Along the Back Roads of Yesterday

by Oris George

  After the war, the day of the draft animal started winding down. I remember that time as a sad illustration of the future.

  In the early months of 1945, horses and mules began to swell the pens at the auctions. An increasing number of farmers did not want to keep their work stock.

  On Saturdays, like red ants parading across a driveway, a never-ending line of trucks and trailers loaded with horses and mules arrived at the sale yards. About this same time, the demand for mink and fox furs took off like V-2 rockets. Many horses and mules went from the auction to the mink and fox farms to be used as meat to feed the mink and fox. A few found homes, but the majority went to the killers.

  Some farmers did not want to see their horses and mules on the backs of people in the form of mink and fox coats. They disposed of their horses and mules at home. A trench or pit was dug with a slip or fresno. They led their horses and mules into the pit, shot them, and covered them with dirt.

  Hog farmers were another limited market. They went to the auction, bought one or several horses or mules and took them to their operations. They drove into a pen full of hogs, unloaded the horses and mules, and shot them between the eyes. The hogs ate the carcasses where they fell.

  Anna Tidwell was seventy years old and recently widowed. Mr. Tidwell had been a lover of good mules all his life. Anna also loved anything with long ears.

  Shortly after Mr. Tidwell died, Anna showed up at our place one evening to talk with Dad. I, a very nosey kid sitting on the porch step, heard her tell Dad a neighbor was going to take his span of very old buckskin mules to the auction. She asked Dad if he would be interested in buying them to save them from the killers. Dad said we already had too many mules on the place.

  Late Saturday afternoon, Anna stopped by the house and offered to pay Dad to go to the auction and haul her mules home. She paid $15 each for those old buckskin mules. That was the beginning of the first rescue effort I remember.

  Anna existed on a very limited income. Her little farm, about half of it in pasture, could not support many mules. She went to work in town cleaning houses to earn extra money to buy feed. She bought old and crippled mules, good ones and not so good ones, and gave them a home until she could find a place for them.

  During the first winter, she had to feed straw. We often saw her in her big black 1935 Buick as it ‘putted’ down the road with a bale of straw on the front and rear bumpers. She had so many mules she was spending her grocery money for feed. Dad got wind of the situation. Whenever he saw her carting home straw on the bumpers of her Buick, he hauled a load of hay over to her place.

  Time moved on. Anna collected more mules.

  The first summer I had any size to me and was strong enough to help in the hay, Dad said, “Son, take every fifth load o’ bales over to Miz Anna’s and you keep at it ’til her shed is full. Don’t let her pay you for it. You hear me?”

  Every summer after that, I hauled hay to Anna’s. Everyday during winter, I rode my mule over to Anna’s and fed her mules. Sometimes there were only a few, other times many. One Saturday morning in late December my mother stopped her car alongside the road and counted 13 mules in Anna’s pasture.

  One morning Dad came in from the barn and asked Mom if she wanted to go to town with him to supervise his buying a new hat. He wore an old, battered brown Stetson hat in which no self-respecting scarecrow would be caught dead. Mom had nagged him for a long time to get a new one. (Finally, he grew tired of her nagging.) After an hour spent looking at hats, he kept the old one. To pacify Mom, he broke down and bought her an ice cream cone before they left town. (He was a big spender.)

  Approaching Anna’s place on the way home, they noticed Anna sitting by the water trough near the windmill. Dad turned into the lane and drove to the windmill. They found her sitting on a large block of wood, leaning against a corral post. Her cold, stiff hands held her faded blue bonnet neatly folded in her lap. Anna had died.

  A Volcano on the River

  Henry’s father brought him out to spend several days at our place so his mother wouldn’t go crazy with his lying around on the couch. (Teenage boys think it’s their right to spend time on the couch in a horizontal position.)

  By June, Henry and I already had aggravated fish in the creek so often they all left to safer water. Grandad Fletcher figured they probably went south to Mexico City or north to Alaska to escape our sorry attempts at fishin’. (Fish like a challenge, not the fumbling of two clumsy boys.)

  With no fish in the creek, we needed something to occupy our time. We managed to escape Mom’s eagle eye and the humiliation of having to pull weeds in the garden. Henry wanted to go up on the hill behind the barn to do some target shooting. I wanted to shoot magpies. We decided to ride the donkeys, Blue and Jiggs, over to the pond, go swimming and look for magpies on our way back to the house.

  “Henry,” I said, “what do you think about finishing the volcano we started when we escaped from school for the summer? We can target practice and shoot magpies some other time.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Henry said.

  “Go ask my mom for some matches while I catch Blue and Jiggs,” I said.

  Henry gave me a sour look. “Quit tellin’ me what to do. I ain’t your slave. You git the matches, and I’ll go catch the donkeys.”

  “She’ll give you the matches,” I said. “Don’t tell her why we want them, ’cause I ain’t supposed to go down to the river.”

  In her mind, Mom knew Henry was a perfect boy, and she’d give him matches. When she looked at him, she saw a halo glowing around his head. (He could turn that halo on quick as a frog can blink.) The innocent look he turned on when he talked to my mother was an expression he practiced in front of a mirror.

  I took a shortcut through the orchard and climbed over the fence. Blue and Jiggs, enjoying the warm summer day in the shade of a crooked cottonwood tree, looked at me as if to say, ‘don’t bother us’. I buckled my belt around Blue’s neck and led her to the barn. Jiggs followed along like a big dog. I bridled them and tied them to the hitch-rack.

  Henry came around the corner of the barn and said, “Your mother didn’t even ask me what I wanted with matches.”

  “Told ya so.”

  “I’m riding Jiggs, so that leaves you with Blue,” I said.

  “You rode Jiggs yesterday.”

  “I don’t care. They’re my donkeys. You ride Blue and quit belly-achin’ or walk. Don’t make a dime’s difference to me.”

  “Sometimes you’re a real jerk.”

  I laughed and said, “Let’s go to the shop and pick up a hatchet and some wire.”

  “What we need wire for?” Henry asked.

  “How you figure we’re going to tie the top of the sticks together without wire? Sometimes you ask the dumbest questions.”

  “You really think you’re smart, don’t cha?”

  Dad’s shiny new hatchet, hanging on the wall, begged us to take it instead of the old rusty one in a five-gallon bucket.

  Henry said, “Oris, you take the wire and I’ll carry the hatchet.”

  “Why should you take the hatchet instead of me?”

  “Because, if we run into ol’ Elmer Tillitson, you’re too chicken to scalp the old buzzard. I’m not.”

  We mounted the donkeys and rode around behind the henhouse and across the south pasture so Mom couldn’t see us heading for the river. When we reached the county road, we saw Jack Hull coming our way. We waited for him. Jack was two years older than we were. He was a ‘neat’ sorta guy. He rode a fine-looking black saddle horse. He smoked a pack of Lucky Strikes a day, and stayed out at night on the weekends until after one-o’clock in the morning.

  “What you guys doin’ with that hatchet and balin’ wire?” Jack asked.

  Henry, always the big-shot, said, “We’re goin’ down to the river. I’m gonna show Oris how to finish a volcano we started to build the other day. You wanna come with us?

  “Why not? If I go home, my ol’ man’ll have me muckin�
�� out the barn. I sure as heck don’t wanna spend the rest o’ the day shovelin’ cow manure.”

  Three boys, two donkeys, one horse, one shiny hatchet, and a hank of baling wire headed for the river.

  Arriving at the river, Jack tied his horse to a small cottonwood tree.

  “Henry,” I said. “Let’s turn these donkeys loose so they can graze. They’ll not wander off.”

  Jack walked around the volcano Henry and I had started. He wasn’t impressed. “You roosters call this a volcano? It looks like somethin’ my little sister built. It’s way too small, should be a lot taller ’n bigger around at the base. On top o’ that, the hole in the top ain’t big enough to let smoke out.”

  Henry bristled. “What makes you an expert on building volcanos?”

  “Me ’n my cousin, Sonny, have been buildin’ volcanos ever since we was in the sixth grade.”

  The three of us looked for a place free of weeds and dead grass. “Here we go,” Jack said. “Oris, you ’n Henry dig a hole about as big around as a wash tub and eight or ten inches deep and fill it with dry grass and leaves and put some dead sticks on top. That’s what we’ll light and use to make smoke when we git this here thing finished.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Then, you guys cut a bunch o’ straight willow poles about six feet long and big around as a broomstick. Make sure they’re green. That way they won’t burn when we light the fire. I saw a bucket in the bar ditch back up the road. I’ll go git it. We’ll use it to mix mud for the outside o’ the volcano. That way the smoke’ll go out the hole in the top and not seep out the cracks between the sticks.”

  Henry and I took turns cutting willows. We stacked a big pile next to the fire pit. “Hey, Jack,” Henry called. “How many of these dumb poles do we need?”

  “Keep choppin’. We’ll need a bunch more.”

  Henry and I took turns chopping and dragging, dragging and chopping poles.

  “Okay, guys. You got ’nough poles. Henry and me’ll stick a pole in the ground. Oris you hold it in place while we put one on the other side. We want ta make it kinda like an Indian teepee. When we git four poles up, I’ll tie the tops together. Then, we’ll start putting the rest in place. We’ll alternate sides. That way it’ll hold itself up and not fall off to one side.”

  The volcano began to take shape. Jack stepped back, looked at it, and said, “We’re almost done. It’s lookin’ good! Oris, cut five poles about ten inches shorter. When we put ’em in place, I’ll wire ’em so there’s a hole we can use to put wood on the fire inside.”

  “Oris, you mix mud in that bucket. Don’t make it too stiff, and slap it on the volcano while Henry ’n me have a smoke. You don’t smoke. So, while we smoke, you do the mud thing. That way the work won’t stop.

  “No way, man. If you guys stop, I stop.”

  We sat on an old cottonwood log while Jack and Henry enjoyed their smokes.

  Jack finished his cigarette and flipped the butt into the river. We watched it float away. “Okay, guys. Let’s finish this volcano of all volcanoes. It’s gittin’ close to chore time. If I’m late doin’ chores, my old man’ll choke on his tongue, and he’ll ground me for a thousand years.”

  We mixed and plastered mud, finished the volcano, and washed the mud off our hands in the river. Jack walked around the volcano and then sat on the log. “Guys,” he said. “This looks more like a teepee than a volcano.”

  We laughed.

  Henry said, “We got time to light the fire under this thing and watch it smoke before chore time, don’t we?”

  Jack looked at his dollar pocket watch and said, “Sure. Why not?”

  Henry scratched a match on his belt buckle. He stuck the lighted match in the hole at the bottom of the volcano and touched it to the dry grass and leaves. The small flame caught the grass. It flared to a fast burn. We put more dry wood on the fire. Smoke curled out of the hole in the top. Not a breeze anywhere. The smoke rose straight up. We had a volcano. Jack said, “Ain’t you guys glad I come along in time ta help ya build this thing?”

  The picture of that volcano sending smoke to the clouds that summer day in 1947 is as clear in my mind today as it was sixty-some years ago.

  “I gotta go. See you guys later.” Jack untied his horse and loped up the trail toward the county road.

  I gathered a bunch of dried grass and leaves and laid them close to the fire hole. “I’ll put this stuff here so we’ll have it to start a fire next time.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Henry said.

  We jumped on Blue and Jiggs. “I’ll race ya to the county road,” Henry said.

  “You’re on!” I kicked Jiggs in the ribs, and he trotted past Blue and Henry.

  “It’s my turn to ride Jiggs,” Henry said.

  “No way, man. You rode Blue comin’, and you’ll ride her goin’ home.”

  We reached the county road and were about a quarter of a mile from the river when we met ol’ Elmer Tillitson in his rattle-trap of a pickup. He applied the brakes and skidded to a stop. The dust settled—he glared at me like he did every time he saw me. “Henry,” he said. “You jist come from the river. What’s that smoke down there all about?”

  We looked back towards the river and saw an angry cloud of smoke boiling above the cottonwood trees.

  Henry, always the one to make himself look good, said, “Oris smoked a cigarette. Fire must have started when he threw the butt away.”

  I panicked! My heart started beating a thousand beats a second. I wanted to choke the life out of him.

  Three other vehicles came ‘flying’ down the road and stopped behind Elmer’s pickup. Dad and Grandad Fletcher jumped out of Dad’s pickup. “What’s goin’ on, Elmer?” Dad asked.

  Elmer gave me a look of utter disgust and said, “Henry says Oris started a fire down there in the dry brush. Charles, you gotta get a handle on that boy.”

  Grandad Fletcher, not one to get excited, said, “Elmer, why don’t ya go off some- wheres by yerself and do us all a favor and have a stroke.”

  By this time, a crowd had gathered to watch the fire.

  “I tell ya,” Elmer said. “That fire is gonna burn all along the river.”

  “That’s a hot fire but it ain’t goin’ far,” Earl Brooks said. “It’s just burning that short strip along the north bank. It’ll burn itself out ‘fore long.”

  The men stood around in a group and watched the fire and smoke. In about an hour, it began to show signs of burning out. “Nothing to do here,” Mr. Cathcart said. “I’m goin’ home and milk that old red cow and call it a day.” The neighbors got in their vehicles, turned around in the middle of the road and followed Mr. Cathcart.

  Dad and Grandad were the last to leave. Dad gave me a look that said, “We’ll talk about this later.”

  Grandad placed his right hand on Dad’s shoulder and, thinking I couldn’t hear said, “Charles, it might be a good idea not ta say much ta the boy’s mother ‘bout this. Whatcha think?”

  At supper that night, Dad told Mom about the fire along the river.

  The next day Henry and I snuck off to the river. We tied the donkeys to a fence post and walked to where the fire had burned. The ground was covered with black and grey ashes. The volcano was still standing, none the worse for the fire. The dried leaves and grass I placed on the ground next to the fire-hole in the volcano must have somehow caught fire.

  One snowy Saturday morning that winter, Henry and I fired up the volcano and watched the smoke disappear into the slow-falling snow.

  Sounds like a Plan

  I can still hear my Dad’s parting words, “Oris. Keep an eye on things and stay out o’ trouble. Ya hear?” Of course, I’d stay out of trouble. Did he think I was a little kid or what?

  My parents and my little brothers, Ralph and Eddie, had gone to the city for three days and left me home alone to do chores and look after things. Had Dad known what was going to happen while they were away, he never would have gone.

  The dust no
sooner settled when a car came ‘fogging’ up the lane and skidded to a stop at the porch door. Henry stuck his head out the front passenger window and said, “My Dad brought me out to see if I could spend the weekend with you while he and Mom are out of town.”

  “Sure,” I said. “It’s okay.”

  Henry reached into the back seat for a small gray metal suitcase that contained a change of clothes. “Thanks, Dad,” he said.

  “You boys take care. Henry, your mother will come get you Sunday night.” He waved and drove back down the lane. I neglected to tell him my folks had gone to the city.

  So, there we stood—two thirteen-year old boys (almost fourteen), with the weekend before us and no one to tell us what to do—how to do it—when to do it. Luck was on our side.

  I slapped Henry on the back and said, “My folks are gone for three days. There’s no one here to tell us what to do. I like the idea already.”

  “Neat-O,” Henry said, and he pumped the air with his right fist. “What’s the plan, dummy?”

  “I’ll ‘dummy you’, you horses’ rear end.” I slugged him in the gut and headed for the barn.

  Henry spent a lot of time at our place and knew what chores needed to be done. “I’ll feed the mules and bring the milk cows in from pasture while you feed the calves and rabbits,” I said. “Then, we’ll milk those two yellow Jersey cows.”

  I opened the barn door. Jack and Joe, Dad’s big gray mules, walked to their individual stalls. I put their halters on, tied them to the feed manger, and poured two quarts of oats into their grain boxes. They were content as they chomped their oats.

  The cows were standing at the pasture gate. “Come on, cows,” I said as I opened the sagging wooden gate. “Time’s wastin’. We ain’t got all day, so hurry along there.”