SON OF THE DARK CORNER

My Plow

During the second winter of living on the Creede Place, my father was taken ill with pneumonia. He was dangerously sick for several days, and although he fought off the dreaded ailment, his comeback from it was very slow. For several weeks during the spring, when the land was to be made ready for planting, he was not able to get out of the house. We had only one horse, a big, black fellow named Bill, who was so tall that I could not get the harness on him. My mother could and did solve that problem by handling the chore herself. But the solution of the harnessing problem left another. I was not yet tall enough to reach the handles of a regular plow stock. It was left to my Grandfather Hickman to resolve this dilemma. He had a small blacksmith and woodworking shop on his farm, which lay about a mile and a half northeast of ours. Grandfather Hickman found the necessary lumber, and constructed a plow with handles low enough for me to reach. Thus, a big horse, a boy-size plow, and a preteen lad went to the fields -- breaking the ground and making it ready for a new crop that would have to be planted in season.

Father regained strength slowly. At first, he would work for just an hour or so, but determination strengthened his weakened limbs and finally brought him back to full vigor. We got the crop planted -- did not know there was such a thing as "aid" -- nd of course there was none. It was rough, hard times -- root hog, or die. Grow a crop or go to bed hungry. Providence and determination spared us the torture of hunger, but there was limited variety in the fare, especially during the winter months when fresh vegetables were not to be had.

A New Baby and New Potatoes

On June 6, 1897, my brother Roscoe was born. It was customary in the community to help each other on occasions of this sort. No woman knew who would be next, so they took turns visiting the homes the newly blest, helping with all essential chores of housekeeping. On this particular day, my father's sister Nancy Hickman Callaway¹³, was the ministering angel. I was working the field with my father. We were using hoes, thinning the corn and cutting the bushes that reappeared on the newly cleared lands. The talk was of Lieutenant Hobson and Admiral Dewey. The lieutenant's picture, with an account of his prowess as a lady charmer, had been in the Warren newspaper. Finally, someone at our house blew a horn, and we knew that the noon meal was ready. As a pleasant surprise, there was a big dish of steaming hot potatoes on the table --the first of the year. Aunt Nancy had gone out to the potato patch and found some egg-size "taters", which she had speedily claimed for our meal. This method of taking the fruit from growing plants was common both with Irish potatoes and sweet potatoes.

Corn Syrup

Times were hard in the late nineties. There was no money, and no opportunity to earn any. All available work was in clearing, tending, and improving the farm. It took a long time for labor of that sort to be converted into dollars. Country folk could subsist only by growing their own foods, and supplementing it with wild game -- squirrels, quail, ducks, fish, and an occasional wild pig. But there were certain foods, much desired, that could not be grown locally. It took money to buy these and cash was always in short supply. Foremost among these foods were flour and sugar. Cornbread was really the bread of life, but a steady diet of it -- three meals daily, every day of the year, and with the expectation of little but the same next year, cried out for change.

We always bought flour in Warren, when the cotton was taken to market. It came in wooden barrels -- each containing 196 pounds. Omega was a favorite trade name. I don't know where it was milled, and have not seen the name for fifty years, but to us it was tops. We knocked one of the heads out of a barrel and set it up in the kitchen. The mice also thought the flour was good, so it had to be protected from their raiding parties.

One summer, after we had long since scraped the bottom of the flour barrel, and had eaten enough corn bread to sprout a tassel, a miracle occurred. I don't know how it was arranged, but we got a twenty-four pound sack of flour and a gallon bucket of bright clear corn molasses -- Karo Corn Syrup, it was called. Karo was sweet and thick and had no sorghum smell, just the right consistency for good sopping. So mother opened the Karo and mixed the dough for biscuits -- big, hot, fluffy biscuits. She knew ravenous longing had been building up during the long, hot weeks of a straight cornbread diet. Mother mixed the dough generously, stoked the little stove with well-dried ash¹⁴.

Soon we were washed -- face and hands -- and seated on the benches by the table. The air in the steamy, hot kitchen was already smelling of fresh hot biscuits, and the corn syrup was pretty and clear like strained honey. Good as sorghum. This was something different, what our stomachs were growling for. Did we go for it! Not one serving and one biscuit, but more and more -- just one more, please! Finally, I pushed away from the table, satisfied, satiated, full. But that was the end of it. Never again, from that day long ago have I been able to bear the sight or smell of corn syrup. It was good -- too good, but I had eaten too much. I never wanted anymore. I'd had enough!

Family Feud

Our closest neighbors lived about one-half mile away. Charlie McClain lived north of us, on the Moro-Johnsville Road. His wife Nettie¹⁵  was my father's first-cousin. Louisa, Nettie's mother and my father's aunt, lived with them. So did Charlie McClain's father. And of course there was the usual full house of youngsters, with the yard serving as home base for a pack of hounds and a flock of smelly goats. The McClain house, following the pattern for the area, was set on oak blocks, bringing the floor three feet or more above ground. This area under the house was the common meeting ground for all the assorted animals that could find it -- a place of shelter from frequent rain storms. Dogs, chickens, goats, pigs, all welcomed it as a safe haven, but the assembled animal noises, crying babies, and cramped quarters did not combine into a picture of repose for the circle that gathered about the McLains' big, open fireplace.

On the other side of our farm lived the Garretts. J.E. Garrett had married Emma Morgan, half-sister to Charlie McClain. For some reason, no doubt trivial, hard feelings had grown up between the two families. The men refused to speak to each other, and we were caught in the middle, residing the same distance from each. On occasion, it happened that the two men would on a Sunday or rainy day, both visit us at the same time. They would sit in the same circle for hours, entering generally into the same discussions, but pointedly refusing to speak directly to each other. During the following week they might meet face to face on the road and pass with no gesture of recognition.

Joe Garrett was the most successful man in the community, in the matter of money. He had homesteaded and otherwise acquired a substantial body of timber lands. When the lumber industry opened in Bradley County, he sold this property -- hitherto regarded as almost worthless -- for a big sum at the time. When I first went to Hendrix College, Mr. Garrett loaned me $200 at 10 percent interest. My dad cosigned the note. I paid it back from teaching country schools, where I was paid $50 to $65 per month. I also borrowed from my uncle Ed Hickman¹⁶  on the same basis. I recall making the last payment to Uncle Ed in gold coins.

Mr. Garrett and Uncle Ed had quite a number of common characteristics. For instance, they both had hogs and cattle running loose on the public domain. This open area accounted for more than three-fourth of all the land. There were no stock laws, so free access was had to the wild grasses, cane brakes, acorns, and nuts. Stock raised without cost for feed provided both gentlemen with cash easier come by than that produced from the cotton patch. Yet both were good farmers for the times and the lands.

Goodbye Little Doggie

If a stray or unwanted dog persisted in an attempt to make your home his home, various expedients were employed to dissuade it. Perhaps the favorite was to fill a small tin can with rock or metallic objects and then secure the can so that the enclosures could not be shaken out. When all was well closed, the can became a big rattle and the more rapidly it was moved, the louder and more furious the noise became. A strong twine would be fastened to the device and then securely tied to the candol appendage of the unwelcome visitor. A light touch of turpentine was then applied to the area of its greatest effectiveness. All preparations complete, the departing visitor was given a shove and the rattle took over to encourage a speedier escape. When sufficient distance had been covered by the tormented, the gate was opened and home hounds would pick up the trail in full cry. Ultimately the rattler would slip loose form its anchor and its bearer would seek out new quarters.

Buck Fever

In the fall, deer hunting was a favorite sport. A few of the best hunters could "still" hunt and bring in the venison. This required a knowledge of deer habits, stealthy gum shoe movement through the brushy woods, and the ability to merge into the forest -- becoming an invisible part of it. The hunter thus matched wits and soft-pedal maneuvers against the age-old instincts of the pursued, and it was a real badge of merit to bag a big buck with wide-spread and many-pronged antlers, or a turkey gobbler -- strutting and bragging in the supposed safety of his harem.

For the run of the mill hunters, still-hunting was too difficult. It was a sport and form of subsistence only for the expert. So most hunting was with dogs. Much of the woodland was too densely overgrown with scrub and vines for easy running. When a deer hound picked up a scent and began to cry, it was a signal for the deer to take off for the deep woods, sloughs, or rivers. For this flight they sought open trails or pine woods free from undergrowth. It was along these established runways that the hunters stationed themselves.

On one early fall day, the grass still wet with morning dew, I sat on a deer stand. The hounds soon picked up a faint trail. They were a long distance from me, and the trail was cold. But they kept with it, crying out occasionally to announce their appraisal of prospects. Gradually the cries became more frequent and more intense. Clearly they were working in my direction, and clearly they were stepping up the pace. The buck had heard them too, and knew where he had always found safety. When it was apparent to him that it was time to make his moved, he crawled from under the brush where he had spent the night, stretched his legs, raised high his antlered head and bounded for safety. I was stationed along his route, and all the time was listening to the excitement of the dogs now in full cry. They were coming nearer all the time. Their excitement over the freshness of the trail was high. The deer was near me now, and something was bound to happen soon. He had to get away -- and fast. Of course, he did.

Here he came, a fine big fellow at least head high to me, with a prize hat rack on top. I saw him, had a shot gun, and he did not see me. I was shaking like a storm-swept sapling, all aquiver like an aspen twig in a chinook. The buck was going to faraway places fast, and would not tarry for me to gain the control to loose the safety. Then he was gone and out of sight without a single boom, gone and not a shot fired, gone with the wind -- buckague. I never took another stand. I never killed a buck.

Tallow for the Soles

Possum and coon hunting always merged into a single operation. When you went out for one you were going for either or both. On a particular night, Mr. Possum was featured. There were numerous trails worn by cattle, hogs, and game branching out into the woodlands. These were sufficiently worn so as to be followed in darkness of night. The task was made easier because you stepped at once into the vines and scrub when leaving the trail. We would follow these trails and turn the dogs into the surrounding woods -- searching for a scent.

On this night we had with us a neighborhood character of rather dim wit. It was only a good, natural boyish prank to devise a little fun at his expense. The trick was to convince him that it would be easier to walk through the open pine country if the soles of his shoes were slick. A lump of tallow was taken along, and when we were resting by a pine-knot fire, he was encouraged to grease the soles of his shoes with the tallow. He was led to think that the whole group did the same, but he did not know that the substance the other members rubbed vigorously on their shoes was only a potato that had been peeled and fashioned into a lump similar in size, shape, and coloring to his tallow. So we all pretended to grease up as the dogs did their work. Soon they had the quarry up a tree a half mile distant across the flats.

We beat out the fire, hurried out across the woods, thickly carpeted with pine needles, to find out what the dogs had up a tree. The butt of the joke slipped and slid like he was on a skating pond. With great effort, he finally arrived well behind the others of us at the tree where the quarry was treed. It was soon seen that there was big possum out on a little limb of a small sapling. A few whacks with the ax, and he and his perch came tumbling down. He no sooner reached the ground than he rolled up in a tight furry ball and played dead. We held the dogs back, and did not let them get their teeth into the captive.

Someone cut a pine pole about two inches in diameter and four feet long. It was then slit open, and Mr. Possum's long, scaly tail was drawn into the slit. When the tail was safely through the opening, the wedge was removed and the pole clamped on the tail. The pole with the game was handed to the man with the slick soles, and the trek through the woods back to the trail got underway. The man would slip, slide, and stumble long, had trouble keeping up with the crowd, all of whom made great "to do" over the great help they were getting from their own treated shoes. From time to time, stops were made to apply new treatment to our shoes. All the while, the victim was assured that his trouble in keeping pace was that he had not used enough tallow, or that it had worn off and needed replenishment. Meanwhile, Mr. Possum played possum on the pole.

Editor' Note: While Henry Carl Hickman's writing style and story-telling acumen indicates there should be more pages in this originally hand-written memoir, repeated searches of his papers have failed to discover additional sheets.

Edited by:  Gerald J. Hickman

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