I'm sorry these posting have been interrupted. I've been in the hospital. Now to continue
Cedar Posts, the Milk Run, and Snakes in the House
The Lanes lived on a farm west of town and I loved going there to visit. Sometime early in 1940, we moved into an old house, which had been turned into a barn on the place Papa was farming.
I don’t believe Daddy sharecropped that year. He was trying to pick up money by hauling cedar posts and running a milk route. He would also hire himself out for light hauling of any kind. He had a flat bed ton and a half truck – a 1931 Model B Ford. He would drive to Burnet, cut posts and then bring them back to Hico to sell. I’m sure he probably got a nickel or a dime for each post. In those days farmers often sold their milk to keep cash coming in. They would collect their milk early in the morning in ten-gallon cans and set them on the side of the road. Daddy came along, picked up the cans and hauled them to the creamery in Stephenville. The cans were then emptied, washed and placed back on the truck. He would drop them back off at the various farms. I don’t think there was any refrigeration and I’ve often wondered how the milk stayed fresh in the summer time. Actually, I don’t think it was out on the road very long before Daddy picked it up.
Anyway, back to my story about living on the Lane farm. I recall one very traumatic day in that house. Hay had been stored there and we had moved in during the winter. As springtime came, the weather warmed and we discovered that we did not have the house to ourselves. I don’t know exactly where they came from, but huge black snakes began crawling in the house (chicken snakes I would imagine). I found it terrifying and the memory of it still remains firmly embedded in my mind 60 years later.
Some of my memories of those days are pretty sketchy, but others are vivid. I remember one spring day when we still lived on the Benton place, east of Hico. Daddy had two horses. One of them was named Prince. I remember Prince because he was broken to ride and I sometimes got to ride him. On this particular day, we went to help Papa. I think Daddy plowed in the field with his team. I seem to recall he threw a turning plow onto the back of the wagon. We set out for Papa’s house before daylight. I can remember lying in the back of the wagon and looking up at the stars. I can remember the sound of the wagon wheels on the gravel road and then ultimately on the pavement as we got to the Hico-Iredell road. I fell asleep. When I woke up, the sun was up and we were at Papa and Grammies.
Papa plowed with the tractor and Daddy plowed with the wagon and team. I guess Grammie fed me breakfast and looked after me until about mid-morning. I was anxious to go the field. I was especially anxious to go see Papa where he was plowing with the tractor. He owned a Model B John Deere. On my desk in my office I have a replica of a 1934 Model A John Deere with steel wheels. It looks almost like Papa’s tractor. The tractor had a two-cylinder engine, built in such a way that the pistons lay horizontally. The tractor made a popping noise and was commonly known as “The poppin’ Johnny.” I thought it was a sad day when the John Deere company went to larger engines and took the pop out of the Johnny. The flywheel was on the outside and you had to manually turn the flywheel to crank the tractor. There was no power lift. You had to manually lift the plows at the end of each row.
On this particular day, Papa was breaking land. He pulled a breaking plow behind the tractor. He plowed in rounds and didn’t have to raise the plows once they were set for proper depth. When I got to the field, he stopped the tractor and invited me to sit in front of him on the seat. He let me steer the tractor for several rounds. Of course he made corrections, when my steering didn’t go in the right directions. But that was a big day for me because I got to drive the tractor.
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