Intimate Glimpses

     Transcribed by Joe Stout
 

I finally tried school teaching. It is a hard job, and if a teacher does not go home with a tired head as well as a tired body, he has not done his duty. At Pittman's School, Prof. Will Garrett asked me to go and teach for him for two weeks during the illness of his wife and the next school the directors gave me the school without me asking them for it. 

That winter I walked the distance from my home and no child got there before me. In crossing branches, I had to have rubber boots. I carried my shoes in a satchel. From my knees down, my clothes were damp with sweat and I had the boys so interested in arithmetic and other studies I did lots of help over the telephone each night. The strain was so great on my body my health gave way, and I fell ill with rheumatism in the early part of 1908, and Rev. H. C. Cooper completed the school, for it was spring before I was up and about much. 

The next winter, I tried teaching at Dunlap's School. I had a good attendance, being more than fifty several days, for me to see after all by myself. Classes in primary and high school too. Through some cause, some children got mad at me and began to cause me all the trouble they could. I did not call for any help in teaching nor was I offered any. Idecided it was too beg a job for me for the two dollars a day I was getting, and I resigned. Those who did not like me told they froze me out. I had to have an average daily attendance of fifteen My average for the last month when some were causing me all the trouble they could was 38-2/5.

I knew I was learning the children and I will not work when my efforts are not appreciated any more than they were by some at this school. After this effort at teaching I never sold drive myself to try to teach again. With the exception of taking the census in 1910 for Nos. 15 and 15 Districts and fifteen days as postal clerk at Memphis, I have made my money by my own initiative efforts.

It is a great satisfaction to realize I have done this because I was never cut out for anything but to be my own boss. When I do not like anything I just have to say I don't like it and that will not always go with the public.

I am now prematurely an old man, and have bad use of my right leg, but I have no fears of calling on the government for help in the form of old age assistance, for I have managed so long for myself through both good and bad years I feel like I can in some way continue to do so. I just can't have the proper respect for those who do accept old age assistance.

I am counted stingy, but some one else is close too. Let me illustrate. One day I went to Greenfield years ago when two well know men were then alive. Where the Shade's Bridge and Meridian roads come together, I met John Bowden Earls with a load of wood going into town to procure a little money and he told me that he had just found $5,000. in unregistered government bonds. He asked me what I would do with them, and I told him I would keep them, of course. We talked as we drove along and when we got to J. D. Sullivan's popcorn shed in Files Hollow, we met Dr. Shannon and General Moseley. After they had passed us a few feet John Bowden called out to General and said he knew what he was hunting and to come back and get it. General came back with his hunched back almost straight and when John Bowden handed the bonds to him he had a joy in his eye like Marse Peter's gate as it would make on a fellow who had some doubts of getting to heaven.

He told John Bowden he would make things right with him when John got back from unloading his wood. The next time I met up with John I asked him how much did he get out of finding those bonds, and he said "Two big oranges." 

Years ago when good jokes were automatically forming in Will Guffee's mind to tell on his friends he was driving his two faithful mules to a cultivator and the good joke that had just formed was so good it gave his arm a peculiar twist and it sent a whip out after the mules so as to let the cracker on the end of the whip to come back in one eye, causing him never to see much if any out that eye. 

My right leg seems to have to bear all my mishaps. In early life I was climbing up the old tall garden paled fence and the middle lath was not thick and my right foot slipped and down I came. A rail which went through both lathe and palen raked me to the bone about my knee on the side of the leg. Next I decided it would be so nice walking on slick freshly skinned poplar bark and could not walk for about a week. 

In 1909 a wasp was buzzing around my head as I was frying meat for supper, and I stepped out the kitchen door to escape the wasp when the door step gave way and the little bone shot in the ankle. I was real sick for a few minutes and father caught a good gentle mule and brought him to a stump where I had used a chair to walk in front of the stump. I stood on the good leg and eased the hurt one across the saddle and rode to Overton's Odd Fellow Lodge where I found Dr. W. R. _____ who pulled the bone back in place.

A mule kicked me in the groin on the right side where the nerve center and rheumatism in 1908 and 1912 settled in the toes on the right foot. So if I limp and do not get around fast enough for your needs, I just can't help it.

I have heard father tell of a very hard experience he had while still living in Gibson on Dr. Tom Moore's farm. It seems there had been a wet year to make a crop and father had gone on and plowed the land wet and had made a good crop and a neighbor who saw him gather a good crop could not stand it because he had but little to gather and he went to Dr. Tom and told him father would just ruin his farm if he let him stay on. He then bought a piece of land and hewed out logs and built a cabin some distance east of the capitol of Sullbone. He built rail pens for crib and stables and was living there when he married mother. While working building this ver primitive home his dinner froze many days, but he got away from Dr. Tom's farm and could plow as he pleased and did from then on to the end of his life.

In 1829 history records matches were invented but they did not come into common use until long after. It was the custom in early Skullbone days to keep fire. This was done by ways of the big old fashioned fireplace. You got a good bed of coals of fire and covered them with ashes.

As late as my time I can remember hearing Bill Crawley, Sr., say he had never bought up to that time a box of matches in his life. He just kept fire by having ashes under and over a bed of coals of fire.

Once I heard the grandson of an old neighbor say the fire ran down to one little coal of fire and it was fastened on the lamp wick and was fanned by human mouth blowing until a blaze caught on the wick. 

I heard my grandfather Stout tell of a woman in recent times rolling waste paper in tubes to catch lamp lights and start fires in cook stove. In those good old days you went to a neighbors and got a chunk of fire if you happened to run out. On dark wet nights a torch light was frequently seen as late as my boyhood days.

Calvin Perry was a successful school teacher before he got the job of carrying mail on Route One Greenfield. I was at the mail box the first day he came around, and saw him the last day. He was a great mail man. He had a gray horse the first day to a buggy. Then he got mail back with two horses. The roads were bad in those days, but he went through the mud just the same. Once I saw his horse almost disappear in a mud hole. Later in a car he went through where none other dared to go. Once I and son took our team and pulled him through the toughest place in Jonesboro. After he was retired he was not satisfied and had some excuse to come around the old route. I believe he would have lived much longer if he had been allowed to hold on, but he had served long enough for a pension and had to quit.

Henry Cochran who began on route 4 some years after Perry had begun on Route One was transferred to Route One. He has been retired now on pension, but is still alive and enjoying life. After he got a car his son, Gerald, drove the car and let me say here there never swas two more useful fellows to this community. They brought most anything they could bring in a car for the people who were busy. The people in RETURN were good to them. They enjoyed lots of good eats. It seemed when they quit we could not run our business.

The other day I passed by the Cheatham Taylor old home and noticed it going on out. It has been put up within my memory. I remember th house which burned was much better than this one. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor and their sons and daughter have long since passed on. A good and useful family now all gone, excepting grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Foster Black, who lives at the old home where Dick Cook ended and still further back the old Galloway home, made much money for a long while and raised a family, is noted for being a sick man for many years and trying most every doctor for miles around. It is said he has spent thousands of dollars and nothing has done him much if any good, but lately he was still clinging to life and not looking as old as his wife. The Black family has been in these parts for many years and I have never known a real "black sheep" among them.

Years ago Peggy Barker lived on what is now a part of my farm. She was a lonely old soul all by herself in a log home. I saw her being carried to the county farm. She left North Carolina with family and was then thought to have reached Tennessee with money. Long years after her old house had been moved away by John Thomas and I had plowed over the ground and could hardly locate where the old home had been, I went by one morning and a great deep hole had been dug the night before in an old ash hole. It was the custom of old people to dig an ash hole to put their hot ashes in. It is possible that she dug this hole and placed her money there and filled it over with dirt and after used it for an ash hole thinking it would be the last place for anyone to look for money. It is strange she had rather got to the poorhouse rather than dig it up and use it. 

I have thought much why Dick Bodkin, her son-in-law and son Rev. Mack Barker would not keep her if it was not for making away with this money. It might have been it was God working through her to try them and they found she would not reveal that she still had money and wanted them to feel bad. In locating this money, if any was found, a locating money needle was used and a sharp ended rod like a wagon bed rod was used to punch down in the soft wet ground to locate it. There was many of these little holes around and if this iron rod had not hit something, there would not have been any digging.

Just when the Gilliam family came here I do not know, but they have been noted for big flocks of children. The first Gilliam that I have ever heard of in these parts was Willis Gilliam's father who was said to be a good manager to even feed the twenty children he was the father of. Willis' oldest son, Bill, is now a preacher at Knoxville. It was interesting to see how Mr. Gilliam was so intent on Bill always going in when he did at church and that may have been what made Bill a preacher. Mr. Gilliam was a confederate soldier and lost an arm at Perryville. He learned to do much with just one hand, such as plowing, mauling and chopping.

Norva Galey has been very successful as a painter. He is very attentive to his aging mother who is the oldest woman I know, being past 94. In young days, he loved two girls. He married Miss Minnie Grooms first and one son blessed their union, and she passed away. After a time he felt lonely and the other girl, Miss Dove SWINDELL, became Mrs. Galey. They have one son in the war.

Bailey FEATHERSTON is a real farmer with more than a five hundred barrel yield of corn. At milking time, the lot is full of cows. The fine duroc hogs were a show to me last fall. An old tenant house near the Captain Wright old spring was turned over to a flock of white leghorn hens. There was a big crop of cotton and I noticed and helped put away hay from a ten acre lot which had soy beans and crab grass waist high. Even watermelons and popcorn were not forgotten for the children. It has not been many years since he was just a poor boy.

It is now nearly thirty five years since I rented my home to Ed FEATHERSTON to set up housekeeping in after he married Nona Carlton. He was then free hearted and had spent his money about as fast as he made it. He now has a flock of farms, a number of sons-in-law and one daughter-in-law. He took up my saving qualities and has far outstripped me in saving money. 

Back when I was a mere boy, my brother came in one night from prayer meeting at Grooms Old Schoolhouse and woke us all up to tell us Henry Grimes, an aged man, was leading in prayer and just fell over dead. It seems this was a very good way to enter the realm of Heaven. 

The HORTONS,  WRIGHTS and SMITHSONS came from Virginia. The first Horton wife was not satisfied here and had to make a trip back to Virginia and then the family returned. Ed Horton, Sr. had much property when he began this search for the golden fleece. It is said he lost $280. on a fine team of mules by selling it on a credit and leaving the note with Captain Wright to collect. The Captain was easy on the buyer of the mules and the note ran out of date and Mr. Horton lost this $280.

The WRIGHTS got their fine farm through an aunt named  Toral [TOEL] by Will. They tried to keep another fine tract that was given to Pal Horton as long as he lived and then to his daughter, Mr. Horton let Mrs. Wright have it as long as was alive, but when he passed on his daughter, in Texas, wanted it and Mrs. Wright  would consent and a suit was had that went to the Supreme Court. The Horton daughter won out.

The Wrights lost much and begun to lose then and they were not worth near so much at death. It is said that if Mr. Horton had not went back to Virginia he would have equally shared with Mrs. Wright in this fine tract of land. 

The elder SMITHSON got likewise a large tract of land from the other Toral [TOEL] sister. This is why the Smithsons have always had land and plenty of money. Guy Smithson is one of No. 16 largest landowners. He has fooled much money away, but he seems to be in fine shape. 

The best I can learn the Old Blue-Wing Church was located about where Will David Pence's garden is. It has been many years since service was held at old Bluewing.

Had you ever thought how you acquired the name you are now called? Years ago when Joe Alexander and Jim Green had not been in business long I was with father in Bradford and he said he wanted me to get acquainted with two young business men and I needed a pair of shoes which by the way had to be a No. 11. I was stalking my big self along down the center of the store behind father waiting for an introduction to these fine young men. Father went ahead talking to them in a jovial manner for several minutes and he looked at Joe real serious and said, "My baby needs a pair of shoes, Joe." Joe got down a pair of baby shoes and father said he did not think they were quite big enough and told me to come to the counter and look at them. It caused much fun in the store. Jim had a son in a few days and he called him Roy. He is tall, but I have never asked him does he wear a No. 11 shoe. Be careful and always put the best foot forward first, for you can't tell what influence your action! will hove on some one. I little realized that that day I was causing a now fine man to be called Roy.

The other day I spent a few very pleasant hours with Bailey Taylor going over the deaths and births in the family since his grandfather moved there many years before the civil war. He pointed out the spot near the Billie Dunlap old home where a limb fell off and killed his father's nine year old sister who was returning home from school in 1858. 

His uncles, Cheatham and Bob just lived 51 and 52 years. He pointed out the land which his grandfather gave his aunt, the first Mrs. John Dunlap. John Dunlap was a hustler in young days, and a good manager and there is no mystery why he was a wealthy man when we find his father and father-in-law was able to start him off with land and kindly throw a scotch behind his financial wagon wheel when the going was steep. 

Bailey pointed the homes of Bob and Sile Dunlap. They did not add to what their father Billie Dunlap gave them. They made a good living and raised big families and were regular attendants at Meridian Church. They were useful citizens.

Tom Dunlap got where the Simmon farm is and sold it and went through the proceeds of it. He raised a big family. He is still alive at an advanced age. In looking back at the lives of these men, I could not help but think it is mighty nice to have folks before you who have saved something and left it to their offspring. Take Bailey for instance who has the best kept farm on the Greenfield McKenzie road, has had it come in from both his and his wife's folks. They have made it possible for him with good management on his part to be a leading citizen.

While talking to Bailey Taylor he reminded me of the Dunlap's Schoolhouse catching afire during the winter of 1908-09. I had sent him to get wood and he found the roof ablaze. I told the children to get all their books, wraps, overshoes, dinner containers and pile at a safe distance. Next, I sent two boys after a long ladder close by. I told all present to holler and I gave some real Indian war whoops that was heard two miles away. Soon we had the whole neighborhood with buckets of all descriptions and one long string of people kept a steady stream of water pouring on that fire until it was put out. When it looked like the building was going I began to just pull up benches and seats that were iron framed and screwed down to the floor like so many tacks being pulled from an old shoe sole. Bailey will tell you those iron frames were sometimes broken with the pressure I put on those seats to bring them from the floor. I really did not know how stout I was then, but I have
spent! Energy,  like a millionaire can spend dollars, and now at only fifty-nine, I am an old man. Take it slower than I have.