The Life of Me: An AutobiographyJohnson, Clarence Edgar
History
The Life of Me: An Autobiography
Johnson, Clarence Edgar
Fisher County (Tex.) -- Biography; Fisher County (Tex.) -- History; Johnson family; Johnson, Clarence Edgar, 1906-1994
Sometimes the cows and horses would come and try to eat the cane
and we had to put them in pens by the barn. When we finished
squeezing the juice out, we would let them all come out of the
pen and eat the stalks we didn't want any more.
When we got the juice cooked enough it was good ribbon cane syrup
and we would put it in big jugs and take it down in the cellar.
But not all of it. We would take some of it in the kitchen to
eat.
I remember a big pile of wood and lots of mesquite posts. They
were southwest of the barn on the slope of the hill. The wind
had been blowing and lots of sand had drifted up in piles by the
woodpile. Some of our plows and wagons were out there too by the
woodpile. The posts were leaning up against big trees.
Just north of the hog pen was our stack lot with big stacks of
bundled feed in it. And when I think of the stack lot, I think
of a little black horse we had named Keno, because all too often
Old Keno was in the stack lot without an invitation. He was not
a big work horse, yet he could hold his own when hitched to a
cultivator. And he could outdo all the others at acrobatics.
Yes, Old Keno was a fence jumper. We often found him in the corn
patch or maize patch, what time he wasn't in the stack lot.
That's probably the reason I always remember him as being fat and
having a shiny coat; he got more than his share of goodies to
eat.
Anyway, one time I remember seeing Old Keno in the stack lot when
we were coming home from church or from Uncle Andrew's. We drove
up from the west and as we came over the rise west of the barn,
there he was, in the stack lot again.
I really believe we were coming home from church because we were
all dressed up and were in our new hack.
We had an old buggy and I think we had an old hack. I think I
sort of remember when we got the new hack. The old one was good
enough for everyday use, and so was the old buggy. But for
really stepping out in style, that shining black new hack was
something else. For Sunday and for going to town, we used the
new one. It had two seats, rubber tires, and a beautiful glossy
black finish--with tiny little yellow pinstripes at just the
right places. When Papa hitched his two trotting horses to it,
it was truly a carriage to be proud of.
We also went socializing in the new hack. And Papa never fooled
around with a walking team, they always trotted. Even when we
drove 18 miles to Anson to visit the Hood family on Sundays, our
team trotted practically all the way. And then they trotted back
the same day.
As I said, Old Keno was eating more than his share of the grain
from the bundles of feed, and he was wasting a lot also.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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