Oh, For The Good Old Days of The Long, Long Ago – Part 2

Yes, in those good old days we had great numbers of wild game and fur bearing animals. Wild deer were as plentiful as cattle now and turkey almost as plentiful as chickens. Plenty of wolves and bear. It was not uncommon for us to sit in our little log cabins and see deer from two to ten or twelve pass in sight. Turkeys would often pass through our little fields and sometimes cross through our barn lots but only a few spent any time in hunting them. Only a few old flint lock rifles or little single barrel shotguns.

I well remember an incident which occurred when I was very young. Bill Parker was going to a neighbors on horse back and came upon a large bear. He and his dog made chase, he yelling with all his might for help, the dogs baying all the time. They came by our place about 60 yards of the house. My father was plowing. We had a very severe dog, Old Cuff, that father thought would catch anything. Father threw the gearing off his horse, settled it, got his old rifle, called Cuff and fell in the chase, Parker still calling for help. Just a quarter of a mile from our place L K Burrow lived. Old Bruin shambled up to the yard fence, reared up on it and looked over it at the family wistfully. But the chasers were crowding him so he shambled on. By this time father and Cuff had gotten full in the chase and did not go far until Cuff come in full force of Old Bruin, seized him by the ham. The bear sat down and turned on his haunches and gave Cuff a terrible blow with his fore paw that sent him end over end and when he got himself straightened out he was turned toward home, and home he went and under the bed and refused to come out. But they chased the bear on and finally killed it.

Another similar instance, Uncle Green Johnston was going from his home where Andy Johnston now lives, over to Uncle Jesse Robinson’s near Siloam Church. He came onto a pack of dogs that were chasing a bear and had made the bear take to a tree and spread himself out on a large limb. He ran to Uncle Jesse for help, got a little shotgun and such ammunition as he had and Uncle Jesse and Old Nig, a very large black dog and supposed to be very savage. The few neighbors in the settlement had arrived by this time. They proceeded to pump squirrel shot out of the little gun into Bruin until it became uncomfortable to Mr Bear and he rolled off the limb onto Old Nig. Nig pulled himself out and make a bee line for home and under the bed for the balance of the day. Although bear skins were good property it was somewhat difficult to procure them.

There was a large deer lick on my fathers place and hundreds of deer came there day and night to lick the salty earth. Hardly a day that there were not more or less deer there even after we had fenced it and made it into a woods pasture. It is said that it had once been a buffalo lick. I can’t vouch for that but I do know that there were many acres that showed that the earth had carried out or carried off by wallowing in it.

In 1854 there came a great snowstorm and it was referred to for many years as the big snow. It fell in a depth of 24 inches and on top of that there fell a fine mist, which froze until the ice would hold up a man or dogs and would hold up a deer while walking. But when they started to run their high jumping and sharp hoofs would break through the crust of ice and the deer would go down to their bodies and become easy pray for men and dogs. The men all went out to slaughter them and two or three would go together armed with axes and clubs and wild the dogs held down the deer they would slaughter them, take off the pelts and leave the carcass to go to waste. Numbers of squads of two or three killed as many as 25 to 35. In some instances the deer would run up to the cabins seemingly for protection. Some of the women would kill them with whose as the men had the axes with them. One woman killed one with a battling stock. Now some of you readers will not know what that is. Ask your grandmother. If you had used them as much as I have you would know them from experience, the best teacher known. In those days we did not even have rub boards much less washing machines, hence we had to beat the dirt out of the clothes with a heavy paddle. It was a burning shame to slaughter the deer as they did but that was in the good old days of the long, long ago.

In 1854, I saw the first dead person I ever remember seeing, Jesse Burrow, a distant relative of the Burrow's here. He lived just north of the state line on Dry Creek where Burrow (Burr?) post office now is. He had a little water mill just back of his field on the creek and had a path to the mill through the field. A neighbor, Dave Upton, had had some misunderstanding with him and as Burrow started to the mill one morning Upton waylaid him and shot him in the back with a rifle and then beat his head to pulp. I remember it as if it were yesterday, I remember seeing my uncle, James F Johnston, help lower the coffin in the grave. Uncle Jim was living with us then. A little incident occurred as they getting the body ready to take to the grave. As many of you know, Burrow (Betty's note: I believe he means Burr) is on a little hill side and as numbers had gathered for the funeral coming in on ox wagons, as I remember it the hill side was covered with wagons. When they began to move one wagon started to back down hill and some one yelled, “Scotch the wagon!”, I wondered what he meant and watched eagerly to see. Another man picked up a chunk and chucked it under the wheel and there is where I learned what it meant to “chuck the wagon”. Upton was arrested charged with murder but his trial was postponed from time to time and he finally died in the Doniphan jail.

Yes, in those good old days the people produced everything we used, carded, spun, wove, cut and made all the clothing for the family, often finger picked the cotton for spinning. Sometimes we had what is called hand-gins to separated the seed from the lint. This device was two small rollers turned smoothly, 12 inches long and 1 inch in diameter, keyed close together with a crank to turn the rollers. By this means the rollers would draw the lint through the rollers pulling it off the seed and letting the seed fall beneath. This was a wonderful advance. 1 forth of an acre of cotton was ample for the family clothing. But the greatest improvement was the carding machine put in at Warm Springs to card wool as wool is much harder to card than cotton. I know because I have tried it. Nicholas Bach, a Frenchman, who died at Pocahontas many years later, operated the machine. He also operated a tan yard and furnished leather to make shoes for the people. Leather sold by the side, that is half of the hide, and by the pound. If you should complain of holes in the leather he would chuckle and say, “On account de holes do not weigh anything”. He was a great old Frenchman and I have gladly entertained him many nights when he would be canvassing the country over buying furs, pottery and hides.

The old McClain tan yard was about a mile north of town and turned out lots of leather, besides many had tan yards of their own and turned out their own leather and lots to spare. Lots of it was ram’s hide sure enough and when it got dry was as hard as real ram hide. When shoes were made from it sometimes considerable hair was left on it. We would wear those ram hide shoes until they would get so dry and hard that we would fill them with shelled corn and warm water over night. The corn would swell and stretch them so we could go another day. Don’t think for once I don’t know what I am talking about. I was sure on the job. I have tanned leather and made shoes and have carded spun thread on the old spinning wheel and wove cloth, knit socks, and done all kinds of housework.

But of all my experiences in my long and eventful life is the matter of schools. In those good old days of all the different episodes of life that I have had to pass through and the greatest regret that I have had or can possibly have and that will linger with me until this mortal body of mine is laid beneath the sod, is the fact that we had not the opportunity of at least a practical education. Surely no one knows the sting and the regrets that I will carry to my grave and that will not be long hence. I love old Arkansas as a home mother. I know no other place as home but how we have been deprived of the things we so much need but beyond our reach. I have had the occasion to say to some stalwart young fellows seemingly with nothing in view that if it were possible for me to take their places, young, strong, plenty of intellect with meager advantages which we now have at the low scale that Arkansas is classed. I say if it were possible, poor as our schools are today, with my 75 years experience I would not take a million dollars for the opportunities afforded and drag through a miserable existence as circumstances have forced me to go through. But, alas, that can never be.

In 1859 and 1860 I attended school 2 months each year to a teacher who could only teach spelling, tried to teach reading and writing. No grammar, arithmetic, geography, history nor any of the higher grades. In those 4 months in two years I graduated in the Blueback speller and McGuffey’s second reader in a structure that had been a wood shop put up by a Mr. Palmer of Georgia, a wagon maker. The shop was constructed with large post 10 12 inches in diameter set in the ground 4 feet apart, 10 feet high and weather boarded with 4 foot clapboards and covered with the same. The noted academy was situated in the flat just below Brakebill school house. After Palmer vacated this clapboard house the community converted it into a school and church house. It was furnished with mother earth as a floor, logs dragged in, placed 10 feet apart and other logs split open and with the flat and twisting side up for seats. The equipment for a boy was a Blueback speller, first or second reader a bucket or basket with a hunk of cornbread, some vegetables a bottle of milk and some butter. With one stone bruise and one heel and two nailless toes on the other foot we started out to reach the goal of our ambition, that is learn to read and write. That was as far ahead as we looked in those good old days in the long long ago. The athletics for boys was foot racing, marble playing, and playing tag as we started home. For the girls it was skipping the rope etc. Oh boys don’t you wish you could have lived in those good old days?

This brought us up to the Civil War, which stopped everything from the country town up, no schools of any kind. For two or three years I attended a few months more but not more that 5 or 6 weeks at any time until I acted a fool an 20 and married to get out of my troubles.

Well, there is no use to grieve over spilled milk but, oh, my regrets, my regrets, that I did not have the opportunity of today. But, alas, they are forever gone.

C G Johnston

Pocahontas Star Herald, 16 May 1924