(Autobiography of Kittie Lanham Oakes - her temporary title)

Introduction by Elaine Oakes:

Kittie Lanham was born July 16, 1894. 
I have combined several documents that my Grandmother Kittie left.  The originals were partly handwritten and partly typed on poor quality paper and had deteriorated badly.  Some of the material was repetitious and some
was fragmentary.  None of it was really complete.  Because they are interesting hints about other stories, I included the fragments but put them in brackets.  I have added a very little from my memory of her stories.
Grandmother was a great storyteller, and it is hard to say what really happened and what was just a good story she had read somewhere and adopted.
The earlier versions had different names for several people and she probably didn't remember most of them by the time she wrote this, sixty-some years after the events.  I believe most of the ordinary things, and 
most of the stories of mischief she and her sister got into.  She claims that Sister was wild but from what she said about her own behavior she was pretty wild for those days, too.  These days they would be considered normal to rather tame.
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I was born, under a lucky star, I think, in Grayson County Texas in a village so small I cannot find it on my map and it may not even exist today.  Both my grandfathers were Confederate Veterans and both were early settlers in Texas because, as they told me, Reconstruction Days were so difficult in South Carolina and Mississippi.  They felt they would be far better off in new territory and both bought cheap land in Grayson Co. in 1870, within six months of each other.  I was born there so some of my remembrances are tales they told me as a child. 
Grandfather Weems moved his family from Mississippi to a farm about four miles west of Sherman and Grandfather Lanham, from Edgefield, South Carolina to one about the same distance east.  Both lived in log cabins in 
the beginning.
My paternal grandfather was Col. R.G. Lanham.  He served with General Lee in Virginia, and while there he met and married Caroline Elizabeth Harrison.  I never met her as she died before my father and mother were 
married. The old Daguerreotype picture and some bits and pieces of jewelry are all I remember of her, but she left two sons, my father Tom and Wiley, his younger brother. . Papa said that I looked very much like her, and he 
also told me that she was related to the two Harrison Presidents and kin to Pocahontas but since then I do not remember, if I ever knew, the names of either of her parents. 
Grandfather must have loved her very much for he did not remarry for a long time - until I was about 8 or 9 years old.  And much later, I found a small notebook among his things with sweet, sentimental poems he had written to  her. I have a lovely heavy taffeta dress, handmade with tiny stitches, that she wore when she went to meet her new husband's family in Edgefield SC.  Grandfather Lanham's full name was Robert Glover Lanham.  My father's name  was Thomas Walter and his brother was Wiley Harrison.  Uncle Wiley never married.  Although one of Grandpa's sisters traced the family records and had them printed in a small booklet my actual first hand knowledge of the Lanham genealogy is skimpy.  My aunt traced the family history back to about 1800 when Solomon Lanham settled in Maryland not far from Washington, DC.  My great-grandfather moved to Edgefield, SC and my father was born 
there. My father, Thomas Walter Lanham was born in Edgefield, South Carolina and went to Texas as a small boy in 1870 or 1871.  He grew up near Sherman and became a schoolteacher.  He attended college in Sherman but did
not graduate, though he taught school most of his life and was truly a bookish type.  He was a very good small town school superintendent.
My father had one younger brother, Wiley Harrison.  He had a strange and tragic accident, never explained.  At the age of about 21, he was a law student in college at Sherman and was considered to have a brilliant future.  But one night he rode home returning from town.  When his horse came home without him, Grandfather became alarmed and went to look for him.
He found his son lying beside the road, unconscious.Uncle Wiley was an excellent horseman and it was most unlikely that his horse had thrown him.  The road was not rocky nor hard packed and the fracture in his skull was high enough and jagged enough that no plausible idea was found to account for the injury.  He was unconscious for weeks and
doctors trepanned his skull to remove pressure.  He was desperately ill for weeks and the Sherman paper even printed his obituary.  This he showed me along with two buttons of bone taken from his scull.
He did regain his health but never fully recovered mentally, was subject to occasional violent fits of temper.  My mother was always able to calm him more easily than anyone.
My mother's father, James Madison Weems, was born in Mississippi, and I still have his old family Bible giving the names and dates of all his brothers and sisters.  Tradition gives the first Weems in this country as living Virginia near the small town of Wakefield where George Washington was born.  My Uncle Mat had a friend also named Weems who had traced the family line back to the Wymss Castle in Scotland but the actual family history has breaks in it, though appearances and characteristics indicate kinship back down the history.
Digging back into memories to see what one can recall presents problems. I think, because many children are brought up hearing anecdotes telling of their early behavior, it is difficult for a person to separate what they actually do remember from what they may have heard related to them of early happenings in their infancy.  I doubt that many can draw a line of distinction with accuracy.
The first place that I am sure I definitely remember is the house where I was born.  That home belonged to my grandparents and since they moved from that small village before I was four years old, incidents that happened 
there are rather unrelated to any sequence of events.  In my mind's eye, I can see part of that house thought I cannot recall the number of rooms or their arrangement.  I know that it was large enough to have an upstairs, 
and that there were two porches and that it was painted an ugly, dingy yellow.  The front porch had a fancy balustrade around it, ant there was a sort of fretwork under the eaves, much more elaborate than modern taste suggests.
The house was set in a large yard, and there were several trees for shade where I could play.  Grandpa hung a rope swing for me from one of the low branches.  And the yard was fenced.  That is about all I can stretch my memory to cover.
Why the house is less distinct in my mind than the gin I do not know.  But for some reason, the fact that Grandpa Weems ran the cotton gin, and certain incidents that occurred in connection with the operation of the gin are more impressed on my memory. I do not know why, but such is the fact. Ginning season in that part of Texas was a strenuous time for the manager. The gin ran all night, wagons piled high with the white fluff filled the gin yard waiting for their turn.  And I remember watching these, the horses and mules and the tired farmers. They were sometimes so exhausted from the long days in the picking fields that they stretched out on top of their loads to snatch the sleep they missed.  They often did their barnyard chores by lantern light in order to be in the fields picking their cotton 
at the first faint light of morning.
I loved to see the wagons with high sideboards move up in orderly line.  To see the huge pipe pulled into position so it could suck up the white load into the tearing pulling teeth of the rollers.  Once I remember seeing a man's hat sucked from his head as he pulled the suction pipe into position, and another time, a stone about the size of a man's fist was drawn into the machinery to damage it and cause a shut-down.  Time was lost for repairs, then rollers began to turn again and thick, white felted cotton was folded and pressed into bales and tied with metal straps.  Perhaps I remember so much of this because I knew that Grandpa was working too hard.  Often he could not leave even long enough to walk across the road for his meals.
Tiny though I was, I could carry a small pail of cold buttermilk when Grandmother or Mama took his plate of food to him.  And there was dusty lint hanging from every weed or tree in the whole gin yard. Big black-and-white Dan was the dog member of the family and I think he was a mutt but mostly of the Newfoundland breed.  Grandpa often said Dan was such a good brave watchdog, that he saved the wages of a night watchman at the gin.  He was devoted to me and when any man came to the house, Dan always placed himself between that man and Sister and me.  Once when Mama had been away for sometime, and came up the front walk in her best dress, 
an elaborate white organdy with loads of frilly ruffles, Dan met her halfway down the walk and she did not see him in time.  He stood erect on his hind legs, and was taller than she, then he gently put his arms around 
her neck and kissed her.  Unfortunately, he did not realize that the rain the night before had left the feathers along his legs wet and muddy. 
Ironing that white dress took hours but Mama just laughed and seemed pleased that Dan was so glad to see her.
Mama had two brothers only a little older than she and for this weekend, the whole family was together.  I don't remember what this celebration was for, but it was something special.  Uncle Mat made the ice cream.  He set 
the big freezer on a table on the back porch and turned the crank.  I adored both my uncles, and no small girl was ever petted more.  But both uncles loved to tease me, Uncle Mat in particular.  That was how I got the 
shock of my young life.  It was a warm, no!  HOT!  Summer day in Texas and the ice in the freezer melted fast.  When the salty water began to overflow from the wooden bucket of the freezer, Uncle Mat set the freezer in a big 
dishpan.  After several minutes of vigorous turning the crank, the cream was frozen.  Then Uncle Mat set it out of the pan and wrapped it in feed sacks and left it on the table to ripen.  He pushed the pan full of icy saltwater back a little way under the table.  His job was done and he turned his attention to me.  He was playfully reciting to me the old rhyme about "The old bumble bee came out of the barn, and he had his bagpipe under his arm, and he went z-z-z-z!"  He had a sort of tune to the jingle and when he reached the z-z-z-z, he tickled my ribs.  I backed away, 
dodging, and sat down in that icy pan of water.  A violent shock and the first in my young life, I guess!  I howled!  The rest of the family saw only the finny side.
Later, that same afternoon, some young friends dropped in for the ice cream and cake.  That was when I gave Uncle Mat his shock in return.  He took his special girl out to the settee on the front porch so they could eat their 
cream together in privacy but I followed them.  Of course, after the icy wetting I had that morning, I had to have fresh clothing from the skin out, and as it happened Mama had made me new underwear of which I was very 
proud.
I hunted Uncle Mat up to tell him about that, "I got new drawers on, Uncle Mat!  Have you got new drawers?  Mine have lace on them, too.  Uncle Mat, do your drawers have lace on them?"
Both Uncle Mat and his young lady were terribly embarrassed.  So was Mama! I was hustled back inside and given a lecture on the subject of what not to talk about.
Operating that gin was hard work, long hours, and a great deal of responsibility for Grandpa but he made many friends among the farmers and having been a farmer previously he knew their problems and could talk to them.  Some of his friends put his name up and he was popular enough to be elected County Commissioner.  Then he moved his home to the county seat town.
His next home was a neat little gray cottage and I could almost draw a blueprint of that place, it is so firmly fixed in my memory.  The whole family gathered there for the first Christmas that I can remember.  It was a traditional Christmas, only we did not have a tree at home.  I was told that Santa Claus would come down the chimney if I hung up my stocking, however, since there was no fireplace, only a big black heating stove with a six or seven inch pipe, I could not quite take in the idea without a few questions.
As for the Christmas tree, Uncle Buddy came to take me to that. Since our family was only visiting from out of town, Mama explained that I need not expect Santa Claus to have anything for me on that tree, but that my 
presents would surely appear the next morning in my stocking.  After assuring Mama that I just wanted to see the gorgeous, big tree with its bright decorations, and that I would not be disappointed, she let me go with him.  Imagine my surprise when my name was called the same as the other children!  Santa, himself, brought me a little packet tied up in bright ribbon.  I was proud as could be, with a lovely box of four tiny perfumes all different "flavors".
That Christmas Eve night I was so excited, and my small black cotton stocking did not seem nearly big enough to hold the doll I wanted so I borrowed one from Grandmother.  Then I worried for fear Santa would not know it was mine so I wrote a letter to him telling him about the exchange in hose.  I was not more than five but I had been reading writing more than a year.  I carefully pinned the letter to the long stocking and hung it on a chair beside the stove just before kissing everybody "goodnight" and saying my "Now, I lay me."
At Grandpa's home, I do not remember ever having a tree.  There were always a few decorations, a mistletoe wreath with red ribbon bow on the front door, and some other bunches hung around the parlor (never called a "living
room then") and in the dining room.  One of Grandmother's sons or Papa saw that she had flowers, usually a vase of red and white carnations.  But the only tree we saw was at the church.  A tall cedar with many candles carefully placed and strings of popcorn and cranberries; sometimes tinsel strings sparkled among little brown paper bags of candy for the children, and striped peppermint candy canes, and a few of the lighter weight unbreakable toys.
Next morning early, I found a small China doll in the top of my stocking.She was so beautifully dressed in soft red wool that I now know Grandmother must have spent many hours making that lace trimmed petticoat and tiny 
ruffled drawers with baby-sized buttons and buttonholes.  Beside my stocking, there was a tiny iron cook stove almost an exact replica of the one in our kitchen, and the miniature pots and pans to go with it.  I was so proud!  I still have that doll.
The memories of that Christmas are still vivid.  It was wonderful, the family happiness, the laughter, the jokes and gentle teasing.  Before the hearty breakfast, with every one of us around the long table, Grandpa conducted family worship.  He read the story of the Baby Jesus from the family Bible, said a short, earnest prayer, then served our plates. 
Grandpa was a very devout man, a steward in the church, and he held family prayers every night just before retiring.
After breakfast, Grandmother and Mama began preparing the elaborate Christmas dinner, stuffing and baking the turkey, getting vegetables ready, and all the things that could not have been prepared earlier.  Coconut white cake, spice cake, and a big platter full of fancy cookies had been prepared during the week but several fruit cakes had been ripening, occasionally sprinkled with whiskey, for more than two months.  Uncle Mat and Grandpa beat up eggnog and set it to ripen on the back porch.  Each of the three of us had a sip, and my opinion as to its quality was gravely 
considered, even though they both were perfectly aware that was my very first taste of the delectable stuff.  It was later served with some of the fruitcake to any guests who might drop in.
The China doll I received that Christmas was not my first love for I remember Nora.  She was a rag doll and I do not remember just when she was acquired, but I must have been very young, probably about three.  Mama made
this doll but it was all hand made and hand-painted with some of Mama's artist oils.  I think she even made the pattern, the doll was cut from for I have never seen another so well shaped.  It had a nicely rounded head, well-shaped nose, and seams were well hidden under the beautifully painted baby face, which looked so much more like a real baby than the China doll.  Nora even wore some of Sister's outgrown baby clothes.  She was the only doll, of the many later ones I had, that I ever wanted to take to sleep with me, I loved her so.
Papa was a country schoolteacher and moved about from one place to another quite often.  The first school that I remember about was probably about twenty miles from where Grandpa and Grandmother lived.  It was in a farm
community and our little family could find no house available for the teacher's family.  We were fortunate that one of the members of the school board took us in to board in his home.
We became members of the Kane family which was already rather large consisting for three grown sons, one of them away at college, two grown daughters, another almost grown, and the baby of the family only a year older that I.  She and I were great playmates.
The Kane home was large with a big attic where Lorena and I could find the most amazing costumes for dressing up like ladies.  There were several storage trunks of garments that had long gone out of style, picture hats 
with enormous plumes, veils and wraps.  That was a wonderful place to play,especially on rainy days.  We could spend hours there without interfering with any of the grown-up projects.
Mr. Grayson Kane was a very devout man, a well-to-do farmer and popular in that section of the county.  It was the custom some time during the summer for an itinerant preacher to come into the community with a tent and hold 
about 10 days camp meeting.  Once or twice the meeting was held in Mr. Kane's big pasture, but after a few years, the church managed to scrape up enough cash to buy a small tract of land on which they expected to build a
church.  Until this church was erected, a brush arbor was put up. Supports of four or five inch logs were set in the ground and a framework of lighter poles nailed across their tops.  Then brush was piled on top enough to provide shade and even some protection from a light shower.  At one end of the arbor, a platform was set up, and borrowed chairs provided seats for the choir.  A crude shelf was set up at the front of the platform to hold the preacher's bible, though after reading a few verses, it was rarely referred to.  Some one in the community loaned an organ; the lodge 
provided flare torches, and the camp meeting was off to a good start. If the preacher was well known, sometimes families came for several miles in their big farm wagons.  Mattresses and quilts were brought, as well as food for several days.  Such gatherings of relatives and friends might provide their annual get-together, unless a funeral might intervene when the clans would always gather.
Ordinarily, the Kane family attended the camp meetings with reasonable regularity since they lived only about three miles from the meeting grounds.  But one summer, Mrs. Kane decided she was going to camp.  Mr. Kane put up the objection that he could not stay at night because of his live stock.  They had to be attended to night and morning, but in the end, he agreed to fit up one of his wagons for camping.  One of the older boys could stay with the family and Mr. Kane and the hired hand Rufus would go to meetings during the days, always returning to the farm to do the chores and sleep there.
Rufus was a drifter who had never been exposed to the hellfire and brimstone some of those country preachers could dispense.  Neither was he overly gifted with gumption, though he could and did fulfill his farm duties fairly well under the close supervision Mr. Kane gave him.  Mr. Kane was a little surprised when Rufus indicated that he wanted to attend some of the services but readily gave his permission, with the proviso that Rufus was to return at night with Mr. Kane to help with the chores. After seeing the preacher get himself well warmed up to his sermon, and 
seeing several shouting women, and mourners converted, the combined effect of these things made considerable impression on Rufus and he went down to the mourner's bench.  But though many of the believers prayed with Rufus, 
and he returned to the bench for prayers several times, Rufus was still unconvicted.  He was still struggling trying to think things out one night when he and Mr. Kane started for home.
The meeting was expected to close the next day so Mr. Kane had left his gentle farm team of horses with his family, just in case they wanted to come home before he returned.  On this night, he was driving a team of young mules to his wagon.  They were not yet thoroughly trained for their duties, but were excellent plow animals.  No noise followed the plow, but the wagon made sounds to them, running over some of the rocks in the road, empty and rattling along.
Rufus, still under the spell of the preacher, was struggling in his soul, trying to pray salvation through, and asked Mr. Kane for help.  Mr. Kane quoted scriptural verses in answer to all the questions and was sincerely concerned about his hand's welfare.  The mules were trotting along under perfect control, the summer moon overhead, the peaceful night, and Rufus praying softly.
About half way between the Kane home and the arbor, there was a long sloping hill leading down toward the Kane gate.  Just as the wagon reached the top of this hill, Rufus stood up shouting.
"I've got it!  Hallelujah!  Glory be, I've got religion, Mr. Kane!  I'm goin' to Heaven, now!" The startled mules' first leap threw Rufus over the back of the wagon seat where he fell into the bed of the wagon, still shouting.  Mr. Kane braced himself, trying to control those frightened mules in their headlong race down the hill, expecting every second for one of the wheels to strike a rock large enough to overturn the careening wagon.
Rufus pulled himself up on his knees, yelling at the top of his voice.  Mr.Kane was sawing on the heavy reins, trying desperately to bring his team under control. 
"Shut up, Rufus!: he ordered.  "For pity sake quiet down!"But Rufus paid no heed.  "Hallelujah, I'm a-gonna see Glory!"The mules ran the harder.  In desperation, Mr. Kane gathered both reins into his left hand, swung himself around on the seat and clouted Rufus right in the mouth.
"Dammit, you fool!  Shut your mouth, or we'll both be in Heaven, next minute!"Such an outburst was entirely out of character, Mr. Kane normally being a quiet, mild-mannered man, that Rufus was shocked into silence.  The mules 
were quickly brought under control, and the two men reached home safely and in silence.  Neither of them ever mentioned the incident.
One of the neighbors, however, had just turned his team off the main road into his lane.  He heard and saw the frantic run-away and he repeated the story to the preacher.
The preacher stared at the man thoughtfully, then, "I take it, Mr. Brown,you don't drive mules," he said mildly.
When school was over, we went back to Grandpa's for a visit.  I cried myself sick when Mama gave my rag doll, Nora, to Lorena as a parting gift.
Lorena and I, both, had other dolls but Nora was my favorite.  Mama promised me she would make me another just like it but she never did. Strange how a single childish incident sets the pattern or furnishes a clue to other more important sequences.  But from that time on, I knew in the depths of my heart that my wishes, my desires, and my longings were of minor importance to Mama.  I realized then, though I was very young, that I could never count on complete fairness from her.  And I have never understood why my doll should be taken away from me and given to some one  else over my unwilling protests. 
Even after we moved away from that community, we often went back on visits as long as we lived in Texas.  Lorena and I were flower girls when her grandparents celebrated their golden wedding.  In those days it was a rare couple who lived long enough for that fiftieth year celebration, since then Texas was not far past pioneering days.  It had been a hard life for many of them.
Little old, Mrs. Callahan looked very sweet in her embroidered white dress, and their sons and daughters bought a lovely gold brooch for her gift and an elaborately engraved gold-headed cane for Mr. Callahan.  I even remember
the identical ruffled white dresses Lorena and I wore, with wide gold-colored satin sashes.  The reception was held in the Kane's big living room and banks of goldenrod were everywhere.
While we were with Grandpa and Grandmother, that summer, Uncle Mat hung up his shingle as a dentist.  First, he had studied for more than a year under an old dentist who wanted a young partner.  When he was sure that he wanted
to continue in this profession, he went away to school in Baltimore and studied in the dental college there.  Later, he became one of the best in Texas and with his own practice.
After a couple of years in the East at school, he came back and was quite the gay young blade, with his very fashionable tight fitting trousers, derby hat, and bicycle.  He also acquired a beautiful trotting horse, a buggy, and various other accessories. 
Once, he took me to Dennison on his bicycle, a distance of about six or even miles.  He had planned to meet some of his young friends there.  Some of the young women had come in buggies.  But for that one night, I was thrilled at being his best girl.  He told me so.  He took me for a boat ride on the lake, got a water lily for me, and fed me all the popcorn and pink lemonade I could handle.  I had a wonderful time.
As we were riding home, with me on the handlebars, much later than my usual bedtime, his rear tire went flat and that meant we had to walk for miles. Part of the way was along dark road, and through deserted streets.  When we
finally did arrive at home, the whole family was up waiting.  They were astonished that I had walked all that distance, without a single whine or whimper.  And though it was very late and I was only about five, I had not complained of being to sleepy to walk and had never asked to be carried. .
The next school my father taught was endowed.  Part of the funds for it came from the state, but the building, grounds and house for the teacher's home were provided by a very wealthy old doctor as a memorial to his only daughter.  He had selected about five acres from the middle of a huge pasture for the site.
He kept herds of cattle in that pasture and when some of them were near our yard fence, Mama was deathly afraid and she would not go into the yard, herself, nor let me go even though we had a good fence, of three our four strands of barbed wire.  She was especially fearful if some of those big red bulls began pawing the dust nearby.
The schoolyard was also fenced and there was plenty of play ground. Since the doctor was quite an advanced thinker for his day and time, he had provided space for the children to learn how to plant a garden, set out a few fruit trees, and make flower beds and hot beds.
The main building was a large, white, frame structure, with two long rooms separated by a sliding partition so that they could be thrown together to provide for a community center.  A narrow stage to provide for school programs ran along one end, and there was a smaller single room for primer classes and the first and second grades.  This building was about the size of the many one-room schools that dotted the rest of the county.
Our house was just across the road from the school and it was constructed on the same pattern of all the better farm homes in that section. It had a hall straight back from the front porch to the kitchen, with a large room on each side and a stair going up from near the single center door.  The upstairs plan was identical.  There were no closets, no built-ins, not even a back porch.  The dug well was about thirty feet from the kitchen door and that in itself was considered a great convenience, as the wife on many of the farmsteads in that area sometimes had to carry water several hundred feet.  Our well was about thirty feet deep and all the water used we pulled up with rope and pulley.  Every home had a brassbound cedar bucket set on a wash shelf near the kitchen door with a big tin basin and roller towel handy. 
We lived at this place several years and everything I learned about the people in the community interested me.  Some were rugged individuals.
There was old Doctor Sheperd, who had provided this school for children from his tenant families, and many more besides.  The greater number of pupils walked to school, sometimes several miles.  Others rode horseback, and one family sent their kids in an old buggy.
When I was about six, Dr. Sheperd vaccinated me for small pox and I remember that he asked Mama to be sure to save the scab when it fell from my arm.  He provided a small box filled with sterile cotton for her to put it in and he used that scab for many of his patients who needed the vaccination but could not afford to pay for serum.  He said I was such a healthy little animal that my scab would do for several hundred inoculations.  Nowadays, medical procedure like that is beyond the imagination of modern practitioners.  I suppose many of the younger doctors
have never come in contact with a case of smallpox, and they certainly can have little idea of how terrible that dreadful pestilence used to be.  I have since seen several cases and I know.
Dr. Sheperd was a fine man and I admired him greatly but I doubt if he knew much about medicine.  He had a fairly good library and did considerable reading but I never knew that he attended any medical seminars or such. 
But his team and buggy were familiar over all the roads round about.  He carried a small black pillbox and from it dispensed calomel and quinine as needed.  And that was about all, except for a pair of forceps, a needle and
gut strings, and his thermometer.  Undoubtedly, his greatest value to the community was the comfort and sympathy he gave his patients along with his pills.  They trusted his wisdom, his knowledge of human nature and went to 
him for advice on many family problems other than health.
After we had been living on Dr. Sheperd's place for about a year, Mama and Papa received an invitation to a wedding.  Mr. and Mrs. Kane were giving their daughter a church wedding, and Mama was asked to take charge of the affair.  Lorena and I were to be flower girls again.  This was to be the first church wedding I ever attended.  Since we were about twenty miles from the nearest florist, Mama and some of the neighbors gathered bushels of honey -suckle vines to decorate the little chapel.  I have no idea how many white tissue paper flowers they made.  Over the altar, they made and hung a white bell and the church looked lovely.
After all that elaborate preparation, the poor groom was so flustered that he forgot to pick up the bride's bouquet at the railroad station.  Mama sacrificed all the cosmos in her flowerbed, tied them with a satin bow, and that made a pretty, ferny armful for the bride to carry. That summer, Papa went to Wyoming to work but I don't know whether it was harvesting or ranching, or what.  He thought it would be good for his health for him to change climate and work in the open for a few months. 
That left Mama alone with two very small daughters and the nearest neighbor about half a mile away.  Uncle Buddy thought she would be much safer if she had a gun for protection so he brought her a nice .32 Smith and Wesson 
pistol.  It was a good one and Mama was so proud of it.  She took it out in the back yard, set up a mark and began a bit of practice.  She was already an excellent shot with a rifle or a shotgun but had never tried her hand with a pistol.
Our nearest neighbor was a rather odd person who went by the name of "Whispering Jack!"  When he plowed his fields, he did it by the sound of his voice and if the wind was right neighbors in the next county knew it. 
We could almost set our clock by the time when he called his daughter Jane to fetch in the milk cows for the evening milking.  He had been a cowboy before he settled down to raise his family, and he had been on many of the
early cattle drives.  He took great pride in his ability as a rifle and pistol shot.  So when he heard Mama shooting, he came up to see.
He challenged her and they agreed to a match, using a small knothole in the end of a barrel for a mark.  Jack was amazed when Mama out-shot him badly. He liked Mama and told everybody around how good she was.  I had seen her shoot the head off a fryer when unexpected company might drop in for dinner but that was with a twenty-two rifle.  This was her first try with her new pistol. 
I begged to try the pistol, too, after Mama and Mr. Lynch finished their match.  I was so small that I had to hold the pistol in both hands to aim it and it took all the strength of both index fingers to pull that trigger. 
 But even so, I almost hit that knothole they had used for their mark. Mama was pleased and promised that when I was older she would teach me to shoot, too, but she also gave me a little instruction on how dangerous guns were and told me never to touch her gun unless she gave me permission. During Papa's absence, that gun was laid on a chair at the head of her bed every night in easy reach if she should ever need it.  By day, it was equally available in the top bureau drawer.  Yet, I knew I must not touch it.  And as Sister grew older she was taught in the same way.  There it 
was, in easy reach any time but so far as I know neither of us ever disobeyed in that respect.  I do not know if such instruction would be as effective today with all the 'bang-bang' shows on TV but I've always thought that the great danger in such weapons is not in the gun, but in the lack of proper training.
Summer that year was unusually hot and dry.  Many wells failed and ours was so low we wondered if it would hold out.  Mama's garden parched, and her flowers all dried up.  Sister became listless and hardly ate.  Mama worried
for fear she would get seriously sick.  At last, Mama decided she had had enough of the loneliness and heat.  She would go to visit her parents.  It was a long hard trip for a woman traveling alone with two small children. It meant about ten or twelve hours by horse and buggy.  But she made plans to set out.
Jane Lynch agreed to feed and water the chickens, the cow was put in their pasture with their milk stock.  Mama washed and ironed all our clothes and packed them in her valise.  She prepared a box of lunch, stowed a quilt and
pillow in the back of the buggy, hitched Sam up to the buggy, and we were ready to travel as soon as the searing afternoon heat began to lessen. 
During the heat wave, the blazing sun had been so hot Mama feared it would make us all sick if we drove in the heat of the day.  She was also afraid of the dark when out alone on the road.  But, she chose darkness as the lesser of the two evils.  She knew just about how long it would take to travel that distance with any luck at all.  But the last thing she put into that buggy was her pistol - just in case.
What made her most uneasy was the new Frisco railway line in process of construction south from the Indian Territory.  Mama had no exact knowledge of the distance between the road that she must take and the construction 
camps along the railway.  She had been hearing some tall tales about the behavior of some of those rough men working as laborers in some of the crews.  If she should happen to meet up with stragglers from those camps, 
she meant to protect herself if she had to.
Just before dark, Mama stopped at a farmhouse to ask for water.  She drew a bucket of water for Sam and filled a jar with water for us in case we asked for a drink during the night.  We ate our fried chicken, potato salad, buttered bread and cookies with the fresh cool water.  Before we drove on, Mama spread the quilt and pillow to make as comfortable a bed for Sister in the bottom of the buggy as she could.  She knew Sister would soon be sleepy but she hoped I would stay awake to keep her company.  She told me she needed me to keep her awake.  During the long night, she told me wonderful stories, and we both sang all the songs we knew.
Fortunately, there were no other travelers on the road that night after dark.  Though it was not really very dark after the moon came up.  Once, as we were trotting along, Sam suddenly shied.  He jumped nearly across the road.  Some large animal, what it was we could not tell, bounded out of some bushes along the fencerow.  We did not know if it was a dog or wolf. It made no sound.  It leaped easily over a high fence and disappeared. 
Mama had been over this stretch of road and knew there was no farmhouse nearby.  She believed it must have been a wolf.  Some coyotes were known to be in that section, but this beast was much too large and coyotes are not 
so bold.  Occasionally lobos drifted into that area and Mama thought we had seen one and surprised him as much as he surprised us.  She was more startled that frightened for she had her pistol at her side, and I was confident she would have shot it if it had turned towards us.
Day was just breaking when we reached Grandpa's house.  After fixing us a bite to eat, Grandmother put both Mama and me to bed.  We were both worn out.  Sister had slept so well she was fresh and lively.
Sister and I found it very pleasant to visit here.  There was lots of room for us to play, and shady oaks for coolness.  Grandpa had a good rope swing in one of them.  Back home, in the middle of that pasture, there were no shade trees in sight.  In our yard, there was one small scrubby cedar set near the front porch.
Best of all, there were other children near that we could play with.  And across the street an old lady had a bright green parrot, which we enjoyed.
Her cage was usually hung on the wide verandah.  Polly amused us when she whistled up a pack of dogs.  She called and whistled until there might be about a dozen dogs on the lawn.  She knew each boy's special whistle and 
could imitate it perfectly.  The dogs ran around bewildered, each trying to find his master.  Then she would scream "Git out!  Go home, you curs!"  And the poor deluded pups would slink off, knowing they had been fooled again. 
We never could understand how Polly could repeat that performance so often without those dogs catching on to the trick, but it never failed to amuse us.
While at Grandpa's we learned to watch for the tamale man.  A Mexican with a small pushcart came by each afternoon selling "Hot tamales!"  He was regular as ice cream vendors are now.
 But Mama and Grandmother thought the highly spiced tamales were not good for children and rarely let us buy.
The Mexican had used considerable ingenuity in making his little pushcart. He set a big lard can in the box rigged up on two discarded bicycle wheels. The big lard can was packed all around with newspapers and partly filled with hot water.  A smaller can filled with the tamales was set in the hot water and had a tightly fitting lid placed over that.  The tamales came out steaming when he forked them out on the plate we brought when we were allowed to buy them.
Though she could not have known, Grandmother's colored girl told us that those tamales were made from dog meat and that all Mexicans were dirty.  I knew it wasn't true for Uncle Mat had taken me for a ride once and we had 
passed this Mexican's house.  There was no other Mexican family in the vicinity and while the place was shabby and run-down, it was clean.  Ella May just did not like Gonzales but if we bought his tamales, I noticed she did not refuse to eat some of our purchases. 
Ella May did not like the quaint old Chinaman who passed almost every afternoon, either.  He was strange, she said, and ate rats.  He was always dressed the same, long black shirt and no other man wore the tail out at that time.  His black cotton pants were short enough that his white socks showed.  The only change in his appearance was in his headgear.  Sometimes, he wore a tiny black pillbox cap with his long gray queue dangling down behind, but if he wore his odd straw hat, he coiled his queue out of sight. 
 A few small boys sometimes followed him chanting in a nasal singsong, "Ching-ching-Chinaman, eats dead rats!"  But he always ignored them, walking along in quiet dignity. These two were the only foreigners I knew as a child.  That they were different I understood.  But both Grandmother and Mama always pointed out that a lady worthy of the name should treat every person with courtesy. Nice manners were the mark of a lady, and that theme was drilled into me most thoroughly from infancy.  Courtesy and consideration!  The two most important words of all.
Grandpa Weems served in the Confederate Army and was captured at the fall of Vicksburg.  As I remember his comment on that, the soldiers he was with were heavily outnumbered and when they started to retreat, found a regiment of blacks behind them so they turned and ran back to surrender to the whites.
He was imprisoned on an island, Number 10, and many of the guard were black and the prisoners were so starved that some caught and ate rats.  The Yanks stripped most of the state of food and even before capture he said much of 
the time all he had to eat was ears of corn right from fields as they marched.
After he was freed, Grandpa went back home, but Reconstruction times in Mississippi were bad. The whole section where he had lived was in ruins, no money, no supplies, no horses or mules to work the land or even seeds to 
plant it, impossible taxes, debts, etc.  Indescribable.  On some of the land the freed slaves stayed and they and both my grandfathers tried to get along.  Since all white men were disenfranchised, only carpetbaggers and ignorant blacks were running the government, and much of the land had been confiscated, it was time to move to Texas.
I remember one of them said that if war could have been postponed for as few as ten years it never would have happened, both because of the economic conditions and because of the invention of the cotton gin.  The other 
grandfather said he had to work so hard to make his farm pay even before the war that he was not sure if he owned the place and the slaves or if they owned him.
Then they heard of cheap virgin land in Texas.  So they went in 1870.  It was raw virgin land and it meant long hard labor so as soon as a log house was livable they sent for their families.  I do not how Grandmother Lanham went to Texas but I assume she went by boat with her two small sons and essential household goods to Galveston, then by freight wagons to Sherman.
I know that Grandmother Weems made the trip by boat down the Mississippi River and across the gulf where Grandpa met her and his family. 
Grandmother Weems' maiden name was Martha Catherine Red.  A cousin of mine, Inez Bosewell Biggerstaff traced her line to Josiah McGaw, a soldier in the Revolutionary War who fought with the Swamp Fox, Francis Marion's men in the army near Charleston, South Carolina.  At one time, her people were quite well to do and lived on a large plantation, but both her parents died of malaria when she was about seven.  He uncle, Dr. Red, raised her along 
with his own three daughters.  They had a French governess and she was given the customary education for gentle -women of that period.  She was taught some French, a little music, polite social manners and beautiful convent type sewing, nothing very practical for a pioneer's wife. 
Grandmother's handwork was exquisite and she always that the ability to "sew a fine seam" was the mark of true gentility.But the war had wiped out her family fortune, and it was a long-standing joke that Grandpa had teach her how to cook when they went to Texas.  To her credit, she did adapt to the rigors of pioneering, but without losing 
her polite social ideas of being a LADY.  And one of her common admonitions when I was a child was "Remember, my dear, you should always behave like a lady" - or "A little lady would never do that!"
When she spoke of the times she remembered back in Mississippi, she often mentioned incidents when she was teaching the young slaves.  Uncle Red had built a small church on his plantation and Grandmother called the young 
children in to learn to read, write and figure each morning.  The house servants were well trained.   In fact, if Mammy Lou had not been devoted, my premature mother, who weighed in at three pounds fully dressed in those two long flannel petticoats, wool undershirt, etc. would not have lived. She was put to bed in a large roasting pan on the let-down door of the first big iron cook stove in the county.  And Mammy Lou faithfully kept the wood fire at the proper temperature for days - so Mama was incubated before incubators were invented.  Grandmother had five children but Mama was the last, and the only girl. Grandmama, Kittie Weems, wrote the following letter to her sister-in-law after her brother George Red died.
Sherman, Texas Dec. 6th, 1880 

My Dear Mattie
I expect you are looking for a reply to your last letter so I will try and
write a few lines tonight if my eyes do not fail me.  I have been so busy 
and it has been so cold and wet that I thought I would wait until I got 
through with my work before writing.  I have quilted five comforts this 
winter and am almost through with my winter sewing.  We are all very well 
at present.  My health has been better for the last few months.  Well 
Mattie I know that you will be very much surprised when I tell you that we 
will move next Monday to the Poor Farm.  Jimmie is appointed superintendent
 of the farm.  They pay him four hundred and sixty ($460) dollars and feed 
the family.  We will have a very nice and comfortable home to live in. 
Jimmie will not have to work.  The boys can go to school all year.  This is
why I consented to go.  I do not like the idea of going at all but-as 
Jimmie thinks it best-I will try it this year.  I will not have any thing
 to do in the affairs there. 
Jimmie is trying to get through with his corn this week will make over 
thirteen hundred (1300) bushels, he has not finished his cotton yet.  We 
have had a month of bad weather.  This is why Jimmie is not done gathering 
his crop.  We had rented this place for another year.  Are you through with
your crop, how many bales of cotton did you make.  I hope you realized a 
good price.  I am glad that you have nice hogs to kill.  Will you keep the 
young man that you now have another year.  Tell Herman Aunty thinks he is a
very smart boy to pick so much cotton.  He must be a good boy and take the 
place of his Papa as near as he can, Mattie.  You must-try and cheer up. 
Think of your dear little ones, it is hard to become reconciled to the loss
of our dear ones.  When I think of my dear brother as he was when here and 
then think that I can never see or hear him again oh my heart almost 
breaks.  But Mattie we all have to die soon or late let us try and meet him
beyond the skies where there is no parting.  I wish that I could spend 
Christmas with you and the children.  I know it will be a sad time for you
ALL ALONE.  Poor children Papa will not be there to enjoy it with them-but.
You wished to know all our ages.  Pa was born Apr 27th 1817 died July 23rd 
1849.  Ma was born May 25th 1821 and died 1855 Nov 26 -- I think.  Bud was 
born June 10th 1844.  I was born May 26th 1846.  Sue was born Aug 1st 1849 
and died Nov 6th 1860 -- Bud lived to be four years older than Pa.  Ours 
has been a short - lived family.  All gone but me, Oh Mattie think how 
lonely I must feel.  I do not expect to live much longer.  My eyes have 
become exhausted and I will have to close.  Kiss the children all for Aunty
and tell them to be good children.  Write soon, I am always so glad to get 
a letter from you.
Your Affectionate Sister
Kittie

Mama stayed with her parents until almost time for Papa to come back home. She wanted to be there when he arrived and she decided that since the weather had moderated and the heat was not so severe, it would now be best to drive back by daylight.  The trip was uneventful and while we liked to go, we found we also liked to come back to our home.
Papa came in looking so healthy and brown.  He enjoyed his outdoor work, but he was glad to be back, too.  It was always a busy time just before the opening of school.  So many details, so much correspondence, planning and 
organizing various projects, he worked harder in those last two weeks before the start of a term than any other period except the one opening day and the closing day.
This year arrangements had been made to have a music teacher connected with the school.  Miss Grace Kane came to live with us, and one of the front rooms was set aside for her piano pupils.  Mama did not mind cooking for 
one more and she liked Miss Grace so much that she was glad to have her in our home.  Since she was a very attractive girl, naturally, she had young men coming to see her.  One in particular, I admired so greatly that I 
thought could not grow up fast enough to marry him - and of course, I didn't but Miss Grace didn't marry him either.  A frustrated romance!
My first experience with horses came about this time.  Papa liked to ride Sam and he was a very good saddle horse, though Mama always used him in the buggy.  Papa had a Mexican saddle with a horn as large and round as a 
saucer.  I can remember he would swing me up behind the saddle, put Sister in front on that wide saddlehorn, and away he would gallop across the prairie.  It was wonderful.
Once, Papa left home early in the morning to attend to some business and he came back about the middle of the afternoon, tired and hungry.  He filled Sam's watering trough, then asked me if I wanted to ride around the yard, 
while he went in to eat his dinner.  Of course, I did but it was something I had never tried before.  Sam had other ideas about that.  He wanted to be fed too and started for the barn.  I tugged at his reins to turn him but he paid me no heed.  I barely managed to stop him in time to slide off before he dragged me off as he went into his stable.  But from then on, I wanted to learn to ride and I loved horses.
Mother had been an excellent rider and she used to relate how when I was only a few months old. She had taken me up in her lap to ride, sidesaddle, whenever she visited any of her friends.  Grandpa and Papa used to boast that she could handle any horse they ever had.  She even drove Uncle Mat's fine racer hitched to his light training cart and this was considered quite a feat for a woman.  Crockett, a beautiful blood-bay animal, was so high spirited as to be a bit fractious.  Even so, Mama frequently drove him down town on errands.  Whenever she did, some of Uncle Mat's sporty friends who 
knew the horse would jokingly challenge her to a race but they always found some excuse to back out of it if she accepted the bid.  Sometimes, they gave as their excuse that it would not be a fair race since Mama was so  
much lighter than they, which fact was true.  Though their real reason for not wanting to match a race with her was that they knew her ability with the reins, and her skill in controlling the animal.  Besides Crockett had a reputation for speed.  No young Texan would enjoy or willing accept defeat at the hands of a woman in a trial of this sort.
So far, I have had only a little to say about Papa.  At a very early age it was brought home to me that he was terribly disappointed that I was a girl instead of the son he had hoped for.  Most of the time, he ignored me completely.  I do remember that on rare occasions, I have overheard him  boast that I learned to read before I was four years old.  However, that feat was started on my own initiative.
Both Papa and Mama loved reading and they frequently read aloud by turns to each other.  If they buried themselves in separate books, I was left to my own resources.  Then I would get my Mother Goose Rhymes, or a primer and 
pull my little rocking chair between them, as close as possible.  If any one would listen, I could repeat any of these books from memory but if I tried to read them, I sometimes faltered over a single word.  Then I 
insisted on being told what that word was.  If either parent ignored my question, "What's this word?" I simply sat and repeated over and over "B, d, b, d," until it become so monotonous that one of them would finally stop reading long enough to tell me the word I wanted to know.  I cannot remember learning at all.  According to school standards, my self-education was not exactly balanced.  I read well and understood what I read.  I knew many words and their meanings, but I was not a good speller.  I had little interest in numbers and had never been taught any arithmetic, but I could count and make change. 
I loved reading and by the time I was seven, when other Texas children were just starting to school in the primer, I was reading and enjoying the old "Youth's Companion."  I read every text in reading that Papa had in his 
library and since he was frequently given complimentary copies of sets for all the grade in school, that was quite a lot of reading for a child who had not gone to school at all.  I could and read some newspapers but since that was before comics reached their present popularity, I found little to interest me.
Papa did not want me to be too far advanced in school and held me back by putting me in the second grade at the start of my schooling.  And he never would allow me to be promoted or advanced except at the end of the year.  I never understood why he deliberately held me back.  I really do not believe it is best for children to be pushed too fast, either, but it is hardly fair to force them to work below their capacity.
The first year I started to school was the year Papa got a larger school 
and we moved to the county seat where he was superintendent of three schools.  This town was about twenty or more miles from where we had previously lived and in another county.  Papa rented a house just across the street from the high school where he would have his classes, which made it very convenient for him.  There was a smaller grade school in one corner of the big campus ant that is where I started to school.  Only the three first grades were in that building.
Our house was not large but it was very comfortable and it was set in a fenced yard heavily sodded with Bermuda grass.  Papa had a colored man who came to keep it nicely cut and it made a wonderful place for romping games,
with some of the neighbors' children, and there were usually several of them around.
The house had four huge rooms, but the room we used most was the cozy dining room, for we loved the big, old stone fireplace, and the round dining table served for games as well as for meals.  By that time, Sister and I could play Flinch, Old Maid and other similar games, but actual playing cards were not permitted.  Sometimes Mama and Papa had their friends, most often other teachers, in for Flinch.
That fireplace was where we gathered on cold winter evenings.  Sometimes, we shook a wire popper over glowing coals and listened for the snappy pops of the corn.  Sometimes, we roasted apples and sweet potatoes in the hot 
ashes, and once in a while, when it was very cold, Mama hung an iron pot of beans or stew over the fire to simmer for our supper.  On rare occasions, she even made corn pones in a heavy iron spider.  Oh, we loved that fireplace!
We lived in this place two years, and it was there that I had my first regular schooling and I admit I was much more interested in the other children than in my books, which were far too easy to demand my undivided attention.  Many times, I begged to carry my lunch to school because most of the other children did and I wanted to be like the other small girls I knew.  I was sure having my lunch on the school grounds would be a picnic and I wanted the whole noon hour for play.  But Mama insisted that I come home for my lunch and I can remember only once that she relented.
Our playground had none of the modern equipment that small folks find as a matter of course on their playgrounds now.  Never having seen slides, 
acrobatic bars, and such we did not miss them but improvised our own amusements by laying heavy boards across fire-wood logs hauled into the ard for fuel.  Those were our teeter-totters.  And when those same logs had been sawed into stove lengths, we dragged and piled them in place to build walls for our play-houses..  Maybe we appreciated more what we had to make ourselves than little ones who are given everything ready-made.  I don't know but I think we got double the fun.
When I was promoted to the third grade, I had my first love affair.  Not an unmixed blessing!  The little boy who sat behind me, dipped my pigtails into his inkwell and whenever he wanted my attention, he yanked them, too. 
But he, also, gave me presents.  He shared his gingerbread with me at recess sometimes, he gave me some of his favorite marbles to play jacks with, and he brought me my first gift of flowers.  That was a huge arm full of lilac blossoms, and some way that happens to be my favorite perfume, to this day.
Another gift that I received while we lived here was the first and only gift my father ever gave me personally.  It was a small child's book of Eskimo stories.  I have never understood why he happened to bring it back to me after one of his trips, nor why he never gave me any other present. I have always believed he rather ignored my presence because he never overcame his disappointment that I was not the son he wanted.  Sister was his favorite and he frequently gave her little things.  Possibly, this was because she looked so much like him, partly, I think, because she was 
named for his mother, and partly, also, because she was gayer than I and she did not draw back into a shell as I did whenever I sensed his snubs. Shortly before we moved from this town, the whole family received a shock that I shall never forget.  Sometime very late at night we were awakened by pounding steps on our front walk.  A man's voice was calling Papa urgently.  He said he had a wired message from Papa's father asking Papa to come immediately, that Grandpapa had shot Papa's brother.  We were horrified and could not believe what we heard.  While Papa dressed, Mama phoned to find out when the next train left.  Then Papa thought to phone the telegraph office and have the message read to him.  It was not true, of course, but what had happened was bad enough.  The message actually said that Grandpapa had killed a man, and that Papa was to let Uncle Wiley know, and both sons were asked to come at once.
Grandpapa owned and operated a small grocery store with a large wagon yard in connection at the edge of town.  Country people coming in to trade frequently drove long distances, too far for their wagons to make the round
trip in one day.  They would park their rigs in Grandpapa's enclosure, stable their teams in his sheds, and buy supplies for several months ahead. A few men brought their wives and when they did a bed usually was made up 
in the back of their wagons for the family to sleep over night unless they had relatives to visit.  Other men came alone and these had their choice of sleeping in their wagons or taking a bunk for 25 cents in the bunkhouse. 
If purchases in Grandpapa's store amounted to a considerable outlay, there was no charge for these facilities.
Usually everything about the yard was quite orderly, but occasionally some rough men would come in on a Saturday night and cause a disturbance.  On this particular Saturday night, Grandpapa was alone in the place when a big, drunken bully came in and began cursing Grandpapa for some fancied wrong.  The abuse started at the front end of the long store.  Grandpapa tried to pacify the man but as he talked quietly to him, he was backing away from him.  A few plain chairs were set out down the center aisle for the convenience of customers, and this man picked up one and was menacing Grandpapa with it.  He carried the chair raised high over his head, 
threatening to strike Grandpapa down.  Grandpapa continued to walk slowly backward, still trying to reason with the man.  He even appealed to the two other men who had entered the store behind this dangerous ruffian.  They 
refused to have any part of it, knowing how quarrelsome drinking made this man.
Grandpapa had backed almost the full length of the store until he was in  reach of a desk where he kept his books and accounts, with the man still 
following and becoming more abusive.  When he reached the desk, Grandpapa pulled open a drawer where he kept his pistol.  By this time the man was so close, he could reach Grandpapa with a heavy blow from the chair.
"Put that chair down!" Grandpapa ordered crisply, as he brought the pistol into plain view at his side.
The man swore foully as he lunged forward to bring the chair down with all his strength.  Grandpapa sidestepped and shot from the hip.
Grandpapa was a quiet, mild-mannered, little man with wavy gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard and he looked very much as many another Confederate veteran of those times did.  He must have been in his middle sixties at the time. It still seemed strange to any one who knew him that even a drunken man could be so foolish, to try to intimidate one of General Lee's officers, especially one who had served four years with his staff and was still with Lee at Appomattox.
There was no formal trial after this killing.  Grandpapa, with his two sons, reported to the sheriff the next morning, and answered a few questions.  The man who was killed was notoriously quarrelsome and dangerous especially when drinking and even his companions under oath 
stated that Grandpapa had ample justification.  Though the wild Saturday nights in some Texas towns were less frequent than they had been previously and the custom of shooting a town up never had the prevalence that movies 
and TV programs would have you believe, there were plenty of times when such violent incidents did occur.  All the wildness was not yet gone.
Shortly after that, Papa moved us to Prosper, another Texas town.  I was then in the fourth grade and far more advanced than some of the adolescent boys in my classes, several of whom were grown in size.  A few of them were 
so unruly the school board thought it wise to employ a man teacher.  The grade school teacher was a character I associated in my mind with Ichabod Crane and there certainly were strong physical similarities.  Mr. Dean was 
almost bald, tall and angular and he was fired with a great determination to drill mental arithmetic into our heads.  An excellent idea, perhaps, but then, some heads are virtually impenetrable, meaning some of those larger 
boys.  They were slow in books but not necessarily dumb for many of them were already qualified to take a man's place at round-up time or harvesting.
Math was not my strongest subject, but I could figure much more rapidly than these over-grown boys.  In return for a whispered answer, I was kept well supplied with apples, candy and chewing gum, sometimes even Sen-Sen. 
Gum and Sen-Sen were contraband but my Geography was large enough to provide me with an adequate screen.  And if the strong scent of the Sen-Sen gave me away, I could always say in all innocence that I had been given some at recess.
Come Spring, and these older boys and girls began to moon around and to make lovesick calf eyes at one another.  It was so obvious that love-love-love had struck his older pupils that even Mr. Dean recognized the symptoms 
and decided his best course of action would be to shuffle the seats.  These young Romeos were much too shy to stand around corners and waylay the girls of their fancies so they resorted to note writing, an activity that was strictly against Mr. Dean's rules of conduct.
Mr. Dean's schoolroom was long and the double desks were arranged facing the front with a long aisle between them and since they were expected to need more help with their lessons, the smaller children sat in smaller desks closer to the front where teacher's desk was placed.  At the back of the room the desks were large enough to accommodate grown-ups and that is where these older pupils were seated with the girls on one side ant the boys on the other.  The aisle was too wide between the two rows of desks to make it safe to pass notes between them for Mr. Dean's desk was placed exactly in the middle where he would have the best opportunity to see and intercept anything passed between.  The water bucket was near the door just back of Mr. Dean's desk and we were permitted to get a drink at any time during the day provided there was no other pupil getting a drink at the same time.

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