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MEMORIES OF CLAY COUNTYBy J. E. Wagner5? Westminster Road, Newton C entre 5**, Maseeh use Its\nv 1951 boys like this?in'to keep them buy more tlumour •« week. Down m our fieiil there| ton hoed, and we went at it hard WVd whittled it down to less than thirty rows when it began ! raining. It rained all afternoon.| Saturday morning it was tlt; o wet, and by noon it was impossible.Of course Pa heard all about the Suiram, but he found the place hro where we d made the jugs under Het4amimother told him what had hapNBefore 18X8 or 1X84 ... _ ......eommuuily wheat or oat.s liad to w®* a sandy place where, when j ground, and where we'd made 'turi be* lt;ul with a eradle. No, nlt;d the it rained, a boy could sock his. our billow whistles. Reluctantly visa baby’s cradle, but one which8 hoc handle down into the groundrocked with the swaying of the two or three feet Then he couldcrudler’s body. It was just at begin slowly working thescythe, with a long fingered ex- lt;nd of it in . ik iiVttension on the upper side of the half or more in the ground would flayed us' Now, I wonder it it ridHie cradler swung it, jf tend to travel in the same circle Was not our consciences in tin* theI hat formed a conieal cup at the making, after all To this day 1 fora bent toward finishing ofdistance not much larger than what has to be done as quicklythe hoe handle, bul belowpened Now, after about seventy visi f°P years, I remember that reckoning Meta circle, and the it %NMS no( uur consciences which Blie knew how and was skillful so as to cut wheat very close tlt;the ground, and leaving the stubble almost as even and level asRas possible, leaving the pluv till liava harvester does it today. The formed a cup near two feet high, the last row is hoed. Consciences Arlhad to be sharp,with a hole in it's top a littlesharp Just as a carpenter today larger than his hoe handle Thesand had enough clay in itt*.do not build themselves* Pa builtmine, with a peach tree switch.otliing but thin denimmake it tay put, when it was between me and that switch wet enough. One entire half davposNatanil tiorme convinced me that it did not we worked on that sandy ''pot, pilv to put off what had to be|cdand made about a dozen jugs in done. He did not really hurt us, I hasjust stung iis enough that we pre* - IAnother day we found a thick ferred work 1 do not remember the et of willows near the tank, and 1 that we ever shirked our work Ieach of us made himself more work after that There was plenty 1 atthe ground.insists that he wastes no time keeping his tool* sharp, a cradler wasted no time whetting hiscradle, though he spent five minutes out of twhetting it.In 1X8.1 or ’84 Pa ami grandpaWalker bought the first reaper,a dropper, that came into our tac’b °f os made himself moreClay County community. It was ^,an one whistle. Every boy ina good machine, and Pa was'^,(,s® days owned a pocket knife justly proud of it. By taking the j ^e mj,de some quite large whistdropper attachment off, and *‘‘® UP behind some boy.changing the sickle, it became Iff *, J^ear ear as possible, were viaitors^in the lioine ofMtand Mrs, A. L Malliek over the weekendMax Malliek of Hullettsville, recruiting officer in the AirForte, has been visiting his cou*of it We did it, ami then we played with a clear conscience.itt1Vol Rum ley of r.lute. Texasa mower, I could never under- i,rd turn loose a blast and he’d stand why the change of sickles jump out of his hide *’ When unless it was because the mow- whistles wore out wc found mg sickle had to be ground sharp something else to do on the grindstone and the graine.ngr.unCODuring about a day and asickles had a toothed edge on we hoed very little cotton And; sinA L. and Mrs MaUickevery section I turned the grindstone.then one night, it rained, and was Mr and Mrs, Joe Colem.»n oftoo wet to hoe for half a day,! Granite, Okla., were theMother kept talking to to, and lt;f F F Lavy over the weekendI he year we got our dropper, our neighbors sowed a lot more lelling us what Pa expe ted, and wheat and oats, and Pa was to!we i'mpt assuring fu r we'd haveharvest it for them. It was a cotton hoed all right Wegood year, and Pa went at the tu,dd do ail if it Friday andoats near the end of May, and Saturday And we could bv lt;citbahein' seI *Gvt f Mac ft 0i*1Ult;that is ronton chopping or hoeing) time I was eleven or twelve and notfighting snakesFridayIIupBut when wemorning rainpauiWOiMBiiwai. *as good a cotton chopper as there ',V*1N threatening. We knew wewas in the community. With a 1° WORK to have that elt; t hoe or ax 1 am ambidextrous, a little better left than right-handed I'd hoe a l ow* left-handed with my back to the sun, and the next rigid-handed with my back still to the sun, using anew set of muscles while theleft-hand set rested. Slt;», when ; Pa went away |o cut oats, andthen to cut wheat, 1 was in » harge of cotton hoeingWANFADSIb*• rttlook toI here were three ofh.Add and Alf.v e r islow »*i .nd snud - •- II;,11 h *i*r man I I heyexpected me to do more v. : kthan fhev, and i w that I didit by taking tin ir time with what flu e did. I lu ii' v ere about ixtv rows of cotton, Pa would |e . r*just a week hi first trip. 1 ..day be left, we worked pretty hard, and at night had hoedeighteen row We had f.ve day. left to do fort) two rows. Whata snap' We could do it in twodays and a half Boys will be boys. We were just boys. Boys play. We played.I hree ingenious boys ran findenough games to play in a field«* -i—... . * ...—nfi —-frrr m —,—T~mn.,niIn the low-price Held, ONLY Pt.Y POWER for flashing new performs more driving ease—NEW POWEInew PowerFlwitN new PoPowerFhte, the newestno-clutch transmissioncombined with ttie gre,gives you flashing accelag. The Power Flo* ergives you ample reserv
Newspaper Details
Henrietta Clay County Leader
Henrietta, Texas, US
Thu, Apr 15, 1954
Page 10
Full Page
Clipped by
Max B.
USA 10 Apr 2021
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Henrietta Clay County Leader
