with it! I told them that I had just
as well use the timber for the benefit of the county as to drag it off
to one side of the road and let it rot.
meal, the cloud was up. My oldest daughter, Mildred, had been telling me for the past twenty minutes that it was coming a bad time. Naturally, that caused me to be scared. Finally, we heard just one big hailstone hit the house. Then the bottom fell out. It tore up everybody's crop and knocked the bark off the big oak trees. You could see clear into the woods! Everything we had planted was ruined! In 1927, we had another hailstorm. It struck the 19th day of July. In March of that year, before crop time, my wife and I walked out onto the front porch after breakfast. It was a very beautiful sunny day. The trees all around our house were full of birds singing beautiful songs. I felt so secure that morning. I stepped off the porch and stretched my arms big and explained to my wife that I was going to make a crop this year whether or not! She came back at me saying that I couldn't be so sure. I said, "Why not? I've got plenty of money, and plenty of boys, teams and plenty of hired hands to carry out my farming." I never once considered the Lord and the power He had over all mankind. Well, pretty soon crop time came and we started farming. Planting our corn, and cotton and all kinds of hay see. Everything went along fine until the 19th day of July! One of my brothers came to my field where I was plowing the cotton. One more plowing and I would have it all laid by! He said, "J.U., I have been all over the county, and this is the best cotton I've seen anywhere. You should be awfully proud of this crop." I said, "Sure, I am!" While we were talking we could her distant thunder in the North and Northwest. Little did I think of what that cloud had in store for me that night! About 8 o'clock that night the cloud struck! It carried the wind of a tornado and hail with it. After the storm we all got a good night's rest, never thinking that when we got up the next morning, that all our crops 42 |