The Life of Me | Page 6

Texas, or Oklahoma when he got
shot. When I heard how Hugh had died, I was old enough to know
about Kentucky moonshiners, Texas cattle rustlers, and Oklahoma
desperadoes. I wondered if any of them had played a part in his death,

but I didn't ask any questions .
Mama told me later that Hugh was a cowboy, had gotten his pay and
was riding home when a man shot him in the back and took his money.
I was sorry I had ever wondered.
Mama told me that her brother Henry and the blacks around Duncan
were not very friendly toward each other. At least one time, the blacks
held hands and formed a human chain across the road to keep Henry
from coming by. But Henry whipped up his horses and drove right
through the crowd. After that he carried a long blacksnake whip to use
on them if they ever got close to his wagon again.
Part of the tradition that was handed down to us from the Gaddies and
the Johnsons was that there were only three things to drink-- water,
sweet milk, and buttermilk. You might include clabber if you like. But
then, clabber was more of an "eat" than a drink. Soda pop was for the
wealthy and foolhardy, and coffee was not permitted for three reasons:
it cost money, it was unnecessary and it was not good for you. Money
was for necessities. Any drinks stronger than these mentioned were
strictly forbidden.
Even the sound of the word "whiskey" carried with it an inkling of sin
and dishonor. Whiskey without drunkenness was improbable, and
drunkenness was about as low as a person could go.
Mama grew up to hate whiskey because of its effect on men and
because it tasted bad. However, there was always a jug of it under her
father's bed--for medical use only. Any symptom of disease was treated
immediately with whiskey. Mama hated the taste of it.
Mama told us about a man--perhaps an uncle--who was sick in bed and
who was fond of whiskey. As he lay in bed, a few friends and kinfolks
stopped by to see him. And one by one he asked them to mix him a
little toddy. They did.
And wouldn't you know it, five or six toddies all in one man at one time

made the man forget he was sick on disease and it made him fairly sick
on whiskey which was what he had planned to be.
After I came into the Johnson family, Mama's people lived so far away
I didn't get to know much about them.
We didn't get around to visiting them much. But I remember we did go
to Duncan one time to visit some of them. It seems that the trip was
made in about the year of 1916. We went in our 1914 model Reo car.
I guess I was about ten years old. I don't remember much about the
people we went to see, but I remember the white rabbits and prairie
dogs they had for pets. They were running all over the place. I suppose
it was Uncle Henry's place and I believe the pets were Leo's, Uncle
Henry's son. Leo was perhaps four years older than I was--maybe even
more.
I think I met Mama's sister and her older brother, Will, a time or two;
I'm not sure. But Henry was the only one of them I ever really knew.
Henry and his wife, I think her name was Emma also, came to Hamlin
to visit Mama and Papa a couple of times after I was married. Then,
when I was attending college in Arkansas, my wife, Ima, and our
youngest son, Larry, and I stopped by to visit Uncle Henry two or three
times.
During one of those visits, Uncle Henry went out into his garage and
took a book from the bottom of an old trunk. The book was similar to a
ledger, about seven inches wide and ten inches long, with a flexible
cover. In the book were 54 songs, handwritten with pen and ink, most
of them in my father's hand, a few written by my mother.
It was my father's book which he had carried to parties and singings
while he lived in Oklahoma. When he heard a song he liked, he would
write the words in his book of songs. Other boys and girls had their
books of songs also, including Uncle Henry.
Uncle Henry also had a mother-in-law--or rather, I think it was his

mother-in-law-to-be--who gave him trouble at times. One time she got
mad at him for some reason and burned his book of songs. So Papa
loaned Henry his song book.
Then the Johnsons moved away to Texas before Henry returned the
book. When he