Interviewer:  Tape three. Listen to after tape two.
703:  The first time or the second time?
Interviewer:  I don't care which is which time
703:  Well the first time it was summer time. And it was hot and dry here and it was also hot out there in Tucson. And then that's the time that they called us and told us my mother had had a stroke. Was real bad in the hospital here. And we turned around and came back. We got out there Wednesday was back here Saturday I believe. Anyhow we just stayed there about twenty-four hours and turned around and come back home. And then the second time we went out there we flew out there right after Christmas the first of January and stayed January February and March. And it was such nice weather out there. And uh they said though it was an extra nice winter even for Tucson. No snow. {X} They were talking about there's not enough snow that winter up on in the mountains. Tucson's in a valley. And uh I've got where we I tried to tell ya and I couldn't. We were when we went out of Tucson proper we went to Tucson Estates.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  And you can see the mountain there.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  And uh so that's why it's so nice and warm.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  And that's the mobile home and build around it so that you can't tell it was there but mobile home.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  And uh that's the way they were most of 'em. Especially people who owned 'em and lived there all the time. They'd build two of them on each side of the house and maybe cover 'em over with uh uh shingles.
Interviewer:  #1 Mm-hmm. #
703:  #2 With a # new roof up completely over
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  and maybe put a bedroom out on one side and a patio on the other side.
Interviewer:  #1 Mm-hmm. #
703:  #2 No. # And you and you couldn't and then they'd put dirt in the hitch for the mobile home. Just haul it around
Interviewer:  Uh-huh.
703:  and put flowers in that. And you couldn't tell it was one.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  And it was this was the cleanest place that I was talking about I ever saw in my life. And uh so uh
Interviewer:  Did the weather help your husband?
703:  No. He was so- it didn't. I think it would have if we had stayed out there the summer before. But he was dissatisfied. In the meantime he had been sick and had kidney poison here. And that sapped a lot of his strength. And he was so dissatisfied the whole time we were there 'til. I don't think it helped him any at all but everybody there say you have to stay here through one hot summer. He just was wanted to come home all the time. All the time he wanted to come home. He was so dissatisfied. So we stayed the three months and came home. It was so as I said they were having to put on the coolers out there. And uh part of the time in March humidity was never over ten or fifteen percent up here where we were. And just no dust or anything. Look like it been good for the asthma but he just didn't wanna stay. So w- I couldn't imagine it being such nasty weather back here in Arkansas. And so I agreed to come back with him. We flew out there that time and flew back. And uh we got back here it was nasty cold weather. Raining and all that. First thing I done was take bronchitis and I hadn't been sick one day out there. Well I tried to stay away from him slept away from him but I had to give him medicine and wait on him and get his food so he took it too. His went into pneumonia. We'd been home only about three or three and a half weeks when had to put him in the hospital for pneumonia and he stayed there about that long and passed away. Fifteenth day of May. We came home last month.
Interviewer:  Was he buried here?
703:  Buried in Rose Long Memorial Cemetery down there. {NW}
Interviewer:  So you had the funeral a few days later?
703:  Well the fifteenth of May you seen we come home last March he he lived through April 'til the middle of March.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  And but he was in the hospital about three weeks.
Interviewer:  #1 Mm-hmm. #
703:  #2 Some of that # time.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm. What kind of uh weather do you have in Arkansas?
703:  Well I guess considering the northern states and what I heard on television this morning on the Tod- Today program about the snow and all that they've had as far north as I mean south down as St. Louis and all up in there in those states where they've had six eight ten twelve inches of snow I guess we have uh good climate. Except its just lots of since it's rained a lot this winter uh and some days the humidity's a hundred percent.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  But uh so but I couldn't live in that cold climate for nothing in the world. This is cold as all I can stand down here.
Interviewer:  {NW}
703:  Some of my friends last winter got and said why don't you go back where it's warm? And you won't have that bronchitis I said I can't go back out there by myself. Only one friend that I know I can remember out there. And now she's married again.
Interviewer:  #1 {NW} #
703:  #2 She lost her husband # after my husband passed away and she's married again now. I said I can't go back out there by myself. I'm just too big a carrot I reckon. I said well I'd go if it were me. I just can't get away from my family I reckon that far. If I had if Anne would go out there and work I uh you know. I'd be gl- I'd be glad to go but just go out there by myself I I just can't.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm. But the rains here uh. What do you call the little rains that you have in the springtime?
703:  Sometimes we have just showers and sometimes we just have pour-downs. Big rains.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  And have had since this winter since back earlier in the Fall.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  But not as bad as it was last winter. But last year it was this year yet it is uh record for tornadoes all over the United States. Said it just never had been as many tornadoes in every state of the Union as there was. And Arkansas come out one of the lightest but then they had one they had some but as far as killing people it didn't kill 'em like it did in other places.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  Destroyed property more.
Interviewer:  Uh the rains the that have thunder and lightning what do you call those?
703:  Well on TV they's call 'em thunderstorms.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm. And that's what you call 'em here in Arkansas?
703:  Thar- thunderstorms.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm. Do you have um any low-lying clouds that come in and get up in the morning and you can't see very far?
703:  Not clouds. We s- we've had some fog.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  Said you couldn't see very far.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  Several mornings get up and it'd be so foggy you couldn't see very far out in the woods he- or anything or back that way but it wouldn't last long. Usually the sun'd come out and it'd g- it'd go away.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm. Um what do you call a rain that would just barely get the ground wet just enough to just
703:  Just call that a shower.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm. And then {NW} and then yeah when you were a child and you wanted rain for the crops what would you call that rain that finally came?
703:  Well if it were a shower we my father'd say well we didn't have enough rain to do much good. If we had a good rain he'd be proud if it was needed.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  But uh I remember one fall that just like last fall it commence raining so early. Til uh I couldn't get the cotton out of the fields when it let up some I mean it was a it just sc- they just gathered bowls and all And so he ha- my father had a gin {D: he went and bought uh what they call a hullard gin.} That would take those hulls that goes around that bowl of cotton and they hauled cotton to his gin even way back in those days over the bad roads. From down south of Rising and everywhere. To get their cotton where they could get anything at all for it because with it had rained 'til the bowls or hulls now were rotten and that's the only way they could get it just get the whole bowl. {D: And uh so uh by him buying that hullard gin why} it would take that out and they they'd bring 'em from miles and miles around to get 'em ginned.
Interviewer:  You ever get any of the insects in it? Any insects ever get in?
703:  In the cotton?
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  Yes way back there they had what they call a bowl-worm. They ca- it came in from Texas. Not when I first can remember did we have any but in Texas got infested and it come on up into {B}
Interviewer:  What are some of the little animals that live uh in this part of the country? What are some of them that you have in your yards? {X}
703:  Well, I don't have any except little birds around me now. #1 Uh back in #
Interviewer:  #2 What kind of birds do you have? #
703:  Well I've seen uh cardinals or red birds mockingbirds jaybirds sparrows and what we call the black birds it's got another they have another name.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  #1 And uh ha- and little wrens. #
Interviewer:  #2 Do you mean those that peck on wood? #
703:  Uh-huh. Let's see uh. Woodpeckers.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  Redhead woodpeckers.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm. And uh do you have any little animals that gather nuts?
703:  Well uh we have squirrels. And winter before last we had two little squirrels that would come in our woods back there and play back there on the patio and they'd come in from the tree back that big tree back in the corner of the yard. And they'd jump from the limbs over onto these two trees which you can see through the Christmas tree there and uh then they'd come on down on the ground and eat the acorns.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  And uh they'd do that nearly every day and I'd see 'em they'd play around there and play around there. If something scared 'em up the tree they'd go. And uh my neighbor up cr- north of me here Miss she lay in bed in bed one morning and saw 'em playing all over the top of my house.
Interviewer:  {NW}
703:  Well, I guess these boys around here I guess killed 'em because they never came back. With me just that one winter. Then this last winter I saw one just one time. But there's so many teenage boys around and they go hunting it doesn't matter to them whether it's in season or out of season. Why they'll kill 'em.
Interviewer:  What do they hunt around here?
703:  They hunt the squirrels and rabbits.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm. Anything else?
703:  And then well in season there's two seasons for deer-killing
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  in the fall. But there's no I've never seen a deer up here though I've I've heard others say that uh I believe my grandson said he saw one back there in his pasture. So they do scatter out of the reserves.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  But I don't think I've ever seen one around here.
Interviewer:  What about those uh other little animals that eat the nuts with the stripes on their back? Those little tiny ones? Uh
703:  Skunk?
Interviewer:  Yeah but the the one that uh eats the nuts the little uh uh the little tiny ones with the stripes down their back.
703:  Well that's all I #1 know is the skunk. Has white stripes down #
Interviewer:  #2 Look kinda look kinda look kinda like a squirrel except they uh # they're smaller.
703:  Smaller than a squirrel?
Interviewer:  Yeah those little things that they're brown and uh have little black stripes down their back little tiny things.
703:  I don't know I never saw one of those. I don't know what you're talking about.
Interviewer:  Um.
703:  Can you name him?
Interviewer:  I'm tryna think of it now. Um. Chipmunk isn't it?
703:  Well uh if we have any of those I don't know. I saw them when we went out west.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  But if we have any
Interviewer:  They don't live around here.
703:  They don't.
Interviewer:  What about the uh the animal with the long tail? That the ugly animal. Um. I think Clara said she saw one in her gard- garden recently uh Thing that uh carries the babies underneath it and uh you see it at night. Crossing the road.
703:  Kangaroo?
Interviewer:  Yeah uh yeah it has a pouch but it's not the ka- uh.
703:  Oh it's possum.
Interviewer:  Yeah. Yeah. You got those around here?
703:  Yes. They're back in the woods I don't know whether there's any back in my acreage back there or not but they live in the woods and they don't come up around my house if they do it's at night and I don't #1 know it. #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm-hmm. #
703:  I've never seen one in my yard.
Interviewer:  Did you ever eat one?
703:  #1 Never did. My mother #
Interviewer:  #2 Are they good? #
703:  wouldn't cook 'em
Interviewer:  Oh. What did you uh what did you kill and eat?
703:  Well my father would kill squirrels and we'd eat them and I still eat squirrel. I've got some squirrel in the deep fridge my neighbor over here give me.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  {NW} She give me three great big fox squirrels. And uh Anne and I ate some of them while she was here and then uh put the rest of them out in the freezer cause knew we wouldn't eat 'em Christmas day. Or Christmas Eve either. And uh so they're still out there. I had thought about that uh if you were gonna eat with me I'd get some out earlier this morning cook it but I didn't get it out and so he brought some.
Interviewer:  {X} It would be kinda interesting it's been a long time since I had any.
703:  Now my granddaughter Donna wouldn't touch a squirrel for nothing as far as eating it because {NW} in the city the- it's against the law to kill 'em. And they play around in people's yards just like pets you know. And uh they watch 'em bury their little get something and they'll take it out there and scratch and bury it like this. Even a piece of bread like and I don't think they ever do go back but that's what the old saying is they're burying them for wintertime.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  But I I never saw one go back and scratch it up and eat it after they buried it. But uh le- so uh on that account Donna wouldn't eat a squirrel for nothing but I was raised to eat the wild squirrels that's killed out in the woods. And I and uh these are killed out in the woods that my neigh- neighbor gave me. Not around here and uh so I eat 'em and enjoy 'em and Anne did too. They don't have a lot of fat on 'em.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  And the coon. The raccoon.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  Now uh my mother cooked it one of them those one time. But I don't think I tasted it. But they say they are good. If they're baked. F- fixed just right. But she wouldn't cook a po- opossum is the right name #1 for 'em. #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm-hmm. #
703:  Because uh they eat dead stuff. Dead meat and tha-. And she wouldn't cook 'em at all. But uh o- uh raccoon is a very clean animal. If it catches a fish to eat it'll take it to the stream and wash it before it eats it.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  It wash it again even though it got it out of the little stream somewhere.
Interviewer:  {NW}
703:  And doesn't eat the kind of food that possums do.
Interviewer:  What other uh meats did you eat that you uh raised on your farm as a child?
703:  Just beef and pork and chicken.
Interviewer:  And um which uh which of the animals did you like of the uh chicken? Did you like the hens or the roosters or what did you eat?
703:  Papa wouldn't let mama kill a rooster after it got grown or anything like that. He wouldn't eat it at all. So uh if mama wanted to make chicken and dressing she'd uh put up a hen. Those days they ran out. She had a chicken yard and a chicken house for 'em but they ran out on the ground. And uh if they weren't fat enough why she'd put 'em in a special place and fatten 'em 'til they were real fat and then she'd kill this hen but it had to be a young hen. She didn't want one raised that year not over a year #1 old #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm-hmm. #
703:  She wouldn't kill an old hen. For herself even. And uh Papa wouldn't eat a rooster. After it got past frying size stage he said they weren't fit to eat.
Interviewer:  What about a um uh a cow? Which uh which animals did you eat? Which ones the uh the cattle.
703:  Oh it it'd be a young well i- it wouldn't maybe it wouldn't be uh what you call just a calf but it would be young just few months old.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  When they'd kill it.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm. And you said you had the cows for milk.
703:  Milk and butter.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  Mm-hmm.
Interviewer:  And then uh did you have any bulls?
703:  Oh yes Papa always kept one at least.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm. And then um
703:  Eh I can remember when uh his cows and hogs both he had hogs in {D: Derrisaw Creek bottom.} And uh to keep 'em from going wild and keep people from stealing his why he'd {NW} ride this little mule they call Kate down and he put some corn in a sack throw it over the little mule and ride go down into the bottom and call up his hogs. Feed 'em and the pigs he'd mark 'em and he'd catch 'em and mark 'em in his mark. And the cows they just go down to the bottom and when they were dry not giving milk and he he had a whole herd of cattle. He didn't just keep one or two you know.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  Our male cows we had we did have sometimes male three or four. And more milk than you knew what to do with. But uh and mama feed the clabber when it'd clabber to the chicken. But uh uh the cows. Papa had what he'd always pick out what he'd call the bell cow. And he'd put a big o- one of these big ol' copper bells around his neck. So that he could always tell and when they when they were coming home. Or when he went to the woods he could find them that way. And went back down into the bottom. And when he'd come up would be come in a bad spell. Why you'd see him coming up the lane with the bell cow and a lead with that bell just a ringing. And coming back home for feed.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  Get out of that bad weather.
Interviewer:  Did he bring the hogs up too?
703:  No. No they just stayed there they just they'd make them a bed in leaves and things and
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  stayed there.
Interviewer:  Yeah what which of the hogs did you eat?
703:  Well for his own purposes he uh would keep raise some there at home and keep there at home and put 'em up and fatten 'em on corn. He thought they had to be so fat they weren't fit to eat. If they were and he wanted corn-fed meat but later on in his life after he'd quit farming and uh why and mostly sold meat here he sold meat to this A and eh M A M and N college out here for years. Dressed cows or hogs and sometimes he'd raise a lot of sweet potatoes and that'd make dry meat if he turned the hogs in on the sweet potatoes. And if uh sometimes he'd raise a lot of peanuts.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  Turn 'em in on that. Gather what we wanted for our own use. And then turn them in and that'd make that kind of meat we were talking about Sunday. uh that th- all uh grease'd just drip out of 'em when they'd hang 'em up to smoke 'em
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  The grease would just drip out. But if it potatoes it'd be dry. Really #1 the #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm. #
703:  best tasting was the peanuts. Raised on peanuts. Even if it the uh fat did drip out.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm. Which one did you eat the sow or the castrated one or the bull or which one did #1 you eat? #
703:  #2 Oh! # My father had to have the best he wouldn't have eaten an old sow heart or boar for nothing. They had to be you- young and uh and had to be of the female variety.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  And uh or else the castrated
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  kind. Uh the male.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  And as I said for our own use he'd put 'em up fatten 'em on corn.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm. And then which ones did he sell to market?
703:  Well he'd go down my father was quite a businessman. And uh at one time he owned sixteen hundred acres of land out there. And uh he'd go down maybe on Christmas Eve Day or Christmas Day. That used to just worry me so. Of course we know there's nothing in the Bible that says about Christmas what we call Christmas Day here really being Jesus' birthday. There's not a word said in the Bible about we're not told to keep Jesus' birthday we're told to keep hi- i- remember him in his death you know. And uh {NW} so uh maybe Christmas Day he'd go down in the bottom and he'd ki- {NW} kill a bunch of hogs. He had this little mule that he'd ride it was so gentle. And even if the waters was up across the creek why she'd uh swim across and he'd maybe kill the hogs in the other side of the creek and attach 'em to her some way with a I don't remember just how and she'd swim back across the creek with that hog tied behind behind her. And he'd get a bunch of them killed that way in one place.
Interviewer:  #1 Mm-hmm. #
703:  #2 It always'd # be cold weather where they wouldn't spoil. And uh then he'd take wagon down there and pick 'em up. Bring 'em home and and get 'em ready for the market. And he'd leave early the next morning for Pine Bluff. And one time when I got big enough to really it did provoke me for him to do that. I wanted us to have a good time on Christmas Day. At least and uh we always did have a Christmas dinner alright. And uh but uh I ask him why he said well he said because the merchants up here would be sold out of meat by Chri- by Christmas Day before Christmas they'd be sold out and they'd be needing meat just as soon as he could get there with it the day after Christmas. And he'd get a better price for it.
Interviewer:  {NW} Yeah. Oh he's pretty smart.
703:  That's what I said my father was was smart. Smart businessman.
Interviewer:  Did you ever uh ri- ride in the buggy and uh uh-huh I don't know how to say it make the horses go and anything?
703:  I've driven uh a single horse buggy and I've driven Papa sometimes'd have a buggy with just took one horse to it and then uh had what'd call a surrey with two horses.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  And I've driven both of 'em. And I've ridden the horses just where I had to go. I didn't ride 'em for fun like they do now.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  But other if I were longed to go somewhere three or four miles like my friend when I was going to high school at Rising and she's come home with me a lot of weekends. And uh knew I wasn't going to see my husband-to-be that Sunday because uh he was going over to Kingsland to see his folks and on some business over there that day and he'd told me he wouldn't be there. So she suggested that we ride over {B} a Methodist Church. He was Methodist.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  And we must not been having services out there at the church or maybe we went to the services in the morning and then went over to Mount where they were having preaching in the afternoon and because we did not eat dinner over there. That's been a long time ago but uh uh we did ride. {D: And I'd always ridden side-saddle and Monteen} that was my friend said oh come on let's ride stride. She had though she lived in Rising and they didn't have any horses but they ha- she had two aunts her mother's sisters that {B} one lived over {B} close to Kingsland it was a big farm and one lived down below Rising and uh and uh on a farm. And she'd been ou- in the summertime when she wasn't in school why she'd go stay with and visit them and ride horses and I guess she'd ridden horses for pleasure more than I had cause it really wasn't any pleasure to me but she say come on let's let's go over to Mount Karma. And uh so and I was gonna get on side-saddle she said oh no said let's ride stride. Well I never had in my life done that. And uh so {NW} Monday morning I was so sore I couldn't hardly walk. {NW} And she was she just in good good spi- spirits and healthy she I mean she wasn't she's used to it see and I wasn't. {D: And uh ones that rode uh regular had what they called a habbock.} Be a maybe a black skirt to go over their clothes to keep any horse hair from getting on their clothes.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm. Uh did you saddle your own horses and everything?
703:  Never did. I always had a brother or my daddy.
Interviewer:  Uh what do #1 you call a #
703:  #2 I never knew how to hook one up to the buggy. #
Interviewer:  Yeah that's what I was gonna say #1 like what do you call those #
703:  #2 Though my husband and I courted # with a hor- horse and buggy.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  I have a picture in there.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  But uh uh still I never knew how to hook one up. When I wanted to go somewhere I'd have to get my father or one of my brothers to. {NW}
Interviewer:  How'd you make 'em go. How'd you make the buggy go?
703:  The buggy?
Interviewer:  Yeah.
703:  Well all you had to do is just hold the lines and if they didn't and if you wanted them to walk why they'd walk if you wanted to go a little faster just kind of give 'em a little lick down with the lines and they'd go faster.
Interviewer:  What'd you say to 'em?
703:  Get up.
Interviewer:  And what'd you say when you wanted them to stop?
703:  Whoa.
Interviewer:  And uh did you ever use a whip?
703:  #1 Never. Never. Uh-uh. #
Interviewer:  #2 Anything like that? You didn't have a whip or anything did you? #
703:  No.
Interviewer:  So um
703:  Even Papa didn't have use a whip on 'em.
Interviewer:  No. {X}
703:  And my husband when he was sawmilling there close to where we lived where we married. Why he had about twelve or fourteen big mules. To haul the logs out of the woods.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  And haul the lumber to Rising for shipping. And uh he wouldn't he said that he always told 'em not to take any whip not to take whip to his mules. The men that were working for him. And he said he went to the woods one day and he found one a man that hadn't been working for him very long and he had a whip and he one of them was kind of a balky he what they they'd stop you know and wouldn't pull their side of the #1 wag- #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm-hmm. #
703:  their weight in other words.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  And he was whipping him to make him do it. He said he told him said uh now that will ruin any mule in the world said they'll all get to where they'll just balk and won't do anything right. And uh said uh uh said you're fired. Said uh nobody's gonna whip my mules.
Interviewer:  Mm.
703:  Well that i- is o- one of them great ol' long whips that they Twist it together some way or or plait it #1 or something. #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm-hmm. #
703:  #1 #
Interviewer:  #2 # Um tell me about how y- um grandpa used to get you to go to school. When you didn't want to go.
703:  You mean tha- when I went to the elementary school?
Interviewer:  #1 I guess. #
703:  #2 At the Y? #
Interviewer:  I guess.
703:  I always wanted to go to school. Ah they didn't have enough money I suppose Pa- my father was nearly always one of the uh what you call 'em? Directors there in school. And so but I guess they didn't have enough money that summer to uh pay for uh for it out of the public funds. So we had what they called uh {X} {NW}
Interviewer:  What tuition or something?
703:  Yeah. Yeah we paid tuition. That's not the right name for it but every child that went paid so much a month. And uh this man that was teaching this school it wasn't a free school. Tha- that's what they're called when they had the tui- had the money to run 'em. And then this was uh anyhow where you had to pay your own tuition to get to go.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  And uh my sister that was not quite two years older than me she was old enough to go to school but she was scared. To walk that and it wasn't all that far. Not over half a mile if that far and quarter mile we cut across the field. Uh but uh so my grandfather Bell would walk with her to school every morning and go back and meet her in the afternoon. And they go- got a scare out about uh they called 'em mad dog in those days. Hydrophobia.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  Going around among the dogs. And uh so she s- really didn't want to go by herself. And my grandfather was getting tired. He was old and getting tired of doing that little chore. Nothing more. So I'd been saying oo when I get five years old when my birthday comes I'm gonna start to school. That was the legal limit age then in those days. And uh so one morning I got up to leave grandpa that chore of going with my sister Bertha. Why Papa told me sh- he said Mildred this is your birthday. I just run around there and got ready to go to school and just tickled to death you know. Cause I'd said I'm gonna start school when I'm five years old. And uh of course the teacher didn't care. Y- I Even if they'd have brought babies almost because the more he got the more money he made.
Interviewer:  Is that right?
703:  Yes because see more more students he had or more children he had well the more money he made because as I said it was so much a month for each one.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  And uh so uh then when my birthday came Papa I guess he knew he'd told me a story and to make it right he told me said well Mildred this is really your birthday which is the thirteenth of December and I guess I'd started about the first of December. And uh I got all mad about it and I said well I'm never going to school again. You told me a story and I'm not ever going to school again. And I just about likely got a whipping. {NW} Til I did go to school. And I liked my teacher so much. I was so young. And not so very big 'til he'd take me up on his lap. And taught me the ABC's.
Interviewer:  {NW}
703:  And I just thought he was the grandest thing. And it wasn't uh oh too he was doing that to make money to make a lawyer. Or a doctor I can't remember which. One or the other. For himself. Trying to get all the money he could to go to school and I believe it was a lawyer but it could've been a doctor. Cause he had a brother that made a lawyer. Well it wasn't too long maybe a year or two doesn't seem like it was that long so I can't really remember I was so young 'til he died with pneumonia. And I know it just hurt me so bad that Mister Fairly He was Mister Fairly {B} lived there in the community's family bed. A big family of boys about six seven eight boys and one girl. The and the girl is only one that's living she's living here in Pine Bluff now. And she married my third cousin. We talk over the phone just quite often and she try makes me try promise to come up. Come by to there cause she's a widow woman now and uh but looks like I never get there very often around to see her. And uh but uh then I went on from then on I just went on then when they had the free schools.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  So much in the winter. Four four and a half months in the winter and two or two and a half in the summer. And uh ther- there were mostly four and two see the other would've made seven months but we had no holidays back in those times at all. Not even uh if Christmas came on Saturday if Christmas Day came on Saturday or Sunday we didn't get any day at all off. Because they didn't teach those days anyway.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  Ah but uh if it came during the week we'd get Christmas Day off. And that's all and not until I went to high school at Rising did I know what it was to get Thanksgiving Day off.
Interviewer:  Hmm. You were mentioning some of the um diseases and things that people had that they died from. What were some more of the diseases that people died from back then? That they didn't have cures for. You said pneumonia and uh
703:  Pneumonia was very bad because they didn't know too much about it.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  And uh let's see measles killed quite a few.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  They take pneumonia with them and kill them.
Interviewer:  What about that one that makes you turn yellow?
703:  Uh. Jaundice?
Interviewer:  Yeah I guess it is.
703:  I never saw anybody of heard of anybody with yello- jaundice. But in one of the tenant houses there they had this young man staying that he had yellow fever they called it.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  And they said he turned real yellow. But I didn't see him.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  But uh
Interviewer:  What about those that we
703:  Typhoid.
Interviewer:  Yeah what about the ones we get the vaccinations for the uh
703:  Smallpox.
Interviewer:  Uh-huh and then uh
703:  And then they had chicken pox which wasn't so bad.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  That is if they took care of it {NW}
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  And uh but smallpox was real bad. And and they did have the vaccination for the smallpox
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  Back when I was still at home. And a tramp came through the country and stayed all well stayed all night With uh Papa's first cousin Henry Daniel. And his wife and two children. And said they noticed up above his hat band. That there were some blisters sores like but didn't think much about it. And then in about well the time that it takes to take take it why uh cousin Henry had the smallpox. Took down with the smallpox.
Interviewer:  Mm.
703:  And my father had been to visit him they were real good friends as well as relatives. And he'd been to visit him that day. And it he my father was never so awfully strong in tho- back in his early days. He ha- he was really got stronger well he had a lot of uh sinus and cata- what they call catarrh. A fever back in those days. And uh so well it really did uh excite my mother about him being exposed to that smallpox. So they went and got him vaccinated. Right away. But it didn't kill our cousin Henry Da- he was awfully sick but it didn't kill him.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
703:  Like it does sometimes. I've heard my husband talk about oh