The Life of Me: An Autobiography

by Clarence Edgar Johnson

CHAPTER 12

MY INVENTIONS AND HIGH SCHOOL DAYS

In the meantime, after we got back home to Hamlin, Papa gradually got into the trucking business. The truck replaced the horse in our lives and after a few years we sold our horses. Then Papa began to wonder if a truck would pull a trailer. He had a good wagon he didn't need, so he thought to himself, "Why not make a trailer out of a wagon?" He tried it and it worked. He cut the tongue off short, hooked it behind his truck and hauled cottonseed to the oil mill at Hamlin from gins in Hamlin and from gins in small towns near Hamlin.

While Papa was experimenting with new innovations, I was doing some experimenting on my own in my spare time. Before we got electricity in our home, I had learned that the telephone company was in the habit of throwing away dozens of old batteries from time to time. Most of them were dead, others were sick and dying, but a few of them still had a little life in them. By connecting enough live ones together, I had enough current to light flashlight bulbs.

I had brought back hundreds of feet of small insulated wire from electric blasting caps at Gorman. I strung the wire all through our house and had little night lights in all our rooms even before we got city current. Although the lights were small, they gave enough light to prevent most of the skinned shins which were usually caused by vicious chairs that jumped out and tackled a fellow as he made his way from his bed to the back door on his nightly journeys to the outhouse.

I also had an Erector Set which had a little motor that ran off the old batteries. It came in handy in a lot of my experiments. We heated a part of our house with a wood-burning heater. I didn't like to get up and build a fire on a cold morning. So I got to thinking, "Why not make my old alarm clock light my fire?" One night I rigged the thing up before I went to bed. The next morning when the alarm went off, it started the motor that struck the match that lighted the kerosene that lighted the kindling that lighted the wood that heated the room.

Well, did it work? Sure it worked, cross my heart. But it wasn't practical. I didn't expect it to be. It was more trouble to rig all that stuff up the night before, than it was to build a fire next morning and jump back into bed while the room warmed up. I just wanted to see if I could do it, and I could.

Once I hooked a bunch of those old dry cells to an auto horn and it really sounded loud in the house. Then one night while Joel was away from home, I made a pressure switch and put it under his mattress so that when he got into bed it would honk the horn under his bed. He was out with his girl and I knew he'd come in after we were all in bed, and more than likely all asleep. So I began to have second thoughts about my little scheme. Papa and Mama would be sure to frown on the idea of being waked up in the middle of the night by what would seem to be an automobile coming through our bedroom honking its horn. And I knew they would frown on me for doing it. So I got cold feet and disconnected the thing before Joel got home.

During the 1930's many farm families had battery lights in their homes. They had "windchargers" to keep their batteries charged. The windcharger was a wind-driven generator. The more the wind blew the more it would keep their batteries charged. In 1921, when I was fifteen years old, I made the first wind-driven electric plant I ever saw or had ever heard of. I took a magneto off an old car and changed the wiring in the inside so it would put out an alternating current instead of a jump spark. It wouldn't charge a battery but it would light a flashlight bulb when the wind blew. I mounted the plant on top of our house above my room. I left the light switched on all the time. It burned day and night, if the wind blew. And the brightness of the light was a good indication of how fast the wind was blowing.

After we got city current I did further experimenting and learned more about electricity. For instance, I liked to get a little shock now and then from the city current. And I learned that I could touch the two wires just a wee bit with the tips of my thumbs and fingers and enjoy a little electrical tingle. One day I tied two metal handles onto the ends of two wires so I could get a better hold and enjoy even more shock. I already knew that a tighter grip on the handles would give me a stronger shock. But what I didn't know was that when the shock reached a certain degree of intensity, it would cause my hands to grip even harder, and I found myself unable to open my hands to free myself. Lucky for me, I had tied the wires onto the light fixture hanging in the center of the room. I couldn't open my hands, but I dropped to the floor and pulled the wires loose from the fixtures.

One day Albert found an old sewing machine motor in a trash pile in an alley. I was glad when he decided to sell it to me. That was another one of my dreams come true. I was ready to do more research and playing. The motor did a lot of things for me, but the thing that was worth the most to the family was the fly- chaser I made out of it.

In those days we Johnsons still didn't have screens on our windows and doors. We just barely had windows and doors. Anyway, I took the electric motor and mounted it on a wooden box with its shaft sticking up. Then I fastened a stick to the motor shaft and a fringed cloth to the stick so that the fringe would float three inches above the food on the dining table. When I placed this monster in the middle of Mama's table, she was not at all pleased.

You see, Mama remembered some of my earlier gadgets, one of which had blown up all over her kitchen stove, cabinet, walls and floor. Some of it even hit the ceiling. Nevertheless, by the time Mama became brave enough to come near her dining table on this particular day—the day of the fly-chaser—I had the motor in the middle of the dining table, sending the fringed cloth round and round, shooing all the flies away. It proved to be a lifesaver. No fly ever lighted within its magic circle. Mama could place all the food on the table and feel sure that no fly would ever light on any of it.

After Mama realized the value of this latest invention, she got back on speaking terms with me. And I sort of guessed she might be happy in the thought that her little ugly duckling might just make his mark in the world after all .

Oh yes, I mentioned the blow-up in Mama's kitchen. That was quite a different story. I had gotten this toy steam engine for Christmas. To make it run I had to fill the boiler with water, light the alcohol burner under it, and then wait ten minutes for the steam to make the wheels start turning. Then about two minutes later the boiler was dry of water and the whole operation had to be done over. That amounted to too much waiting and not enough wheel turning to suit me.

I reasoned that a larger boiler wouldn't have to be filled so often, and there would be more action each time I heated it. So I put a valve stem from an inner tube in the lid of a gallon syrup bucket. And I ran a small rubber hose from the valve stem to a little pipe on the boiler of the toy steam engine. Next I filled the bucket with water and placed it on Mama's wood cookstove and waited—and waited and waited.

And that's when it happened. It blew up. The lid hit the ceiling, and water hit the four walls and everything in the kitchen. I was glad Mama wasn't in the kitchen. The noise alone was enough to scare her half out of her mind, and it brought her running in a hurry. And now let us have a moment of silence while you imagine what Mama said to me. Of course I was sorry it happened. The kitchen might never be the same again. And I was sorry to have scared her. But mostly I was afraid she wouldn't let me do experiments in her kitchen again.

After the steam cleared out of the kitchen, Mama allowed me to return to the scene just long enough to remove the "thing" to my own room. Then I found that the little rubber tube was stopped up. Steam couldn't get through it.

Oh well, air seemed to be much safer and faster anyhow. So I borrowed Papa's tire pump and pumped air into the little toy boiler. That worked just fine. One stroke of the pump and the wheels started turning. Only trouble was, I had borrowed the tire pump without asking, and the next time Papa needed it, it was out of place and he couldn't find it. Again I was in the doghouse.

Electricity seemed to be in my life to stay. At age sixteen I owned my first electric train. It was not the steam-locomotive type, but the true original electric-type engine. I bought the train myself and it proved to be a lot of fun. By that time I had known the truth about Santa for a couple of years and I figured he wouldn't be bringing me one. So I started saving up my nickels and dimes and bought my own train. A year or so later I bought my first and only bicycle. It lasted me until I bought my first car.

By that time I had begun to believe a fellow could do about anything he set his mind to. So I gave a kid a dollar for an old one-cylinder gasoline engine with its carburetor missing. I knew I couldn't buy a carburetor for it, but I was confident enough, or foolish enough to believe I could make the thing run without one. I was right; I could and I did. That is, I made it run without a real factory-built carburetor. The one I gave it was a small tin can stuffed with rags that were saturated in gasoline. The vapor from the can was the gas that it ran on.

I made the little engine pull Mama's washing machine—which she was in the habit of making me pull. Of course it was more work keeping the engine running than it would have been just simply running the washer by hand. But it was more fun my way. And besides, I liked to do things that others couldn't do,—things some mechanics said couldn't be done.

When I got hold of an extra dime now and then, which was not needed for something else, I would go see a movie. But my slow reading caused me to miss part of the story during the old silent movie days. So I began dreaming of the time when we would be able to go to a movie and listen to the stars talk and sing. I worked the whole thing out and told my parents and some of my friends just how it would be done and how the mechanism would be set up. Some of them listened, but some of them walked away, slowly wagging their heads as if to say, "Poor Clarence, he finally flipped his flopper. He has gone plum crazy."

Three years later they came out with a stupid phonograph and tried to keep the talking on the record correlated with the picture on the screen. It was four years after I invented the talking picture that they finally put the sound on the movie film where I had put it in the first place.

I was out front on automobile generators too. In the early 1920's generators were dealing us plenty of trouble. Their commutators were the biggest headaches. By 1924 I had invented a direct-current generator without a commutator but with two collector rings instead. I even applied for a patent on my invention. But I ran out of money and had to give it up. Then 39 years later, in 1963, most all American-built cars came out with my generator on them. They are now called alternators. Of course my generator was not exactly like the alternator. We didn't have diodes in 1924. My generator didn't need diodes.

Along with my experimenting, I was reading mechanics magazines and in one of them I saw the International Correspondence School advertisement and enrolled in an electrical engineering course. I learned a lot from it but I was not financially able to buy all the things I needed to do the experiments which would have helped me learn and understand much more. Furthermore, there was not another kid in town with whom I could work and study, nor who was interested in learning about electricity with me. So, electrical engineering lost much of its charm and glamour. However, during my high school days, my classmates and teachers nicknamed me "Edison." I kept the stage lights in repair for all events. And when an office light needed attention, they sent for me. They never required me to buy a ticket to any school activity. I kept the lights working all over the building. I carried a key to the building and came and went as I pleased, day and night.

Along with my other activities, I have studied and practiced a little bit of character reading. Since my teens I have had this thing about being somewhat able to read a person's character on sight—at least I liked to try. When I was 18 I was visiting a kid in another town and he showed me a picture of his high school class, 32 kids. I looked at the picture, then I pointed to one girl and told my friend that she was the top student in his class in English. My friend was surprised but he admitted that I was correct. He became even more surprised when I picked the best math student, the most mischievous boy, the one who liked to play good clean practical jokes, the one who was the most active in the art of deceit designed to really hurt others, the best football player, best all-round athlete, and several others. After I had finished, the boy told me I got about 20 of them just right, ten partially right, and two absolutely wrong. Oh well, you can't win them all.

I have been in business off and on many years in my life and I can't remember having lost a penny on a cold check or a bad debt. I have a way of trusting people that I judge to be okay and it seems that they want to prove that I have not misjudged them.

This ability to judge rightly has helped me and others many times. One day a stranger was driving through Hamlin on his way to Bronte where he was to go to work on a ranch. He was out of money. I bought him five gallons of gas and a quart of oil. Three days later I received the money from him by mail.

Why did I trust the stranger? I don't know. He looked okay. He acted okay. He didn't ask for credit nor any other favor. Instead, he asked if he might camp out behind our service station for three or four days. My boss told him it was all right. Then when he asked to borrow a pencil and a piece of paper, I learned he was planning to write his employer a letter and ask him to send a couple of dollars for gas and oil so he could finish his trip. I bought him the gas and oil and told him to get going and get on the job. Then he offered to leave his saddle as security. I told him I didn't need security, "Just send me the money when you get it." And he did.

I've always been that way about my money. I would rather see my money used for home missions than for foreign missions. I like to see results. In the case of foreign missions, I never know how my money is being handled nor what it does for people. To be sure, this man repaid me, but if he had not, I would still prefer home missionary work. That may not be the right attitude, but it's the way I feel.

This new-fangled city living didn't take all the country out of us boys right away. We often went hiking along the creek that runs through the south end of Hamlin. One day we slipped out of our clothes and were swimming in the Orient Lake when a group of women and little kids came to fish in the lake. Boy, I thought we were in trouble for sure this time. But Joel came to the rescue. He always was a smooth talker, and this time it paid off for all of us. He yelled out to them that we were swimming without our swim suits, and if they would go back around the bend, we would be out in about three minutes and then they could come on and fish. They did and all was well.

Soon after we moved to Hamlin we owned an old Dodge car, about a 1918 model. It was probably the one we drove to Gorman, although we did own two other Dodges through the years. Anyway, this old car had so much play in the gears and the differential and the axles that you could let up slowly on the clutch, and when all the slack finally wound out of all the gears, the car would leap forward. And if the motor didn't die, you were off and going.

Our car shed opened to the alley. To get into the shed we had to drive up the alley, circle into the shed and stop the car just before it hit a solid board wall. At least it was a board wall, and we had thought it was solid until Albert proved differently. Anyhow, the wall separated the car from the back yard, which, in turn, connected with the back door of Mama's kitchen. Now, this back yard had within its boundaries a number of clotheslines, a storm cellar and a couple of huge mulberry trees, under which a dozen or so old laying hens reclined in shaded pools of dust and ashes while off duty from producing the better half of many nourishing breakfasts for a bunch of growing kids.

Well, on this particular day, Albert had some reason for wanting to go some place in that old Dodge car. It didn't have a starter; we had to crank it. Albert, being just a small boy, was not big enough to stand out in front of the bumper of the car while he applied the necessary heave and pull to roll the motor over compression. So, as usual, he was standing between the front bumper and the car when things began to happen. The old car was easy to crank. Usually just once over and the engine would start.

And so it was this time—once over and wham! Albert had forgotten to shift it out of low gear. The motor had gotten up pretty good speed by the time all the gears took up the slack and the hind wheels began to push forward. It was a good thing Albert was too little to stand in front of the bumper, it would have crushed both his legs as it went about the business of pushing the entire end out of the shed. It's a fact. The bottom of the wall held in place while all the nails pulled out along the top of the wall. The car simply laid that big solid wall flat in the back yard and then climbed on top of it. It was headed right for the storm cellar when Albert switched off the key.

Now you think I'm fibbing. You wonder, "How did Albert get there to switch off the motor?" It wasn't easy. It took a little agility and a lot of speed, and Albert proved he had plenty of both. When the car began going forward Albert went down and under it. Then in the split-second it took the car to demolish the end of the garage, Albert seized the opportunity to shoot out from under one side of the car, behind the front wheel and before the back wheel got him. Then he leaped up and jumped into the car and stopped it on top of one end of the garage, a couple of clothes line poles, and one very dead old hen. The hen, of course, was a welcome sight on the dining table at our next meal. And Albert was also a welcome sight, sitting there eating his share of the old hen, without a scratch on him.

When we moved to Hamlin the school authorities wanted to put us all back a grade or two. We didn't thrill to that idea, so Earl drove the Old Reo car and we went to Wise Chapel School a-year- and-a-half. It was only five miles and our teacher rode with us and helped pay expenses.

But this country schooling couldn't go on forever. So when we entered Hamlin school I was almost sixteen and they put me back to the seventh grade. And then at Christmas time our teacher got married and quit teaching. She was replaced by a man teacher who was not altogether outstanding in his knowledge of math. I worked some math problems he couldn't work and I taught our class at times when the problems were too difficult for him. He seemed to resent this and I am sure it was my fault. I was not well- versed in the art of diplomacy and I didn't know how to go beyond his ability without hurting his pride.

As a result, at the end of that year I learned that I was third in my class. We all felt sure a certain little girl would be first. I thought I would be second. But instead, a boy named Jack was salutatorian that year. I didn't really think any more about the matter until the next year when I learned, quite by accident, that the teacher had given the honor to Jack which was rightfully mine. I had made higher grades than he did. No, I didn't hate the teacher for having done that to me, nor did I like him for it. I reasoned that he had just made an honest mistake in figuring our grades. As I said, he was not outstanding in math.

There was only one high school teacher I didn't especially like. She taught Latin. The rule of the school was that an excused absence was not to lower a student's grade. Rather, his grade was to be averaged according to those days he was present, and the exam scores. I constantly made "A" when I was in class in spite of the fact that I missed a lot of classes while on business ventures for our class and for the school. I thought, and some other teachers thought that, if I could make "A in class and on tests, while attending class only three-fourths of the time, I ought to have an "A" for the course. Instead, I got a "C". Except for that one course, I made B-plus and better throughout my high school years. It wasn't all that bad though, having a "C" in Latin. I knew I was an "A" student and my teacher knew I was an "A" student; I was just a little disappointed not to have an "A" on my report card so my family would know I was an "A" student.

Since we had missed so much schooling because of poverty and because of cotton harvest and because of having attended small country schools, naturally we were all put back a grade or two when we entered Hamlin school. I wasn't the only one. Joel says he was put back a grade so many times, he went through one grade three times making "As" every time. In my Freshman year, I was about the age of many of the Juniors. And because of a lack of material possessions, I found schooling less alluring than it might have been.

So, about the last of November I dropped out of high school and took a job with West Texas Utilities Co. The job title was "Night Engineer" and the salary was more than a lot of grown men made. Regardless of the title that went with my job, what I really did was make ice at the ice plant at night. Anyway, two years later, with my savings to back me up, I quit my job and reentered Hamlin High School, about the last of November.

By that late date I was a Freshman at age eighteen, finishing my freshman year at nineteen. However, I was not looked down upon, even by the so-called elite. The most respected Seniors welcomed me into their school activities. But I realized my social retardation and stood apart, by my own choice, in certain extracurricular activities.

Even after starting school three months late that fall, I still made good grades and picked up four credits, which was normal. The following summer I did some extra studying, wrote some book reports, took tests on the work, and made three extra credits. That made seven; I needed nine more to graduate. Once in awhile a good strong student was allowed to take five subjects. My record convinced the teachers that I could do even more than five. So, with their help, we persuaded the superintendent to let me take seven subjects that second year. B-plus was the lowest grade I made that year, despite the extra load. We tried to get the superintendent to let me take all nine, but he refused. I could have made it easily, but we couldn't get his permission to let me try it.

By the end of my second year I was 21 and had 14 credits. I needed two more. I enrolled again that fall, but before I got my books, Papa told me he needed another truck driver and couldn't afford to hire one and keep me in school. So I quit school and drove a truck for him.

While I was in school I was not thought of as a "book-worm," probably because I didn't spend all that much time studying. I lettered in football that second year. I also took first place in the half-mile run, shot put, discus throwing, and something else. Would you believe it: I've forgotten what the fourth event was. Along with athletics, I also took first place in declamation.

While I was a Freshman, I was assistant editor of our school paper which rated second in the state. With all four grades competing in writing "Class yell," "Class song," and designing "Class pennant," I wrote the song which won first place and designed the pennant that won first place.

We had another contest to see which class could raise the most money to pay on the doctor bill for one of our football players. We Freshmen won that contest.

In my Junior year we had a contest to determine which class could publish the best edition of our school paper. When it came our turn, we Juniors won first place and sold three times as many papers as any other class. I also painted all the posters for advertising games, plays, and other school activities. And then I placed them in store windows all over town. I was allowed to take a student with me on these poster ventures. Only one requirement, he had to have an "A" rating in his grades. And I must say, looking back from where I sit today, I can easily see how my stupidity stood out in those days; I always chose boys to go with me.

We Juniors put on a play which we presented in Hamlin and in other towns nearby. We first put the play on in Hamlin at the picture show as a dress rehearsal and we charged admission. Then we presented it again a few weeks later at the same theatre and played to a full house. Then we played it at the same place a third time by popular request. The play went over so well in Hamlin, we decided to present it in other towns around. I know we played it in Rotan and I believe the other town was Anson. The name of the play was "Clarence," and I played the title role. You may remember, Booth Tarkington was the author.

Naturally, all this publicity didn't hide me from public view. I was well known around the little town of 2,500. During that time I also worked in garages, filling stations, grocery stores, tire shops, and welding shops, besides driving a truck now and then when I was needed.

I painted all the posters for advertising the play which we put on in Hamlin and other towns around. Usually four of us Juniors went to other towns to place them in store windows. We didn't go after school; we went during school hours, and only straight "A" students could go.

One day four of us were delivering posters to Rotan—two boys and two girls. The other boy was driving and I was in the back seat with one of the girls. She was not "my" girl—just a nice respectable school girl. I don't think I even had a girl to call my own, or maybe I did. If I had one, it was one of the teachers, which was strictly against board rules, so we had to keep it secret. No student was allowed to date a teacher. Well anyway, there we were in the back seat of the car, me socially handicapped, and they having all kinds of fun teasing me about being so timid and bashful. They got a big kick out of watching the girl edge over toward me and seeing me slowly scoot away from her. I was just being cautious. How was I to know what a city girl might do to a country boy like me.

Our school athletic club was always short of money for uniforms, balls, bats, and other equipment. To help make money for the club, we sold candy in one hallway at high school. I did all the buying, keeping the records, and half the selling. Another regular job for me was making whitewash and marking off the football and baseball fields.

Now you can begin to see why I didn't have to ask permission to go and come when I needed to. It would have been a waste of time. And I just didn't have all that much time to waste. I was busy. They granted me the privilege of going without asking and I was careful not to abuse that privilege. They usually knew where I was and which student I had picked to go with me. You may also be getting the idea that I could have carried nine subjects that Junior year. I did all these extras, took seven full courses, and made "B-plus" and "A" all the way.

By this time I had begun to learn a little diplomacy which I had lacked in the seventh grade. During my Freshman year—my second one, that is—Miss Packwood was in her first year of teaching. In her history class I sat on the front row right by her desk. Four boys sat in four seats on the back row and gave her a rough time, cutting up and constantly disrupting the class. They got so bad that she actually cried at times. The boys didn't know it but I did. She tried hard to hide her frustration and emotions. But she was at a loss to know what she should do next.

I caught those four boys out at the toilet one day and had a diplomatic conference with them. I placed myself in the group of five who were dealing our teacher misery. I pleaded to them concerning our responsibility to her. "How would we like for someone to do to our sister what we are doing to this girl?"

Well sir, the results of that little conference surprised even me. Not a single one of those boys bothered that teacher another time the rest of that year. I never told Miss Packwood what had taken place, nor did I ever mention it again to the boys. Although I had not been guilty of any of the wrongdoings, in my talk with the boys, I included myself as one of them and shared the blame in order that they might listen to my argument. I was proud of the boys for listening to me and I was proud of me for having been able to influence them, and help a friend who was in trouble.

The last year Coach Hinton was at Hamlin High, Superintendent Greene asked him to come two weeks before school started and get the football boys into training. Coach asked about pay for the two weeks. Mr. Greene seemed to think the board would be glad to pay him for his time. Then he told Mr. Hinton, "If they will not pay you, you can take your pay out of the athletic fund." Mr. Hinton came early and kept his part of the bargain.

As it turned out, the board didn't pay for the two weeks. Mr. Hinton waited and waited and they still didn't pay. He was too much of a gentleman to ask for the money. He figured perhaps they would pay him at the end of the school year, but they didn't. So he took his pay out of the athletic fund as Mr. Greene suggested. And at that point some of his so-called "best friends" turned against him, telling that he stole the money and left town. It simply wasn't true. I knew about Mr. Greene's promise. There was never any reason for anyone to doubt Mr. Hinton's honesty. He was never anything less than a gentleman.

You may have the idea that I am telling you I didn't get into trouble at school. That's just not true. However, I didn't deliberately plan it. Most of my trouble was accidental. For instance, during the Christmas holidays one year, workmen revarnished the desks in the study hall. When school reopened, the varnish was dry, but you know how fresh varnish is, even after it is dry. When you sit on it for an hour your pants sort of cling to it. Well, as I have told you, we were a poor family, and I had the pants to prove it. My pants were old and thin, but there were no holes in them when I sat down. And there was only one hole when I got up an hour later—a big one. I first suspected something was wrong when I felt a breeze. I knew it for sure when I looked down and saw the seat of my pants still clinging to the new varnish.

Needless to say, that was another time I didn't ask for permission to leave the building. I backed out the door, hurried down the stairway and ran, trying not to turn my back on anyone all the way home.

While I was a Freshman in high school, one of my jobs at home was to hitch up a team of horses each day after school, drive seven miles to the Neinda gin, load a wagon with cottonseed, drive back home and leave it for Papa to unload the next day. But then one day I didn't make my regular trip.

In school that afternoon our teacher was called from the room for a long-distance phone call. She was gone a long time, and the longer she stayed away the worse things got in our room. Long before she returned kids were throwing erasers, throwing books, running around the room, fighting, and even running out one door, down the hall, and back into the room through another door.

When the teacher returned, she caught them in the act. I say "them" because I made it a point not to do anything contrary to rules. I had special privileges I didn't want to lose. I wanted to be trusted. As a matter of fact, there were two of us who did nothing wrong—Mable Hudson and I. But the teacher didn't know that. She told us she was ashamed of everyone of us. And she kept us all in an hour after school.

That was the cause of my missing my Neinda trip and that was why Papa was not at all happy. In fact he was very unhappy. He asked why I was late. I told him I had to stay in. He asked what I had done to have to stay in. I told him, "Nothing."

He was sure I was lying, because, he said, "Teachers don't keep kids in for nothing." Then he added, "I thought I had at least one boy I could trust to behave and tell the truth."

It was too late to haul cottonseed that day. I felt I had let the family down, but through no fault of my own. Or maybe it was my fault. Maybe I should have explained to the teacher, but I didn't. Nor did I explain further to Papa. He didn't seem to be in the mood for further talk from me.

My teachers knew me pretty well. A little explaining might have done the trick. They knew I had never lied to them. On the other hand, if I had explained to the teacher, and if she had not kept me in, I would have been called "teacher's pet" and she might have wound up being hated by my classmates. I found myself in an awkward situation where I didn't know what to do nor what to say. So I kept quiet and found myself being punished by the ones who meant the most to me, my teacher and my father.

Did I turn against them because they told me they were ashamed of me? Certainly not. I understood how it looked to them. They didn't ask any further questions, and I offered no further explanation. They still trusted me and I trusted them. And I didn't lose any of my special privileges at home or at school.

Throughout my school years, the first day of April was a special day for school kids. The afternoon of April Fools' Day was a period for students to have a good time. If the teachers would not allow a fun-party that afternoon, some of the pupils, if not all of them, would run away from school. This was customary, and if most of the kids ran away, it was generally understood that there would be little or no punishment.

I was only about nine years old the first time I ran away from school on April Fools' Day. Three of us boys slipped away at noon and soon after one-o'clock we saw that we were alone. We also knew we couldn't return to school because we would be punished for being late for our one-o'clock class.

We realized we were in trouble and would have to try to think of a way out. But first of all, we had to get farther away from the schoolhouse so the teacher wouldn't be able to find us with a search party. In fact, we ran so far away and spent such a miserable afternoon that we failed to see the other students going home from school. We had planned to join them and all arrive home at the same time. And after that—well, that was as far as a nine-year-old could plan. After that I had no idea how any good thing could happen to me.

But we were caught in our own trap. Since it was April Fools' afternoon, the teachers turned out school early. The other kids got home an hour earlier than usual. And what I got when I got home was no surprise. My biggest surprise was that I didn't get a whipping. Of course I got a good talking-to, but no whipping. That little experience taught me to be better organized next time before attempting mutiny in any form.

I believe the next time I ran away from school on April Fools' Day was when I was a Freshman in Hamlin High School. Now, it was such a long time ago I know I will not get every little detail exactly right, but for all practical purposes and intent, it happened about like this. We were well organized, to say the least.

It was April Fool's Day, one o'clock in the afternoon. We students were all seated in the study hall, each at his regularly assigned desk. In the parking lot out front were two trucks and a number of automobiles, all parked orderly and aimed in the direction of the Double Mountain River.

The entire student body had been warned that the school board would not tolerate running away on the first of April. Those who did would have all their grades lowered by ten points.

When the one o'clock bell rang, the study hall teacher said,
"Rise and pass to your classes."

We stood up and passed all right, but not to our classrooms. We marched out of the study hall and downstairs, taking a select group of teachers with us. By the time the superintendent realized what was happening, we were all loaded into our vehicles and heading for a sandy playground in the channel of the river. The kidnapped teachers gave us very little trouble. They liked it.

We were told later that three girls showed up for class in one room. Their teacher asked, "What are you girls doing here?"

They told her they didn't want their grades to be lowered ten points.

And the teacher told them, "No one is going to knock ten points off your grades. Get on out from here and have a good time."

We were not only organized in making our get-away, we had also arranged for a little bit of entertainment by surprise. Three of us boys had made a man-size straw dummy, and while all the other students and teachers were playing in the sand down in the river, we boys secretly took our dummy up on a high cliff across the river, and there on the edge of that cliff, in plain view of the spectators below, Virgil Davis and I got into an argument which ended in a fight.

Before we took the straw dummy up on the cliff, we arranged for one boy to remain in the crowd below to call attention to our fight up on the cliff. We boxed and pushed and shoved and rolled and tumbled. Then we rolled behind some bushes to where we had the dummy hidden. And when I came back into view, I was wrestling the dummy instead of Virgil. When we rolled near the edge of the cliff, we struggled to our feet and I knocked him over the edge and he fell to the river below.

This was no big deal but it was different, and it brought a few screams from the gallery below.

By the first day of April the following year, the school board had decided that this April Fool thing had gone too far, and they convinced us kids that they meant business. We knew there was no way we could pull another stunt like we pulled the year before and get away with it. We accepted the new ruling and had no intention of causing any trouble.

However, just before the lunch hour that day I was talking with some boys and jokingly said, "We'd better not run away but when they tell us to pass to classes, we could just remain seated." I hadn't really meant it and we didn't plan action. If I had meant it, I would have suggested that we remain seated only a minute or less, just to demonstrate student solidarity, and that not in defiance, but rather in fun.

But I underestimated the effects of my little suggestion and the solidarity of the student body. When one o'clock came and the teacher said, "Rise and pass to your classes," not one student got up. I was surprised. Something was happening here beyond any suggestion I had made.

Other teachers got together, whispered a few words in their huddle and one of them gave the order again, but still no one made a move. Then Mr. Hinton came out, spoke a few words of advice to us and asked us to go to our classes. This time three girls got up and went to class, perhaps the same three who showed up for class the year before.

By this time I had begun to feel guilty and uneasy. I didn't know who had planned all this nor whether it was the result of my suggestion, but I knew I could be held responsible because of what I had said. The thing had gotten out of hand and someone could get hurt. I knew that someone could be me. This just wasn't right, but I didn't want to be the one to spoil something someone else had planned, if indeed someone else had planned it, so I went along with the scheme.

Next, Mr. Greene called a student into his office. I don't remember who the student was, but he soon came back and took his seat with the rest of us. And again, another teacher asked us to respond, but we didn't.

Then Mr. Greene sent for me, and at that moment I guess I felt smaller than I had ever felt in my life. I think I could have crawled through the knothole in our back porch, through which I put so many calomel tablets when I was a little kid. I thought to myself, "This time they have caught me, I'm guilty, I'll be kicked out of school, and I have no idea how severely Papa will punish me this time."

But my worry had not been necessary. I learned right away that Mr. Greene and the teachers were not looking for someone to blame for this unpleasant incident, but rather, they were looking for a leader—a Moses, mind you, to lead these students out of the study hall and into the classrooms, thereby keeping us all out of serious trouble.

I went back and took my seat in the study hall. Again one of the teachers said, "Rise and pass to your classes."

And again no one moved. Then, about two seconds later, I stood up and said, "Let's all rise and go to our classes," and every student obeyed.

They just needed a leader, and I was there at the right time. They might not have followed me ten minutes earlier. And another thing they were waiting for was one of their own to lead them, so they would not have to yield to authority.