Pop was a great story teller of either fact or fiction, and his talent for embellishment was
considerable. On cold winter nights, he would take you and me, one on each knee, and from the blazing fire would
pull out and spin yarns that would send goose pimples up and down your spine!
When he came up with one we particularly liked, we would have him repeat it the next night.
If he left out one significant word, he would incur our joint and immediate protest, so, instead, he generally
added a nugget here and there.
All this would sometimes cause Munner to
say, "Jim, can't you cut it a little short tonight?"
But, for our sake, he never would.
George inherited this talent from Pop, and, as he gets older, is
more like him. He told me some tales not long ago; if I could have climbed on his knee and closed my eyes, it would
have been Pop come back to me. I'll pass a couple of them on to you.
It seems that when George was about five
or six, Pop got a job in Cookville painting railroad cars. The three of them moved over there temporarily and boarded
with Uncle Zeb and Aunt Jennie.
They had several children, including daughter Nora, who had a beautiful soprano voice.
One day, Uncle Zeb said, "Nannie, come into the parlor; I want you to hear Nora sing a beautiful new song called, The Holy City."
Nora gave a superb performance, and Mom, who had a great voice
herself, was most complimentary.
George had listened, hunkered down on his chair with his chin cupped
in his hands. He had not said a word.
Uncle Zeb turned to him and said, "Son, How did you like Nora,s song?"
"Uncle Zeb," George replied gravely, "My grandpa would not let a song like that be sung in his house!"
"Why not, son," he asked in astonishment.
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"Because," George replied, "He
loves 'Amazing Grace' and 'A Fountain Filled Full of Blood'."
"Those are mighty good old songs," Uncle Zeb mused, "And I know they are just the kind your grand daddy loved."
Another tale had to do with the price of eggs. When George was a boy, he needed a new pair of galluses. Mom knew they cost ten cents; and since eggs were bringing
ten cents a dozen and were more plentiful at our house than dimes, she decided to go the barter route. George took a dozen eggs to Uncle Jim Colvert's store, and made his wishes known.
"I'm sorry, son, but eggs are bringing eight cents today," Uncle
Jim told Him. "Go home and get two cents to go with the eggs."
George said the day was hot, and they decided he would wait until
the next day to go back to the store.
Bright and early the next morning, he got his dozen eggs, and, with two cents in his pocket,
went back to conclude his trade.
He walked in and told Uncle Jim he was back
to get his galluses and proudly stated that he had two cents to go with the eggs.
"I'm sorry, son," again was the answer. "Eggs are down again and are bringing
only six cents today. It'll take four cents plus the eggs."
George sadly took his much-traveled eggs and his two cents back
home, and brought Mom right up to date on the egg market. Her temper was beginning to wear a little thin. She threw
the eggs out in the yard and found a whole dime, so George got
his galluses, after all.
He told me another tale I had heard Mom tell. I didn't want to disappoint him, so I said nothing
and listened intently.
Aunt Lou and the four Smith girls each had a baby boy, all within a few months of each other.
Aunt Lou's baby was Buckner; Aunt Mandy's baby was Norval; Dotie's was Matt; Aunt Mollie's was Bennett; and Mom's, of course was George.
They would go to Munner's and Pa's each Monday to spend the day, and Mom said it didn't take long to fill
the clothes line.
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When Munner would hear this tale, she would
sigh and say those were the happiest days of her life.
As is normal, the babies grew into little boys, and you can well imagine what they meant to
Grandpa.
He had two fine yellow mares, named Peg and Mag. One day he saddled Peg, got one of the little
boys in front of him, and four behind him, and set out for a ride. All was fine for a little while; then the boy
on Peg's tail lost his grip and slid to the ground, breaking his leg in the process. I always thought the casualty
was Buckner, but George said, "No, it was Norval."
Since he was there, I am sure he knows.
Pa had owned the two mares for a long time. On Sundays, he would hitch them up to the surrey,
and he and Munner would go to Bildad to church. Munner said they would prance through town, with Pa proudly holding his head
and the reins up high for all to see. She said his vanity was limited to those horses and two girls who rode them.
Mom and Aunt Mollie were single and still at home during those
days, and Pa outfitted them with the finest riding habits that money could buy. They would put on their finery
and ride to town, being sure to go by Pa's store, and use his horse-block to dismount. He would come out to help
them, beaming as he introduced them to men they had known all their lives.
When Aunt Mollie married Uncle Bob Eaton, Pa sold Mag, but kept Peg. Pa died before I was born, and Munner came to live with us, bringing Peg with her.
Uncle Bob and Aunt Mollie had moved to Nashville, where he practiced medicine. Robert and Bennett were now good sized boys, and the four
of them visited us once or twice a year.
They came up in one of the early autos to be seen in Smithville. We had a pretty steep little
hill from the road up into our barn lot, and Uncle Bob would
have to make two or three running starts to climb it.
In the meantime, Peg would get a whiff of those gasoline fumes and start snorting and running
from one side of the pasture to the other, as hard as she could gallop. She wouldn't come near the barn as long
as the car was there.
She never learned to live with that new odor. She died about 1916, at the ripe old age of twenty-eight.
Truly, she was like a member of the family.