Chapter 6

THE GOD OF ALL COMFORT

(From Mother’s death in March 1954 until I start the 5^th grade of elementary school in September 1956.)

God ordained that the living go on living, so by His Abundantly Sufficient Grace, our family did so. After we returned home from Mother’s funeral on Thursday afternoon, I told Daddy I wanted to go to school the next day. “No, this is too soon. You 3 can go back to school on Monday.” So, the following day (Friday) I forlornly watch the school bus go by our house, wishing I could get on it. But at home, a few people come and go all day. I enjoy their company (and especially the delicious food they bring).

The next day (Saturday) there was some kind of rally in Vernon. Daddy took us children to it, a few friends hung around with us at the rally, and the gala atmosphere there helped take our minds off our sorrow. Most folks did not yet have a TV in their house to stare at, so any fun event in town easily drew a good crowd eager to enjoy it and enjoy seeing many other people they rarely see.

On Sunday Daddy took his 4 children to church, of course. After I became an adult, one day in 1977 Daddy and I visited Pastor and Sister Cobb at their home in Columbus, Mississippi. Reminiscing, Pastor Cobb remarked that it deeply touched his heart seeing our family file into church with no Mother that first time.

Come Monday morning, I delighted to climb onto that school bus and distance myself from our gloomy dilapidated shack. Everyone at school (teachers and kids) was so kind and gentle to me. Several days later, classmate Kaye (sitting nearby me in Mrs. Duke’s room) spoke up to me “out of the blue”. “Richard, I’ll marry you.” Many years later when Kaye was an adult she told my sister that she felt extremely sorry for me because Mother had died. Her 8-year-old mind thought so hard on what she could do to aid me. And that was the solution she came up with. Sure was sweet of her. Kaye was a most compassionate and pretty girl and I claimed her as my sweetheart off and on during my school years.

Twelfth grader Mary rode my school bus on past my house to hers. Now, on the bus, she would make a point to smile often at me to cheer me up. Both she and her smile were ever so lovely, causing me to fall deeply in love with her. So I soon announced at home that I was going to marry Mary. Upon hearing that, my 14-year-old sister Janiece spoke right up. “Mary is a lot older than you. She’ll get married before you get grown.” Her blunt news broke my heart (but it soon mended).

Mother was a talker. She habitually talked much to her 4 kids, which generally was good for us and needful to little children. Daddy was not a talker. Now with Mother gone, our home became morbidly silent. That made me sadder. Daddy (in deep sorrow over Mother’s death, and likely worried and in deep serious thought about how to rear us 4 kids alone without a helpmeet) became even more silent. Upon Mother’s sudden death, likely much remorse and regret came over him because he and Mother had argued a lot. (Daddy never spoke to us about such heart matters of his own. So I am only guessing at my following words. Also, my young immature mind did not perceive much that wasn’t on the surface, in their marriage relation and such.)

Likely much of their arguing stemmed from Mother nagging Daddy to improve our living conditions, her wanting to “feather the nest” better. But Daddy just didn’t do well enough financially to better our lives. Not long before Mother died, she and Daddy argued at home one Sunday afternoon. Mother got mad, cried, and told Daddy that she was not going to church that night.

That was a major deal, for her (a faithful church member) to deliberately stay away from church. Daddy tried to make her go, but she was adamant. Come time to leave for Sunday night church, we 5 got into the car without Mother. Daddy started the engine, hesitated to leave, and told 7-year-old me to go back into the house and tell Mother to come with us. If we 5 walk into church without Mother, the questions will fly as to “Why?” Daddy is trying his best to prevent that embarrassment.

Darkness had just fallen. This little boy walked alone back into that dark and drab dilapidated shack (not a light was on) all way to the kitchen to find Mother sitting in an old, worn cane back chair in the dark (close to the wood cook stove for the warmth it radiated). She was quietly sobbing alone in the bleak darkness in our shanty of a house (a most touching sight to my little soul).

‘Daddy said to come on and go with us.’

“Tell him I’m not going!” She was adamant thru her tears.

Back thru the dark house I trod and got back into the car with the other four. ‘She said she ain’t going.’ After briefly pondering silently, Daddy drove on to church with us four kids. I am amazed that scene and those words did not plunge my little heart into grief. Thank Thee, Lord, for guarding over my tender, little heart to prevent such actions of my Christian parents from grieving this little child unduly.

I now write of such mainly so that when you Christian parents read this you can listen to The Holy Spirit clearly speaking to your heart telling you that with the Help of Almighty God in Heaven you can of a certainty do much better than that before your children. And I am praying that you will constantly seek that Divine Help and thereby do much better. Doing so will richly benefit each member of your precious family.

After Mother’s death, likely such memories of him and Mother arguing “haunted” Daddy to some degree. He was plenty silent when our family was together at home. That tended to make me sad. So the cheerful atmosphere at school helped me tremendously. I happily continued on in Mrs. Duke’s 2^nd Grade class till the end of May when school let out for the summer. (Enough said of my 2^nd grade schooling.)

Attending church 3 or more times each week was certainly a spiritual lift for all my family. Almighty God Himself and the Christians at church all comforted us with God’s True Comfort, and we received the rich blessings that come from singing, praying, and learning of God in church, worshipping God and fellowshipping with kind, loving Christians. There was much godly comfort in that, thank God.

Kind people continued to bring delicious food to our house daily for a few days (and afterwards “off and on”). For several Sundays straight, different church people invited us to go home with them for Sunday lunch after the morning church service. Thanks be unto God that He had made us into a Christian family. “What would we do without the Lord?”

Soon after Mother’s death came time for Daddy’s strenuous task of breaking and disking the fields for planting. But this year, several neighborly farmers came with their tractors and did that preparation as a kind deed to us, each paying for his own tractor gas. At one time, I think I counted 7 tractors plowing and disking in our fields. Generous men (and their machines) made short work of the breaking, disking, and section harrowing (instead of dragging) all our fields, which Dad would have done with his horses. Then Daddy planted (and did the following cultivating) with his pair of horses.

Each weekday when we 3 older kids went to school, Daddy had to watch after Joe alone while he did his farm work. On school days this spring, he would take 5-year-old Joe with him to the field and keep an eye on Joe as he plowed. One day, Uncle Kilby and Aunt Olivia from Birmingham came to visit Daddy while we 3 were at school. In talking, Daddy told them of constantly glancing in Joe’s direction off and on while plowing back and forth. One time when Dad looked that way, Joe was not in sight. Concerned, Daddy hurriedly walked to that area. He found Joe lying prone in a dirt furrow in the field, asleep on the dirt, taking the nap his little body called for.

“He’s going home with us to stay a while,” Uncle and Aunt more or less decreed to Daddy. They took Joe (and a sack of his clothes) to Birmingham. Likely Joe stayed with them till school let out for summer. (Then Janiece would be home every day.) Uncle Kilby had a nice house and Joe played with Cousin Danny (4 years old or so). Being with them was good for Joe at that time, no doubt.

Mother’s Day soon came. Our church had this Mother’s Day custom. People whose mothers were living wore a red rose on their lapel to church. Those whose mothers were deceased wore a white rose to church each year on Mother’s Day. It saddened me to now start wearing a white rose. We 4 kids now penned on a white rose each year, but Daddy wore a red rose till 1965 (when I was in college).

After school let out at the end of May 1954, all 5 of us slaved away at the much farm work that had to be done. We children were promoted into many of Mother’s jobs, Daddy doing the ones we were not yet able to do.

He would arise early each morning, build a fire in the wood cook stove (and in the living room stove when it was cold) make and bake fresh hot biscuits for breakfast and cook the eggs and meat for that early meal. But we 3 older kids were trained to bake a pone of cornbread, boil peas, beans, turnip greens and such, doing much of the work that put dinner and supper on the table. And any child that has started walking can wash the dishes, can they not? So we 4 kids inherited that job.

Janiece (along with Mother) may have already been milking cows before Mother died. Daddy now taught Sidney and me how to milk. (There is a knack to milking by hand. One doesn’t simple squeeze and tug. If you have never been there, you won’t understand.)

Each week, we kids now help much with washday. By now, we have a crude washing machine (nothing automatic about that washing machine made in the 1940s). So we still fill the 2 black wash pots in the back yard with water, build a wood fire under them to heat the water and hand carry the hot water in a bucket to the washing machine on the back porch. We had a clothesline on which to hang our best clothes to dry. We hung many of our work clothes on the barbed wire pasture fence at the back edge of our narrow back yard. The wire barbs pierced the fabric, helping hold the garment in place. (Quite durable fabric, back in those ancient days!)

We kids hoe the grass in the garden, pick vegetables, shell peas and beans (and such) and help Daddy to the best of our ability with canning vegetables to eat during the winter. Sidney and I chop and hoe cotton in earnest most of the summer. Janiece has been promoted into many of Mother’s jobs at the house, including watching Joe. So she doesn’t chop cotton much of the time.

A Yerby family reunion was held each summer in late July on a Sunday afternoon in the house of Aunt Rosetta and Aunt Elizabeth Yerby (old maid sisters of my Granddad Yerby, I guess) in the Crossville community 7 miles east of Vernon on Hwy 18. It was our custom to drive there after Sunday morning church, just in time for lunch. Likely it was this summer (1954) that our car’s engine quit right at the foot of the hill going up to Crossville. Daddy tried in vain to restart it, flagged down a passing car, asked the driver to stop at the Yerby house less than half mile ahead and tell them we were stranded. It wasn’t long before Uncle Denzel came for us in his car. (Later, Daddy got our car running again.)

I took much from the abundance spread on the tables in the yard, stuffed myself as full as possible with the delicious food and then played with cousins and listened to the adults talk as they sat in chairs and on simple benches under the oak or pecan shade trees.

“They say the new model cars are going to look real modern this year.” I recall Uncle Denzel saying that. Soon, in September 1954, the 1955 model cars make their debut on the market. You can “search” pictures of 1955 model cars and pictures of previous models up to 1955 to compare them to see a bold “leap ahead” in modern design of one of the main instruments mankind uses to “run to and fro”.

The mid-1950s was a pivotal time in our nation’s history as much of its population began to daily stare at length at a moving picture screen (at home and at the local theater) enjoying viewing and lusting after the “world” portrayed on that screen and lusting after the many new machines of the world that the advertising on the screen enticed the buyer to go into debt to buy and then to love and enjoy to the fullest, picking up speed as they head to destruction. I think it was in 1954 that devilish rock music first entered our nation in the form of the song, “Rock Around The Clock”.

Anyway, our 1937 car becomes hopeless. So Daddy starts looking for another car to buy, causing us growing children to look around at the attractiveness of newer model cars and hope our next car will not be extremely ancient. But Daddy must buy the cheapest, which again equates to the oldest. So he buys a 1940 Nash Ambassador that is now 15 or 16 years old. But it is much better than our 1937 car that just died on us, so we are plenty happy with it. Dad will drive that car till about 1971. I think he got his money’s worth out of it.

When school starts back at the beginning of September 1954, Janiece starts the 9^th grade, Sidney starts 5^th grade, I start 3^rd grade and Joe now starts school in the 1^st grade. That was a tremendous help and relief to Daddy for Joe to be in school. Daddy (now alone on the farm when we 4 are in school and thus totally able to devote himself to that work) daily toils ever so long and hard at the farm work, typically quickly eating lunch alone each day and hurrying right back to work. This autumn all 4 of us kids earnestly pick cotton. This year, some church people come help us pick cotton on Saturdays because Mother is gone. I enjoy their company in the cotton patch and enjoy picking that fluffy white cotton.

God ordained that grief and sorrow (brought on by tragedy or such) gradually heal with time. I thank God this was true for Daddy (as an adult). As for us kids, with each passing day we grew physically. God ordained that this physical growth also aid in overcoming the searing grief of Mother’s death. Children physically outgrow traumatic events. With each passing day, it became easier for each one in my family to believe that life would go on. As I daily gained a little more maturity, I steadily felt less helpless (and less hopeless). That felt good.

When I start the 3^rd grade in September 1954, Mrs. Chandler is my teacher, a kind and diligent teacher. I’m glad to be back in school. (Every September I’m happy for school to start back). I enjoy the 3^rd grade from start to finish.

This year may have been the first time I worked in the school lunchroom for about 30 minutes each lunch period. I got my lunch in return for that work. The school would allow about a dozen students to “work for their lunch”. Poor families asked for those jobs for their kids. I think all 4 of us Yerby kids “worked” for our lunches some of the years we were in school. We didn’t get a job every year we asked for it. I am thankful for the years I got to work for that delicious, healthy school lunch.

In the 3^rd grade, I study hard, make good grades, and immensely enjoy school. (No more needs to be said of my 3^rd year of school.)

Pleasant autumn time in the cotton fields was plenty enjoyable for me. As soon as we finish picking all our cotton, Daddy (with Sid and I) start pulling the corn and hauling it to our barn on the wagon to store it in the corncrib, working fast trying to get out all the corn before the weather gets very cold and before much rain falls on the ripe corn.

I look forward to Thanksgiving (2 and half days off from school). Friends bring delicious food to our house. I more eagerly look forward to Christmas time with a 2 week Christmas (and New Year’s) vacation from school. Two whole weeks off from school, plus presents and delicious food made Christmas nice for this boy.

This year was our 1^st Thanksgiving and Christmas without Mother. On each of those holidays, friends and relatives heaped kindness upon us, more so at Christmas time. During this Christmas season, one afternoon Uncle James Yerby and wife came with much delicious Christmas food. They ate supper with us, their food being most of our supper. (And they left the remainder of it for us to eat in the coming days.) That evening, Uncle James drove us all to Columbus to see the city’s pretty Christmas lights and decorations. It was much fun.

A few “extra” people gave us children presents this Christmas, because Mother is gone. Many good people bestowed much kindness upon us. It all helped tremendously. By now there are several new 1955 model cars around. Each time I see one; I marvel as I gaze with desire upon its worldly beauty and determine that I will not be poor all my life (like my Daddy). I’m going to work hard (at anything except farming) to become richer and have much better material things in life.

I enjoy the 2 weeks of Christmas Vacation to the fullest and return to Mrs. Chandler’s 3^rd grade classroom the first week in January. My 9^th birthday soon arrives in mid-January. I get no presents, but Daddy planned a small special treat. At Christmas time, kind folks brought us cakes, pies, and candy, which we quickly devoured. But Daddy secretly took a few sticks of peppermint candy and hid them well on an upper shelf in the kitchen (near where Mother had hidden her coffee from Jack). After supper on the night of my birthday, Daddy brings out the hidden treasure, announces that it is for my birthday, and each of us enjoys 2 sticks of that delicious peppermint candy.

Upon Mother’s death, Daddy started the custom of faithfully putting flowers on her grave each Sunday, without fail. After Sunday morning church, as our family headed back home, Daddy drove by the cemetery and we 5 “visited” Mother’s grave as Daddy took up the week-old flowers and replaced them with fresh ones, God-created flowers, not artificial flowers.

We had various flowers growing in our yard. Daddy would choose the loveliest from among them, often choosing roses that Mother liked best. Mrs. Parson grew many flowers in her large yard. At times, she would give us a bouquet for Mother’s grave. Church people also did so at times. During the hot and warm seasons, it was quite easy to obtain fresh flowers in season. But with the onset of winter, that became more difficult.

So there comes a cold winter Saturday night when Daddy has no flowers at all and no likely prospects of being given any at church on Sunday. When he prayed before going to bed, he told that to God. During the night, Daddy dreamed that the next morning, he went out to the upper edge of our vegetable garden (next to the hog pen fence) and picked lovely yellow flowers to take to Mother’s grave.

He awoke early Sunday morning somewhat amazed by his dream. He quickly built the 2 fires in the living room and kitchen and soon took the water bucket and headed out the back door to pump a bucket of fresh water from the well. A white frost covered the ground. It was cold winter. Exiting the back porch Daddy would turn left to go to the water pump. But before turning left, he looked to his right (toward the place the yellow flowers had been in his dream).

And there they were; lovely yellow flowers growing out of the ground, the surrounding plant life and grass being winter dead with white frost on it. Dad cut those flowers and we put them on Mother’s grave after the morning church service. Almighty God does work miracles today, and He will readily do so for a Christian farmer in poverty grieving over the loss of his wife.

Daddy buys a double tombstone for Mother and him, a big expense for his extremely thin wallet. He asks us children what “writing” (from the Bible) we would like engraved on it. Each of us has his and her personal opinion. Daddy kindly guides in the final decision: “Not my will, but Thine be done.” Tho Mother’s death meant much sorrow and hardship to us, God laid this most appropriate Scripture on Dad’s heart regarding her death. Praise God for Victory in Jesus, even in bitter death.

An alert salesman keenly observing obituaries waited a “decent” amount of time before paying us a visit. Sitting in our living room he explained how that he could enlarge a picture of Mother and put it in a nice frame for us. He quite easily made that sale. We chose the picture of Mother among her roses. The salesman studied the picture. It was obvious from the well-known simple design on Mother’s dress that her dress was homemade from cloth fertilizer sacks. My precious Mother made it herself.

The kind salesman said that he could enhance the enlargement by “coloring” the dress pink (implying that we could disguise the “fertilizer sack” homemade dress that reeked of poverty). Our poor family was highly in favor of any free “enhancing” we could obtain at that time, so we happily agreed to that. Soon we receive the finished framed, colored photo and hang it in our living room.

Presently (2016) we 4 children still have that large picture of Mother in its oval frame. The “color enhancing” work was not very advanced in 1954, thus it did not reach into the 2 “shadowed” areas of the dress under each of Mother’s arms. When I now look at that area, the “fertilizer sack” design is highly visible and brings back “fond” memories of those sacks. I greatly rejoice that the lovely pink color could not totally conquer the “lowly fertilizer sack dress” (her very own poverty induced handiwork) that Mother was wearing.

Along about the time winter gives way to warm spring weather (about 1 year after Mother’s death), the special attention and kindness everyone bestows on our family naturally declines along about now. Almighty God knew just how much we needed and for how long.

This spring of 1955, Uncle Hershel may have been the only farmer who came on his tractor to break and disk some of our fields before planting. To plant the cotton and corn, Daddy 1^st ran the fertilizer distributor (pulled by one horse) that plowed a small furrow for each row (dropping a small stream of “powdered” fertilizer into that furrow). Sid and I would pour fertilizer from the sack into 2 buckets and have them waiting at the end of the row for Daddy to dump into the “hopper” and go another round.

“Greater Yields from Roster Fertilizer.” I would gaze at that printed on the paper fertilizer bags. At this age, I learned many words by looking at them in the songbook as we sang in church. “Yield not to temptation, for yielding is sin.” I had no idea what the words “yield” and “yielding,” meant. But I knew for certain they were sin, because it was right there in the hymnbook. So now when I am able to read that this fertilizer gives greater “yields,” I wonder why Daddy is using sinful fertilizer.

“Amazing, what flows thru your mind, Little Boy.”

School lets out at the end of May 1955 and I finish the 3^rd year of my schooling with flying colors and rejoice that summer is here. Though we children are made to work harder each summer (because we are bigger and stronger), we also are more able to enjoy God’s wonderful nature all around us (absolutely free of monetary cost, that being a rich blessing to poor farm children).

I like to fish in the streams, creeks and ponds that are in walking distance of our house. We kids would put together our own simple fishing tackle (pole, line, bobber, lead and hook). We caught crickets or dug earthworms to use for bait. Quietly watching that bobber from the bank 10 feet away, can anything match the thrill of this child seeing it start bobbing (greatly increasing my heartbeat)? Then to see the bobber plunge down below the water’s surface, signaling that it is time to jerk on the pole and upon doing so, feel the resistance on the other end that assures the fish is hooked. ‘Must be a hundred pounder!’ When I get the 5-ounce perch to the surface, I am not one bit disappointed that it is far short of 100 pounds. What a joy to catch 4 or 5 of them, take them home, clean them and eat them at our family’s supper table.

In the summers, we (often with neighbor kids) swim in those streams. At some “swimming holes” we could tie a rope to a tree limb over the stream, swing out over the water (grasping that rope), turn loose and drop into the water.

Occasionally while swimming, we would sight a water moccasin (poisonous water snake) swimming with us, and that snake didn’t appear happy that we had invaded his domain. We stayed on the lookout for such danger, and upon sighting that scary-looking serpent slithering thru the water, the great fear that instantly permeated a boy’s entire being seemed to give a boy the miraculous ability to rise up out of the water and “run on water” toward the shore. Likely the serpent was amused at our rapid fleeing ability.

We had mud ball fights while swimming. Going under water was a natural way to take cover from incoming mud balls, the downside being that a body soon has to breathe. And as soon as the head surfaces for a fresh breath, an enemy artilleryman is waiting to send a mud ball straight for that head. Fun beyond compare!

Though my family lived in poverty, we were richly blessed to be living out in the wonderful and beautiful nature that God created (where blessings, fun, blackberries, huckleberries, plums, mulberries, muscadines, and such abound for free) as opposed to being captive in the ghetto slums of some large city where boredom, vice and sin abound. I lived, worked, and played out in God’s blessed nature. That made for a most blessed and rich childhood and youth. I thank my God for it.

In 1950, it was common for a farm man to make a slingshot and keep it handy in one of the many pockets in his overalls. Our neighbor, Mr. Ormond, was a crack shot with that simple weapon. He could hit a snake right in the head with the small stone that sailed forth (propelled by releasing the tightly stretched rubbers). Farm men (and boys) would use their slingshots against various animal pests.

Seeing slingshots and their use as a weapon caused me to want my own. So I selected a small forked branch in a hickory tree, cut it to size for the yoke, cut 2 rubbers from an old useless inner tube lying around, cut a pouch from some kind of scrap material, and tied it all together. I was so happy to finish it and now eagerly wanted to “test fire” it, of course. I chose a stone of appropriate size and loaded it into the pouch.

With my loner’s nature, I am prone to do things alone (tho at times it’s wise for a little boy to have an older, wise advisor). Loner nature Daddy, not being prone to help me with such, “lent” to my tendency to do things alone. This was one of those exciting, dangerous times. ‘Let’s see now. I want the rock to fly away from me. So I guess I had better pull it in that direction.’ Using such childish wisdom, I grasp the stock in my right hand, hold it at chest level, and with my left hand grasping the pouch I pull that pouch straight out front away from my chest as far as my short arm can stretch the rubbers. I’m now ready to “fire”!

You see, I had not yet learned in science class at school that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. But let me tell you something, Reader Friend. As soon as I released that pouch and that stone flew straight into my chest (bull’s-eye), it instantly imparted that much needed scientific knowledge unto me. I learned that science lesson in such a painful fashion that the theory lodged in my brain much better than it would have done from classroom instruction only.

Ever since that day, I have always remembered to pull the slingshot harness in the opposite direction I want the stone to fly. (Nothing like trial and error to drive the point (stone) home.) I am most blessed that God saw to it that I pulled that stone straight out at chest level. Had I held it higher at eye level, pulled it straight away from my forehead for better sighting advantage, and thusly released that stone, I might have been as successful at slaying my own self as David was at slaying Goliath. (On that day I again possibly came close to sparing you the drudgery of reading my life’s story.)

I would search out an appropriate size hickory for making a bow. I made arrows from the most appropriate slender and straight reed-like “growth” I could find. Because we saved everything, various kinds of “bow string” were available in the house from which to choose. I enjoyed playing with my handcrafted bow and arrows, but I have no “narrow escape from death” story related to that weapon with which to amuse (or bore) you.

We grew hay to feed the horses and cows. Daddy cut the hay with the horse drawn hay mower, let it lie a day or two to dry, and then raked it into rows and then the rows into piles with the horse drawn hay rake. (This was a time to pray hard that it would not rain on the cut hay lying in the field, and ruin it.)

Then Sidney and I would go to the hayfield in the wagon with Daddy to haul in the hay. Daddy put the high sideboards on the wagon for hauling hay (or for hauling a bale of cotton). As the horses pulled the wagon from one hay pile to the next, Daddy would throw the loose hay onto the wagon with a pitchfork while Sid and I tromped it down. Hay was light, so Daddy made us boys tromp it with all our might in order to get all we could onto the wagon before each trip to the barn. By the time Daddy said “That’s enough for this load” the hay rose high above the wagon’s sideboards, causing childhood fear to again rise high in my heart because I knew what life threatening danger lay just ahead on each trip to the barn.

I preferred to walk to the barn rather than to participate in the upcoming tumbling act (from a greater and more dangerous height than the barber chair), but Daddy made Sid and me to ride on the wagon with him so we all three could vainly try to hold down the loose hay to prevent the top portion of it (above the sideboards) from sliding off the wagon when we exited the hayfield angling sideways up a short incline to the road.

I could have told Daddy that this high of a load will again slide off the wagon at that crucial tilting place, just like several previous high loads had done. But Daddy had no regard for this kid’s advice. He chose what he considered the most effective spot atop the mountain of hay for each boy to sit (to hold the slick hay in place, presenting his body a living sacrifice), and jabbed the pitchfork down into another chosen spot in an effort to hold that area of hay, and thus we were set to go tumbling again (from a much higher vantage point than the barber’s nail keg atop the rickety chair, and in unison with a sharp 4-prong pitchfork).

Actually we didn’t tumble every time we negotiated that short incline at an angle. But we tumbled too many times for my pleasure, if I may say so. As we neared that incline, I crossed my fingers, prayed, spread out my hands and feet and dug them into the hay in a feeble effort to hold it in place, begged God to keep me from getting killed, and soon began to feel the hay under my dear body start to slide.

‘Here we go again. Lord, I’m coming home!’ More than once, that top portion of hay slid off the lower side of the wagon angled on the incline, taking Sid and I and the pitchfork with it (a dangerous combination). Daddy was always able to hold on to the horses’ reins and the front boards of the wagon. I don’t think Dad himself ever joined us boys in that tumbling act; tho Sid and I practiced that stunt several times. (We should have joined a circus and gotten paid for our variety of dangerous tumbling acts.)

Either boy could have landed upside down on his head and thus permanently ended his heyday. Also the interesting combination of 2 boys and 1 pitchfork doing the tumbling act together “helter skelter” was an excellent combination for a boy to permanently end his tumbling acts with a pitchfork thrust thru him. O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth forever. Thank Thee, My Precious Lord Jesus, for Thy Great Mercies shed abundantly upon that poor farmer’s family, time and again preserving our lives in dangerous situations.

In 1950 (about the time my infant memory kicked in), natural water springs and artesian wells abounded in that area. As the world’s progress called for man to use more water and enabled man to invent machinery to drill deeper wells and pump more water out of the earth (lowering the water table), one by one most all of those bubbling water sources dried up. Our spring back in the corner of our pasture steadily became less dependable as a watering hole for our cows and horses.

We set a tub just inside the pasture fence near our well beside the house and we children received an additional chore of pumping water into a bucket and dumping it into that tub for the livestock to drink there. But when the heavens withheld rain for a spell, slacking the thirst of both man and beast we sometimes pumped the well dry. So Daddy dug a second well down in the east edge of our pasture near the road.

He dug it by hand with pick and shovel, 3 feet or more in diameter. When the well got too deep for him to toss each shovelful of dirt up and out of the well, he tied a rope onto the handle of a 5 gallon bucket. Down in the well, he would shovel loose dirt into the bucket; we boys would pull the bucket up to the surface with the rope and dump the dirt nearby. He nailed together a makeshift ladder from boards to use to go down into and to climb back up out of the well.

As Daddy kept digging deeper, we boy helpers excitedly looked forward to him striking water and soon he did. He then dug a little deeper with the cold water rising up close to his knees. Then we installed a short hand pump with pipe down into the well, brought the tub down here, led the horses and drove the cows down here to introduce them this new place to come quench their thirst. Those smart animals caught on quickly.

This lower well had a better stream of water under it than our well next to the house (higher uphill). Sometimes (on wash days and such) we still pumped our house well dry. At such times we boys lugged buckets of water 100 yards (plus) from that lower well up the hill thru the pasture and veggie garden to the house. Returning to the house with that heavy bucket of precious liquid, exiting the pasture at the vegetable garden required me to negotiate that 3-strand barbed wire fence.

The safest strategy would be to set bucket on the ground right under bottom strand of wire in line with fence, slither my body between strands of sharp barbs free of heavy bucket, then take up bucket on far side of fence. But sometimes, I would lift up heavy bucket trying to get it over top strand of wire. If my tired arms couldn’t get bucket high enough, bottom rim on the bucket would catch on a barb, causing me to spill my precious cargo, walk back to well, fill said bucket again, and negotiate fence more carefully next time.

A neighbor lady living a short distance past our house occasionally dropped off her son (about 6 years old now) to play with us when she went to town to shop. One day while he was at our house, he began to miss his mother and started crying. Janiece and we boys tried to cheer him up in various ways. I soon stole the show with my destructive act.

We were on the front porch, so I started jumping up and down on the wooden porch at its west rear corner. The old floor bounced a little as I jumped. I hoped crybaby would join in and jump to make it bounce more. But about that time, the nails that were holding up a 4 foot wide section of that back edge pulled out, causing the back of that section to crash down to the ground about 3 feet below. That shocked us all. The boy instantly stopped sobbing and laughed at it. I was thankful I didn’t get hurt and that Daddy didn’t whip me when he came from the field and saw the damage I had done to our porch.

Shortly after Mother died, one day Uncle Hershel was talking about that night she lay in state in our non-sturdy old house. “When Austin was walking around in the living room, I felt the floor give way a little each time he took a step. And I got up and went outside.” Austin weighed about 250 pounds. The weight of the casket and several people in the living room was straining the old weak floor (close to its limit, Uncle Hershel thought). So Uncle thought it wise and safe to subtract his weight. Thus the floor would be more likely to hold up. And if it didn’t, he would be much safer out in the yard when that old floor collapsed under weight of coffin, Mother’s body and several mourners.

Daddy didn’t bother trying to repair that section of porch that I broke loose. He just stayed busy farming. The leaky roof steadily worsened. Each time it started raining, the family “pot, pan, and bucket brigade” went into action bringing out and placing those vessels in our attempts to catch every raindrop falling on our heads (inside our house). As a child, my simple mind just took each day at a time, not worrying about how much worse the roof (and entire house) will be next month or next year. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

At the supper table one evening, I carelessly dropped a plate and it broke. Striving hard to be ever so frugal in his dire poverty, even such a small loss as a dish devastated Daddy plenty. (And this wasn’t the first time for a kid to break a dish or glass.) So he flew into a mild rage. He didn’t whip me, but he gave me a good tongue lashing about how we can’t afford any such loss amidst our poverty. “Ya’ll keep that up and we’ll soon be eating out of bucket lids!”

That final word of his tongue-lashing struck Janiece as being ever so funny, causing her to burst out laughing. Daddy didn’t like her laughing at it, so he threatened her with a whipping. So she straightened up her face and herself (perched atop her “royal” wooden nail keg at the meal table) but continued chuckling under her breath as she ate her supper. Sitting near her on my bench, I could hear her uncontrollable snickers continuing to roll as she ate. If Daddy heard them, he ignored them and went about eating.

Soon Daddy turned away from the table for some reason. When he did so, Janiece reached to a nearby shelf to the right of her and picked up a metal bucket lid from a lard bucket. Laughing silently she shook it at us boys and quietly returned it to that shelf before Daddy looked back her way. (Such were the exciting, fun events spun from our lives of poverty.)

“Last summer” I told you about the annual Yerby reunion in late July (when our old car quit on us). Mother’s family held the Cash family reunion each year on the 2^nd Sunday in August at the old home place where Uncle Vade Cash and family now (1955) live (between Millport and Kennedy). I enjoyed it more than the Yerby reunion because there was a pond down in Uncle Vade’s pasture and several of us kids often swam in the pond that afternoon. At the Cash reunion, I enjoyed playing much with many cousins on Mother’s side of the family. This summer of 1955, I have much fun (and more tasty food than I can eat) at each of those two family reunions.

When September 1955 arrives, I am happy to return to school to Mrs. Woods’ 4^th grade class.

Each spring, Daddy seldom got his crops planted “on time” (at the optimum planting time, by the almanac). Most other farmers around us were timely in their planting, resulting in them starting the picking of their cotton before our cotton was ready to pick. A few farmers close to us would hire pickers at 2 to 3 cents a pound for each pound of cotton picked. Daddy would usually let us kids “pick for hire” for a neighbor until our cotton was ready for us to start picking it (usually one to 2 weeks later). That way we could earn a little money of our own. I was eager to do that. We picked cotton from Mr. Tenniel, Mr. Ormond, Mr. Dewey, Mr. Gene and maybe others. With the pay incentive, I would snatch as much cotton as possible when picking for hire.

This autumn of 1955, we labor busily to pick all of our cotton and then pull the corn. Each afternoon when we 4 kids stepped off that school bus at our empty house, we knew to hurriedly change into our work clothes and head to the cotton field to join Daddy picking the cotton till quitting time after 5 PM, and then return home to feed farm animals before supper. We picked cotton all day on Saturdays.

About the time we finished picking all our cotton and payment for each bale of cotton was coming in to Daddy, it was a family custom to sit down with the large Fall and Winter Sears and Roebuck catalog (or their Christmas catalog) and order some clothes and shoes we needed. When each of us kids was too small to make the right choice, Daddy would let the little kid pick (a pair of shoes) by looking at the picture. Then Daddy would order the appropriate shoes. It may have been this autumn that Joe chose a picture of one shoe. (Only one shoe was pictured for each pair.) “Now let me find another one to go with it.” He chose another picture also (a different design for each foot), and then Daddy ordered a pair of shoes appropriate for Joe.

All of us children wore “hand me downs” (used clothes and shoes handed down from an older child who outgrew them). Each fall when our order arrived from Sears, it was exciting to open the package and see the nice new things we were getting to wear. Seeing an older child receive nice clothing or shoes, a younger child often called out, “I want that when you outgrow it!” One year, Daddy’s new pair of work gloves looked nice to Joe. “I want those when you outgrow them!” Joe quickly put in his bid to Daddy. Daddy told him “OK” and let it go at that.

Holes would wear into the soles of my shoes (and my brothers’). We would cut pieces of cardboard to fit inside the shoe and walk on that cardboard. Each piece of cardboard didn’t last long, especially when it rained. So we just cut another 2 pieces and inserted into the old shoes. Life does go on. By the Grace of God, people survive in harsh poverty.

As a growing child, I constantly dreamed of the day when I would rise above poverty. That was one of my main goals in life. With great desire, I would stare long at the toys, bicycles, hunting and fishing equipment (and such) pictured in those mail order catalogs and dream that one day I would have enough money to order all those things my heart desired. One can always dream. But tragically, all dreams and desires outside of The Lord Jesus Christ are vain. Lost friend without the Saviour of all the earth, Jesus Christ is the One Thing you need.

This winter (as usual) I enjoy all the niceties of Thanksgiving and Christmas to the fullest extent of my abilities. Mother strove to get each child a “fun” Christmas present that the child wanted. Now Daddy strives to get each of us one new article of clothing for Christmas, the article each child needs most. My one Christmas present at home might be a new warm flannel shirt.

In January 1956, this 4^th grade boy turns 10 years old. Seems like a spurt of growth to suddenly have 2 numerals to my age instead of just one. ‘I’m getting big!’

We kids longed to have company (visitors) come to our lowly abode. It was easy to hear a car stop at our house because cars were louder then and our thin, ventilated walls readily allowed sounds to come in. When we heard a car stop, we boys would run to the front window and peer out. Janiece told us it was not good manners to stare out the window to see who had arrived. She had a most difficult time trying to “culture” her 3 little brothers.

The few occasional visitors usually came after supper or on Sunday afternoon (those being our “leisure” times). Some Sunday afternoons we kids would sit on the front porch and cross our fingers each time we heard an approaching vehicle in hopes that it would stop. We also played a game of each kid choosing one vehicle name (Ford, Chevrolet, Dodge, etc.) and then each kid would count the number of his vehicles that come by to see who scores the highest. Simple fun and pleasure.

This year at school (4^th grade) Daddy let me take piano lessons and paid the one-dollar per week for one lesson per week. That was most kind of Daddy in his dire poverty to pay for piano lessons for me. I was delighted to take them and learned well. I would have done much better if I could have practiced those lessons on my own at home (or anywhere). We didn’t have a piano, of course. We talked about me practicing on the piano at church, but that opportunity was rare.

Come December, my piano teacher asked me what I wanted for a Christmas present. Almost never, did anyone ask me that. I felt like I had an open ticket for anything my heart desired. ‘A baseball, a bat, and a glove!’ I had never owned any one of those items, and it seemed like a dream that I could just ask for them and get them. The piano teacher gave me what I asked for. She found a “miniature set” of those 3 items together in one “display” box. They were almost simply toys, the bat about the size of a policeman’s “billy club” and the rubber ball being just larger than a golf ball. Regulation size baseball, bat and glove (that I pictured in my head) were not in her budget for my Christmas present. Still I was happy to get the nice present she gave me.

Toward the end of the school year, my piano teacher had a Piano Recital on a weekday night and each of her students played their “piece”. I practiced my song much (A Hunting We Will Go) and played it well at the recital. That night, Daddy drove our family to the school where the recital was held in the auditorium. So family and lots of friends heard me play my piece (for whatever historical value that may be). After that one year of piano lessons, I was not able to continue taking lessons or practicing what I had learned.

By God’s Grace, I excelled in my 4^th grade studies, generally considered each school day to be fun and thrilled to be at school instead of on the farm. Still, I was happy to see the school year end in late May 1956 and then start summer’s hard work (along with sufficient fun times out in nature).

Last summer or this one, Sidney and I graduated into Daddy’s job of planting our cotton and corn fields with the horse drawn planter. Daddy himself would first “run the rows” with the fertilizer distributer (that being a heavier “machine” and a more difficult job to accurately space the rows apart). The fertilizer distributer and the planter each required only one horse to pull them. So with the 2^nd horse hitched up to the planter, Sidney would grasp the 2 handles of the planter’s stock, I would grasp the 2 plow lines and guide the horse straight down each row as Sid held up the planter (the heavier and more tiring job). So when Sid tired, we would switch jobs, and thus we 2 boys now help Daddy in planting the crops.

Daddy bought an old (much used) hay baler, not an automatic bailer, but a motorized bailer that packed the hay into bales as Daddy threw the hay into it with a pitchfork. Sid and I would run the 2 baling wires thru the blocks and tie off each bale with the 2 wires. Daddy hooked the bailer onto the back of the wagon and the horses pulled it from hay pile to hay pile in the field. When we finished baling all the hay, Daddy would kill the baler motor, unhook it, and then we would load the bales of hay onto the wagon and haul them out to the barn loft to store there. I don’t recall if we did any tumbling acts from atop the bales of hay on the wagon, (therefore I will not traumatize you with the scary details thereof).

We spent much time chopping and hoeing the grass in the cotton fields, working in our vegetable garden to grow and put away as much food as possible, and doing much summer work. Still we got to go swimming or fishing at times. Along about this summer, Daddy starts allowing each of us kids to go to a relative’s house for a short summer vacation of 4 days to a week. I looked forward to that fun time each summer. I recall staying with Papa and Mama Yerby. Papa would walk with us kids down to the “channel” and watch us swim in its chilly, clear, fast flowing waters.

We boys would catch crickets in our fields and sell them to Uncle Hershel and Uncle Robert as fish bait for a penny each. Sometimes those uncles would come dig earthworms from under our rock under the kitchen funnel (for fish bait) but they seldom paid us anything for the worms. Occasionally 1 or 2 other neighbor fishermen would buy our crickets. We boys would pick up soft drink glass (returnable) bottles tossed on the roadside and try to find a grocery store that bought them for 2 or 3 cents each. We strove in every possible way to gain any little amount of relief from our dire poverty.

Pastor Cobb announces to our church that he will resign as our Pastor. The deacons search for a new pastor and the congregation votes on Brother Ritch. He agrees to become our Pastor. His family of four moves into the parsonage. His son Kenneth is Sidney’s age and his son Jerry is my age. So Sid and I each gain another pal at church and enjoy being around Kenneth and Jerry. Some years at school, I am in the same class (section) as Jerry. Summertime of 1956 passes into the history books, as we all journey toward our Eternal Abodes.

On to Chapter 7

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