Our Barns
There were two giant log barns, with big haylofts--when we bought the Hittson ranch. A big long opening , all the way through the middle of both of them. Big corn cribs on each corner of each barn, eight big corn cribs. Dad never sold any corn or hay. So if it was a drought or to much rain the next year, there would be plenty of feed. They are still standing on the rise, overlooking the bluff over the Brazos river. Out behind the lower barn, set an old turning plow. It had handles for a man to walk behind it and hold the plow steady. We never used it. It was too big for two horses to pull. The Hittson’s used to pull it with oxen, to 'break' the big new fields for the first time, to turn the grass sod over. There were 200 acres 'under the plow'. The Hittson’s never owned slaves there. They probably rented groups of 'freed slaves' to clear the big fields of trees and brush to plow and plant them the first time; and to build the big log barns too.
Cedar Bark
We went to the barn and smoked cedar bark. We rolled it in brown paper. It never made us sick. It's a wonder that we didn't burn the barns up.
Wallace and the Soup
Granma Hess could make better soup than anybody. It must have been the spices and the herbs that she grew in her garden. You could smell it when you come in at the big gate. And their gate was a 'pretty good piece' from the house. Granmama Gill was at Granma Hess's for dinner, (that was the noon meal) they visited a lot. After dinner the big soup pot was pushed to the back of the wood stove. The wood fire gradually burned all the wood, and the fire went out. Wallace, a grandson was there. He was Aunt Rosie and Uncle Charlie's only child. (After Aunt Rosie died, Uncle Charlie told that she had 9 miscarriages after Wallace.) As a baby he had a bad high fever and was left deaf---the pet of the whole family. He couldn't hear any sound at all---so he couldn't learn to talk. He made sounds and jesters. His parents, cousins and friends could understand him.
Granmama Gill come walking through the kitchen. Wallace had climbed up on the stove. It had cooled some, but it was still pretty warm. Wallace would stand on first one little foot and then the other. He was cupping his little hand into the soup and drinking it. Wallace reached out and offered a hand full to her. She drank some out of his hand. He kept on until he got all the soup that he wanted. She didn't tell on him. But she did like to tell that story.
Etta, laughing, told this first on March 1, 2005
One time I was at the barn, and there hanging out of a crack, between two logs of the corn crib, was a fuzzy animal tail. It was a little crack, just room for the tail. I grabbed the tail. It was scratching and clawing, on the other side---I had a good holt. It must have been one of the 100 cats, looking for mice hiding in the corn. I finally turned it loose.
Corn was raised to be fed to the hogs, we ate a lot of it too
Mama and us kids carried the corn sheller out of the barn. We set it on a big stump. We pulled the shucks off the ears of dry corn, that we got out of the crib. If the ends were not clean, where a worm had eaten--we rubbed that part onto the ground. The chickens were squawking and waiting to get it. We stuck one ear at a time into the sheller and turned the handle. The dry corn was scratched off the cob. When Dad went to town, he carried a cloth bag of that corn, about 5 pounds, tied to the back of his saddle. There was a mill next to the Jockey yard where he left his horse. He come back home with it ground into cornmeal, bouncing behind his saddle. He always told the miller to "Take out the toll", and the miller kept part of the corn. We all loved cornbread and Mama always made extra, to feed the dogs.
Chicken Snakes
They were always around the barn. Chickens laid eggs there and snakes would swallow eggs. Sometimes the boys would 'thin them out'---the snakes. They would tie a fish hook onto a cord. They would punch the fish hook up into a raw egg and tie the cord to a log, and do about 10 of them like that. The next day, they would have the snakes caught, that had swallowed the eggs. They would be would be hung on the fish hook and cord. Sometimes in the morning, a couple of snakes would be dangling down from the loft, dead, hanging by the cords.
Mama had a big ironing
She had a big ironing every week. All our clothes were either cotton or wool. When they were washed, they were real wrinkled and had to be ironed. The ironing board was laid across the back of two chairs --- they had no legs then--- Cam used the axe to cut the wood into the right length to go in the kitchen stove. The little kids kept the wood box full. Mama kept a big fire in the stove to heat the irons. She used two. One would be getting hot while she was using the other one. When a hot iron was lifted off the stove, it had to be rubbed on a cloth, to make sure that it didn't have black on the bottom. Mama and me were both ironing, I used two irons too. There was a high wind that day. Some of the little kids run in yelling, "Fire on top of the house!!" Just about that time, Mama noticed sparks coming down on the top of the stove. Mama set the ladder up on the porch and Cam climbed up to the fire. He saw the shingles were burning around the stove pipe. Me and Dock drawed water out of the well, lots of water. Mama carried water up the ladder to Cam. He would sop a tow sack into the water and whip the blaze. We thought the whole house was going to burn. The little kids began to carry things out of the house. They didn't know what to take. Dock left me drawing water by myself, and he run off up toward the graveyard. He carried Dad's Sunday hat and a pitcher of water with him. We found him and he didn't know why he got so excited and carried it out of the house. Cam finally beat the fire out. We were so proud of him. So we all put the things back in the house. It wasn't long before we got the windmill and didn't have to draw water.
'Yeller Britches'
Men’s pants were all blue denim. Khaki pants come out, and Dad got a pair of them. They were what he wore to town. He would ask, "Where is my yeller britches?" Mama would 'do them up' and hang them on a nail, ready for him to go again.
Closets
We didn't know what a closet was. No house had one, nor kitchen cabinets either. Our Mamas had a separate kitchen cabinet that she moved around. We were lucky if we had a chest with drawers and a dresser with a mirror. That mirror would be the only one in the house. I had a wooden box, with a lid that lay on it. We didn't have as many clothes then. Three was the most school dresses that I ever had. Our clothes were folded or hung on a nail.
Wallpaper
Everyone was proud to get wallpaper, when it first 'come out'. To hold it onto the bare wood walls, thin cotton gauze, 'canvas' was stretched and tacked onto the walls first. Flour paste stuck the paper to the canvas. Flour and water was boiled and cooked, just until it gets clear, to make paste. (That was what we used for starch in our clothes.
That was our only paste. In school too, we just mixed water and flour, no cooking.) If the canvas was still 'tight', to the wall, a second layer of wallpaper could be pasted on, when the first layer got dirty or faded. "Hanging' wallpaper is not easy. The papered walls were so much lighter colored than the bare wood, and prettier. Mice would get in any house, it was almost impossible to keep them out. They would crawl up behind the wallpaper to eat the dry flour paste. In the quiet, at night, it sounded scratchy and so loud. You couldn't hardly find them, they got quiet, when you got close. You beat on the wall to scare them, and make them stop nibbling, so that you could get sound asleep. Hoping you wouldn't hear them next time they started nibbling. Everybody had a cat, or two or three.
The Matches
Mama had a 3 foot wooden box of folded bedclothes, it set in the dining room corner. It had a tassel blanket spread over it. Hanner was just a little tyke. He got holt of a box of matches and he hid behind that blanket. The tassels got on fire. When he seen he couldn't put it out, he had to call Mama. Fingers of fire was creeping up the loose wallpaper on the wall. Mama took the dipper and kept throwing water up on it, and put it out. It looked awful. Granmama asked her later, if Hanner got his little hands burned. Mama said, "Not any worse then mine did---after I got holt of him." Mama patched them, every one. For years we were using patched sheets, pillow cases and even the tablecloths.
My Christmas Doll
One Christmas, a family was planning to move into one of our rent houses. The Daddy died and they come ahead and moved on our place, like he planned. Dad went to see them---not a sign of Christmas. Dad come back and told Mama to, "Cut all them cakes into, and the candy and cookies, too." They had one little girl, she had nothing. I had got the prettiest doll I ever had. Dad told me if I would let her have my doll, he would get me another one. I did and we all went up there carrying things. The Mama tied a string around the doll's neck and hung it up high on the wall. The porcelain head would break easy. And that doll didn't do the little girl a bit of good. Dad got me another doll.
Old Liza Jane
Granmama had a tale for us kids about Old Liza Jane. She lived in the brush. If we wandered off, out into the brush, Old Liza Jane would get us. She 'cooed' like the dove, to get us to come to her. None of us would ever go into the woods to find a dove that we heard.
Copyright © 2004-2005 by Anne Louise Moore - All rights reserved.