and of the little spring where Grandma kept her water lilies—they never froze.

    In the cold weather there was the humming of telephone lines, a sound so desolate, almost terrifying at times with its loneliness.  One might as well have been alone in the world, or maybe in outer space with nothing but that eternal, mysterious humming.  It shut out everything else and brought loneliness that was indescribable.  But, we grew accustomed to it and even came to enjoy running from pole to pole, putting our ears against them, listening to the hum.