The Life of Me: An Autobiography

by Clarence Edgar Johnson

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.

I was in the front seat with Papa and some of the other kids. I was probably in Papa's lap, I don't remember. Mama was in the back seat with some of the others. In fact, Mama always rode in the back seat. There is no picture in my memory of Mama ever riding in the front seat of our hack. I don't really know why she chose the back seat. Fact is, it never occurred to me until now that she may not have chosen the back seat; she may not have had a choice. While she was with us, it never entered my mind to ask her why. But now as I ponder these things, I wish I had. If she were sitting here in the room with me now, I would stop writing long enough to look up and ask, "Mama, why did you always sit in the back seat of our hack?"

And I haven't the slightest doubt that she would answer, "Why, Willie and you children always rode in the front seat. There wasn't room for me."

Anyway, I was less than five years old, probably less than four. And I don't remember what else Mama was doing, but I'll bet a dollar she was holding Albert in her lap. And I'll bet another dollar I can guess what Albert was doing. Since baby bottles were almost unheard of in those days, and were not needed in our family, he was probably getting his milk from some other source, as mother nature meant for him to.

Be that as it may, Old Keno was eating at the feed stack and he seemed to be much happier than Papa was to see him there. I don't remember what Papa said, if anything, but I do remember that Mama expressed her disapproval of Old Keno's bad manners by calling him a scoundrel. That was the name Mama gave to troublesome animals and mean people.

There was plenty of work to be done on the farm, and we kids learned to work early in life. Joel was just 16 months older than I was, and one spring, when he was too young to go to school, Papa had him planting in the field with a two-row planter. In the afternoons, when Earl got home from school, he would relieve Joel, so Joel could go home and play the rest of the day.

Then one day Joel got a foot hurt and couldn't run the planter. So I had to take his place on the planter for a few days. Planting had to go on. I don't remember how old I was at that time. I do know for sure I was planting at the Flint place. And we moved from that place in January—the same January in which I became five years old. So, I must have been planting when I was a little over four years old or when I was just past three, I'm not sure which. I am sure, however, I was older than two, because, when I was only two, Earl was too young to go to school.