When we got to Hamlin with our load we told Earl what had happened. And the next day, Earl was stopped and confronted by two not-so-happy farmers. They seemed to think that he was the one who had done unto them what Joel and I had done. But Earl convinced them that it couldn't have been him, he was in Hamlin at that time of the day, and he could prove it. Moreover, he drove a Dodge truck, not a Maxwell. Thanks to Earl, they never did learn who ran their little roadblock. On another occasion, Earl and I were going back home from somewhere in an empty truck and Earl was driving. But then when he discovered a bumblebee in the cab with us, it only took Earl about two seconds to quit driving. In that two seconds he pulled the emergency brake lever back as far as he could and the ratchet held it there. Then he opened his door with his left hand, stepped his left foot out on the runningboard, his right foot shoved the brake pedal down and his right hand steered the truck while it hurried to a sliding stop. Neither of us got stung and the bee got away. But the big surprise was the sudden appearance of a whole flock of red apples rolling along the road from behind us, some of them continuing on their way down the road ahead of us. Then suddenly there was this stranger getting out of his pickup truck--the pickup that had bumped into the back of our truck, the pickup that had been loaded with big red apples. The stranger came up to Earl and asked why he had stopped so quickly right in the middle of the road without any warning. Earl seemed to be completely out of good answers at the time. So he sort of hesitated and sheepishly looked around as if searching for some kind of an answer, and there it was as big as day--a railroad across the road in front of us with the usual sign reading, STOP, LOOK, and LISTEN. Earl pointed to the sign and told the man he was obeying the sign. The stranger calmed down, and he and his boys began picking up apples. We would haul just about anything in those days if it wasn't against the law. One time Earl and I loaded a truck with East Texas ribbon cane molasses from a railroad car in Hamlin and helped the owner peddle it from town to town. He didn't sell it all the first day so we stayed over in Throckmorton that night. Earl and I slept in the back of the truck on the cases of molasses. We spread a couple of quilts under us and a couple over us, then we spread a tarp over the quilts and molasses and all. Next morning we also had a couple of inches of snow on top of the tarp. Rough, you say? Sure, a little, but it sure beat hauling maize all to pieces.