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Father had a
plank corn crib with a large window for an entrance, the lower part
of the window was about 3 1/2 ft above the crib floor.
Remember well once when the hired hand put me in there when he was
shelling corn to take to the mill. For some reason he failed
to take me out when he left. I was just the same as in jail as
the boards were put on perpendicular which left no place to get a
toe hold, and the bottom of the opening was too high to jump up for
a four year old. I am sure there was a lusty call for help from
within that old board crib. I was one tickled kid when I had
been taken out of my jail.
Our next move was down on Brushy
Creek east of Hallettsville. I became another year older then.
My maternal g'parents lived near
us there - one of the best
grandmothers there was. Mother with her brood went visiting one day
to a neighbor name Hicks. They had some
viscous dogs. Kid-like I wandered out of the house, and the first
thing I knew the dogs were fighting over me. I have always
thought the larger dog was fighting the other two off. One of them
was a hairless Mexican dog that was not fond of gringos as he sunk
his teeth into my setting down place. That experience seems to have
left a sore spot in my feeling toward dogs which has never
completely healed - as the other place did. Had not a young
man - Commodore
Hicks come to my rescue, I might
have gone west instead of later NW up here.
About two years
later one of my uncles got into a difficulty over the KKK and a man
was buried next day. This uncle came home to my Grandmother's with
two big cap and ball pistols on and with two other men with him. At
that time the KKK was organized to scare the freed slaves against
infractions of the law, as it seemed the Negro did not know what to
do with himself, especially the young grown ones. They seemed to
rather pilfer and steal rather than to work for a living. After the
KKK had accomplished the mission for which it was organized instead
of disbanding as they were ordered they in some sections continued
to harass Negroes and some whites. In order to bring order out of
chaos in our immediate section, those who opposed the then
operations of the Klan organized to curb these operations. So that
was what the scrap was about.
There was brewing in that
neighborhood a feeling between the KKK and I guess you would call
them a vigilance order who thought the KKK should disband as their
mission had been fulfilled. The culmination was one of the former
members was killed which seemed to have curbed the activities of the
two orders. After growing older, I learned the identity of many of
the personel in either order. To me one order had as good men as the
other. The younger & hot heads were the ones who made
trouble.
The first cook stove I remember was when we
lived there. Father was freighting for merchants at Hallettsville.
One trip his freight consisted of some stoves. Anyway he had one for
delivery that had one of the oven doors broken off at the hinges.
The merchant could not receive it in that condition so F.[ather]
bought it for M.[other]. But he fixed it up and it did
good work.
Of course you people of this
generation will wonder how the people of the South arranged their
cooking. They all had fireplaces or chimneys with large hearths
where they would rake out live coals of fire and set their dutch
ovens on & cover with a tight fitting lid & put coals on it
and very soon the cornbread or biscuits were done to a queens taste.
The meat, coffee, and other foods were cooked the same
way.
There was a country school near where we lived. There was
where I learned to spell cat - dog - bug and so on. I recall a very
pretty little girl attended that school. She had a band comb to keep
her curls in place. When I was not studying my lessons I was looking
at that band comb.
Some time my Uncle Jim would stop in
with us for a nite. He was a somnambulant - we called walking in
your sleep. One nite he broke out thru the door in his shirt tail
and into a live oak thicket, which clawed up his naked legs--which
woke him up plenty. Of course, he came back into the house
thoroughly chastened.
You will think my people had itchy feet
- which they did have. Especially F.(ather] as we did not stop at
one place long. Just chasing the rainbow, I now guess, for '68 found
us at near Hackberry where we remained a year, and I went to school
at old Andrews Chappell where I advanced from cat & dog to
baker--shady & so on. I recall one day while at that place a
Mexican freight caravan came by. There must have been at least 50
big two wheeled carts in the caravan - with one yoke of steers
pulling the carts. The road by our house was then the highway from
San Antonio to Houston, the terminal of the RR. Hackberry was also a
P. O. where the mail and passengers were carried on a four-horse
stage. The stage driver would blow a horn when near enough to
the P. O. that the stable attendant would have fresh
horses out and ready to put to the stage - that the mail could move
on to its next destination or stage stand.
Mrs. M. E. Peacock Walker
wrote to
Woodson, " When I was a young
school girl, a widow Coffey
(Coffee) visited us and told
Mother this story. Her husband went to the Co. to make his
pile as many others did. After a time he wrote her he had done well
and was coming home overland with a good span of mules and wagon. A
man named Simpson was coming with him. Simpson came but claimed C.
died on the way but that he had nothing. Simpson was prosperous. I
think she said C. name was Logan
Coffee. She believed he was
murdered…….. The young widow you spoke of whose husband
wrote her that he had done well and was coming home was Logan Coffee, my Grand-father, so Uncle
Bob told me, and as Uncle Bob's
version was, my grand-father and a man by name of Jacks were
together, and Jacks came home with
the same statement as you understood………
In 1869 our family
moved to Kansas. Father of course heard of the money to be
made driving cattle to Kansas and selling them, and there was plenty
cattle in Texas that were very cheap and would sell in Kansas for a
good profit after the overhead expenses were paid. Father purchased,
as I recall, 300 head and pooled in with two other small drivers.
Our family landed in Butler Co in early summer. Father hired a crew
and put up prairie hay to feed such cattle he did not sell that
fall,. I recall we lived in a tent until snow flew, but soon we had
a house to move into. The winter was rather severe as some [of] our
cattle died, though they had hay stacks to feed at their own will.
Next spring we moved from Hickory Creek west to Whitewater River
where the country was more open and less farms.
F.[ather] had
I think 40 yoke of work oxen he had wintered on hay which he moved
to our new abode and, as Father went back to Texas for more cattle,
it fell to my lot to day-herd these oxen in the daytime and pen them
at night. had two ponies to herd on and by the time Father returned
I had the hair worn off those ponies' weathers & back in places,
as I had no saddle. While there our baby brother took sick &
died. The grave I know not now where it is. While the baby was sick
we lived in a one room log cabin with a wagon sheet hung up for a
door and a blanket for a window shutter. One day a man stuck his
head thru the door and stared which scared Mother. We sat up all
nite, as we had no firearms. I was placed by the door with the ax.
But our fears proved to be groundless. Those oxen stampeded one day
and ran into a cornfield and had a sample of Kan. corn before I
could get them out of the corn. F.[ather] had to pay damages
for corn when he returned. I think half of 2 year old beef - which
was cheap as the oxen did well on the luscious grass of Kan. that
was free to all who would graze it.
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