Grandad's Trips · Moore Family Stories

Grandad's Trips

He would ride his horse to the railroad in town, Mineral Wells, Texas. He and his horse would get on it and they would go to Arkansas for months at a time. His brothers Tom and George lived there. George had a big cattle auction barn. In Arkadelphia he would buy pore, stringy cows and some horses. Mama helped him 'gentle' the cows, so he could sell them for a good price. Sometimes a cow was a 'kicker', It was hard to break her of it. A cow has a 'bag' for her milk. It is in a protected place between her back legs, a little forward. The bag has 4 tits pointing down. Her calf sucks on one and then another. The tits are soft. There are lots of 'calf slobbers', foamy bubbles, when the calf sucks. The creamy milk keeps the tits soft. The calf 'hunches' when it wants more milk to come. A 'hunch' is a punch with the calves' nose, up into the cow's soft bag. That is when the little calf will be pulled off, with a rope and tied near the cow. She is calmer when she knows that her calf is near.

Milking

Milking is holding onto two tits and then squeezing on first one and then another. You squeeze from the top and force the milk down. It is a rhythm that takes practice. A thin spray of milk comes down into the milk bucket. When tits aren't so tight and full of milk, squeeze on the other two. With practice, it seems to come out easy and fill the bucket quickly, a nice rhythmic sound. The two sprays make foam in the milk bucket. Sometimes she would have a sore on one of her tits, she still had to be milked. Mama had to watch the cow and be ready to jump out of the way. When the cows and calves got gentle and fat Grandad would sell them. He would make another trip back to his brothers and around and buy another load of pore stock.

Three Generations Later

Uncle Eldridges' wild cow on Malicote Mountain, Arkansas. He kept noticing a heifer (a young cow that hadn't ever had a calf) that tried to stay out of his sight, when he was walking around out in his pasture, checking on his cows. He would put out a little feed, to get them to come together, where he could look about them. The heifer was going to have a calf. Eldridge watched his stock closely. One day he found a new calf, where it had been hid it out, in some thick bushes. He figured that it was hers, the mama wasn't around. He did not want her to raise that calf to be wild, too. He tied the calf and put a little feed and water close to it. Every day he went back to the calf, with feed and water. He could tell that the wild mama had been coming back, for it to suck. Every couple of days he would move the calf and tie it about 50 yards closer to the barn. Before long, the mama didn't mind being around other cows. And Eldridge didn't have a wild cow and calf any more.

Dad and his Pap run a big reaper for their neighbors around 1902. Pap set up high and drove 6 horses. That’s the only time that I ever saw him working. Then the big reaper set under the shed and just rusted down. Before that they worked for Uncle Billy. They cleared land around the Hittson Cemetery and in the Brazos River bottom. They knew how to save. They knew how to do without.

Aunt Arnie

We always set at the same place at the table. We stuck our gum under the table top, and got it later. You would be surprised how long it will last---if you have a good hiding place. We seldom got any store-bought gum. We chewed lots of bee's wax--honeycomb. It tastes good, as long as some honey is still in it, and before it gets crumbly. It wouldn't stick under the table, or anywhere. We could always get bee's wax to chew. We always had a jar of honey on our table. It had pieces of honeycomb in it, to chew on. Aunt Arnie was a good old neighbor, she come for dinner one day. She went home and Hanner come in later, chewing, "I found Aunt Arnie's wax."

The Orphan

A boy had no folks and no place to live. The 'Law' asked around, if anyone would keep him--till he growed up. Grandad was gone a lot, and Granmama liked company. She told the Law, that he could live with her and help her around. It was all settled. Us kids wasn't big enough to work in the field. Dad told Granmama to send the boy to help him one day. Dad waited around, most all morning, then started walking to Granmama's. As he was passing a little ditch, he heard a little racket and moaning. There lay the boy shot in the leg. He had found Grandad's old gun that he kept hid. He had used that old shotgun in the Civil War. The boy had been playing with it. Granmama took care of him until he got well. Then she told the Law, "If he is going to act that way--you better find him another place to live."

Granpa Hess

Mama's parents lived nearly a mile further from town than we did. When Granpa went to town, he always stopped by our house, and took us up in his arms. On his way back home, it was hugging again, like he hadn't seen us for months. Granpa held every grandbaby, just as many as there was, Granpa held us. When he set down, we crawled all over him. We were all the meanest little rascals, jealous of one another. When another one come in, he would made him feel that Granpa was the gladdest to see him. My first birthday he got me a little rocking chair. Then he got Cam a chair, when he was one. They never wore out, all the kids used them.

Postons

It was the biggest dry-goods store in Mineral Wells. They opened in 1904 and closed in 1974. It had a 50 ft board walk in front, the only board walk in town. Streets were all dirt, mud when it rained. The street and sidewalk were paved about 1914. A grocery store next door was bought, and the store was widened to 75 ft in 1918. Prices at Poston's were always a little higher than at 'Howard and Whites'. Miss Kate Massie and W. C. Poston married in Weatherford in 1898. Her wedding dress was made by hand in Kentucky and was brought to Texas by stagecoach. She was always called Miss Kate. She was always kinda peculiar. She and Granmama were friends, and she made the Gills welcome.

Poston’s built a new restroom. It was the first one in town. It was added onto the big building, with a little door outside. It had a high tank up on the wall. Aunt Sude (rhymes with nude), Dad's sister, asked, and then went in, you always asked. There was a little sign, "Pull the string." She pulled it and got scared. She went in and told Miss Kate, "I'm sorry, I did just what the sign said. Then the bottom just fell out and all the water all run out." Miss Kate said, "Honey, That’s all right. That's what it's supposed to do."

Aunt Anne and Uncle Jim took a little trip on the train when they got married. Aunt Sude carefully told her little sister, all about how the bathrooms worked.

The Poston's clerk

Would make out the sales slip and take your money or check. She would put it all in a cup. She would reach up and screw the cup into a lid fastened to a cable. She would pull a handle and the cup would ride up to the cashier on the balcony. The cashier would make correct change and send the cup back down to the clerk. A little bell would "Ding." It was well planned and went down to three places in the big store. There was no electricity, anywhere, in the town. We loved to watch it.

The Hartfield place

was across the road from Grandad's, 2 miles east of the Brazos. Before Dad bought the Hartfield place, the Mama and 4 kids had died there, of TB. His two brothers died of TB after they moved. Mr. Hartfield would come back to visit for two weeks every year. Mama would always take him in. I remember the little bag of peppermint candy that he would bring Mama. Mama and Dad sterilized the house---good. We didn't, any of us, get consumption from the Hartfield house that we moved into. What we did have---was chills---all summer, sick as a dog, and just shake. All but Mama, She never had a one. Any time Dad had a chill, he couldn't work. He would be to weak from erping. On top of that, us kids all had the earache a lot, mine was a lot worse than the boys. One day we all had chills and were lined up, out on the porch. We had our heads hanging off---and erp and erp and erp. Hanner was a good size baby, walking around. Dad said, "Well Hanner, I've solved our problem with chills. I've bought the Hittson ranch over the river." We never had another chill after we moved---He had not told Mama that he had bought it.

Our family had lived and grew for eleven years at the Hartfield place

We were all born two miles east of the Brazos River, all five of us. I Anne Minerva, was 10, Cam James was 8. Dock Rains 7 was named after the Doctor. He was born at the wrong time of the year. That throwed him to be cutting teeth in the hot summer, when he was a baby. Dock couldn't keep anything down, he was so weak, he was so poor. Doctor Rains, the doctor, said he had done all that he could do for him. "Dink, dink", Mama would draw a fresh bucket of water and set it on the back porch. She would wrap a wet rag around it, to keep it cool, and feed him and bathe him. Mama kept on until she raised him. He turned out to be the biggest of my 5 brothers.

Theodore Roosevelt, 4 was named after the President. Hanner was one, that was a nickname that Dad gave him. The next morning after he was born, Mama's brother, George Hess, come to see her. Mama said, "Let's name him George Hess Gill."

Dad had the Hartfield place paid for. He sold the 160 acres for $1,800.00. He paid it all down on the ranch. In 1904, he paid $9.00 an acre for 1000 acres. 200 acres of it was good sandy river bottomland in cultivation. (We sold it in 1974 for $650.00 an acre to Brooks. In 1994, they sold it for $1,350.00 an acre to Mangum.)

It Was To Be Dad's Ranch

His money paying for it. Somehow Grandad got his name on the deed. Maybe to get the loan easier, Dad had never taken out a loan "---Better let me put my name on the papers."

When Dad got any money, when he sold cotton, mules, hogs, or anything, he gave the money to Grandad to pay on the ranch.

The Big Ranch House

It had not been lived in for several years, it was 1/4 mile from the river. It was across the river from the Hartfield place, in the Hittson bend of the river. Mama and Dad knew that there had been sickness there. They sterilized it, like they had the Hartfield house, 11 years before. Strong lye water was throwed up on the walls, and poured on the floors. Boiling water, out of the wash pot was splashed on the walls, again and again. The house had nothing in it but wood---and it would dry out. Dad had it cut into. He had half of it moved down the hill for renters. There was another house up the hill.

The old schoolhouse was up on the hill, by the graveyard. Mama and her four brothers and sister, and Dad and his three sisters, had gone to school there. They rode horses from their homes across the river.

Dad had a family live in the old school house. That made 3 houses for 'renters'---that’s what we called them. Families lived there and helped cultivate the land, until Mote's boys growed up--big enough to do it all.

After we moved to the Hittson, Grandad stayed with us a lot. He still brought half-wild cows for Mama to gentle. She would first let the calf suck a little. Just enough to get the old cow to 'let her milk down', for her own calf to suck. Then pull the calf off and tie it. Then she would squeeze out the rest of the milk that the cow had. With some cows, she would still 'hold her milk back'. The calf was allowed to suck again, and then more milk was stripped from the cow. Calves little hoofs are sharp, they can hurt. They don't want to leave their dinner. Calves are offered ground cow feed. And they gradually learn to eat it. They are weaned and start eating feed instead of sucking milk. Then they can be sold. To keep the cow giving the most milk, all the milk has to be milked every time. If a cow is never milked, if she is 'turned out with her calf', she would 'cut down her milk', to the amount that the calf sucks. Some cows would never allow any calf but hers to suck her, some cows didn't care.

Mama would feed the cows and get them fat and gentle. This had to be done every morning and night, rain or shine, summer and winter, without fail. Mama always went to the lot and milked. Sometimes the boys would go with her and rope off the calf and tie it for her. They always liked to rope and ride the bigger calves, they liked to practice riding. We all drank sweet milk, buttermilk and clabber, lots of it, and had lots of butter. Clabber is like the unsweetened yogurt---that we have now.

Cottage Cheese, there was always some 'making' on the back of the stove. You didn't want the milk cooked. Soured, clabbered and then real hot, it was poured into a flour sack and then hung out on the clothesline. Whey is the clear part of milk. When the whey all dripped out, it was good cottage cheese. We all liked cottage cheese. Flour used to come in wooden kegs, then it started coming in white cloth sacks. A cloth sack holding fifty pounds of flour, it is pretty good size piece of material. Mama made everything, from our drawers, on up, out of the sacks---even shirts.

Cuckleburs

They are a weed. The seed, the 'cucklebur', is the size of the end of my finger, or sometimes a man's thumb. They grow a foot high, on pore dry land, or 6ft high, by the creek or pond where the cows go to drink water. They aren't stickers--it don't hurt very much, to step on them barefooted. The burrs have tiny hooked barbs, that turn inward. They are a big nuisance when they are dry, they stick on anything soft and fuzzy, especially hair. In the fall the plant dies and the cucklebur dries out. The cow walks down to get her a drink. She swishes her tail to get the flies away, and the dry burs grab onto the hair of her tail. That's not all that gets on her tail either. At milking time, an inch or so of water is carried to the cow lot, in the milk bucket, to wash the cows' bag. Sometime the old cow's bag really needs washing, sometimes it don't.

Oh there are a lot of things to learn about milking a cow. The one doing the milking, sets on a little stool or an old bucket, you don't want a good solid seat. You have to be ready to grab the bucket, not spill the milk and get out of the way. Sometimes a cow would pick her foot up high and put it down. She would learn to 'get her foot in the bucket'. That was a mess, then you had to wash the bucket and start all over. The cow might try to get to her calf, that is tied. A mad cow will try to hurt you and will not 'give her milk down'. Sometimes you have to hold the bucket in one hand and milk with the other. Sometimes the back legs have to be tied together, 'hobbled'.

A young cow might have a sore bag, or the calf get sick and die. When the cow's bag gets full, it will 'spoil' if it isn't emptied. She must be milked regularly.

If you see a horsefly, you shew it off. If it bites, the cow will kick. You try to get any cuckleburs' out of her tail before you start. The first thing the cow does is to switch her tail, to get rid of the thing bothering her. She has pretty good aim. It can cut across your face and eyes and really hurt, just from the whip of the tail. Sometime the tail is long enough to pinch and hold in the bend of your leg, just behind your knee, when you squat down to milk. A cow that has been run or got excited, will not 'give any milk'. Grandad would take the fat gentle cows and calves and sell them. Then he would bring her some more to gentle and fatten.

The Clock

One time before Ludie was born in 1912, Grandad brought a big chiming mantle clock and gave it to Mama. That's the only thing I ever knew of him giving her. Granmama said that clock should be mine some day, because it chimes and ticks real loud and I can hear it. Dad always wound that clock, from then on, every day, as long as he lived, over 37 years. Every hour and half hour, all night long, that clock will wake anyone up with a start---until you get used to it. (I'm 101 and still don't have that clock.)

The Possum Hunt

Us kids wanted to go hunting as soon as we moved on the Hittson ranch. I was 10, Cam was 8 and Dock was 7. I guess Black couldn't keep up with us, he was 3. We went out and found a possum. We beat him with sticks, until we killed him. Dock wanted to show him off. He carried him by the tail, hanging over his shoulder. We proudly started for the house. That possum, he quit possumin' and bit Dock on the heel. We had to find more sticks to beat him, to make him turn loose of Docks heel. That time when he got a chance---he run away.

Some new neighbors moved in. She heard a noise in the kitchen, and saw a possum. She grabbed the poker and beat him. She saw him die, he was dead. The next morning, the possum was gone, and so was most of their food.

Frank

Me and Cam was going to spend the night, across the river at Grandad's. The river come a rise and caught us over there. We had to spend days longer. Cam took a bawling spell to go home. Mama got out of some groceries. Grandad had an Indian boy, Frank, about 20 that worked for him. His hair was coal black and straight. We all liked him. Any time he got to go to town, he got drunk. Grandad got Mama some groceries in town. He sent Frank with me and Cam around by the bridge, 18 miles, to go home. Grandad rode his horse alongside the wagon, to the bridge and beyond, until we passed all the stores where Frank could buy whiskey. Grandad turned around and rode back home. We all knew why he had rode with us. The very next house we come to, Frank stopped the wagon and went inside. He come out with a bottle of whiskey. He gave me and Cam a little drink and we went on. We thought he was so smart. We got home and shot in the house, tickled to death, and told Mama. She didn't tell on us. Frank soon got in some time of trouble. He just left out, back to Oklahoma, I guess.

The Bell

It was a plow disc that was hung on a tree limb by the house. When Mama hit it with an iron rod, it was loud. It could be heard clean over the river. She rang it for dinner, when we were in the field. When it was rang any other time, Dad rushed to the house, expecting trouble.

The Cats

When we first moved to the Hittson ranch, the house had been vacant and the rats had just took over. Little Mote' was visiting from Arkansas, he was Uncle Tom's son. (Grandad and his brother, Tom, both had sons that they named 'Mote') Dad was so vexed that the rats had eaten some valuable seed that he was saving. Dad said, "I wish I had 100 cats." Little Mote heard him and thought it was funny. He soon went back to Arkansas.

It wasn't long before Dad got a telegram from town. "Your cats have come in. You come and get them." Dad knew that he had not ordered any cats---but he better go and see about it. When he got to the depot in town, and seen box after box of cats, he said, "That's Mote". He got the wagon load of them home, and started opening the boxes. Those cats jumped out---'to the four winds'. Mama tried to feed them, she wanted to keep one at the house. They were starved and they stayed wild. They all 'lit out' to the barn and on to the woods. The boys trapped possums, skunks and coons and sold their hides. Sometimes, years later, they would bring in a cat, one of the wild ones, that they had caught in one of their traps.

Churning

Mama had a big shallow tin pan that covered a little table. In the summer she kept water in it, to set her crock milk jars, to keep them cool. Up in the day, when it got hot, we drawed fresh cool, well water for the pan. She dampened cloths, usually flour sacks, and kept them spread over the milk. Cream rises to the top of milk, that has not been pasteurized, as it cools. Mama skimmed the cream off all the jars of milk and she put enough to churn in one jar. We had no screens at all. Everything had to be covered to keep the flies out.

One of the 100 cats come in and pulled on the cloth until he could get his head in the cream jar. Mama come along and caught him. Oh, he went out in a hurry. But he stopped in the living room, setting on the fireplace hearth, 'licking his chops'. There was a big fire going, Mama come along again, she was so mad. She managed to pick up a green stick of wood, throwed it at the cat and knocked him into the fire. He run out the door ---with his tail on fire! He run like a streak of lightning. "Yeow! Yeow! Yeow!" We all tore out after him and he run under the floor. Mama couldn't crawl under there, it was just before Sis was born. We kept watching and the house didn't catch on fire, so I guess it went out. We never did see that cat again.