The Life of Me: An Autobiography

by Clarence Edgar Johnson

You see, one of Papa's big problems was that he had a house full of growing kids who could use a spoon right well at the dining table, but were too little to use a feed-heading knife in the field.

There just wasn't enough time to head our feed in the fall. Papa had a row binder with which to bundle the feed. But he wanted feed heads in the barn to feed his work horses.

So he bundled the feed with his binder and shocked it up to dry. While it was drying, he built a large knife, somewhat like those paper cutters you have seen in print shops. He bolted the cutter to one sideboard of his wagon Then he would drive the wagon up beside a shock of feed in the field, and while he placed the heads of a bundle across the lower knife blade, one of us boys would bring the upper blade down and cut the heads off the bundle. When the heads were cut off, they fell into the wagon.

The cutter worked quite well when Papa had the proper boy operating the knife, but sometimes he had to use me to help him.

As I said, Papa and I did a lot of things together. Cutting heads off bundles was one of those things. Almost cutting his hand off was another.

One day Papa was placing the bundles into the cutter and I was working the upper knife. I thought he was ready for me to cut, but he hadn't gotten his hand back out of the cutter. It looked to me like a bad cut. It bled a lot at first. I sure regretted what I had done, but I guess it wasn't cut very badly because he wrapped his bandanna around his hand and we went right on with our work.

Papa was always and forever doing things that fascinated me and, at the same time, taught us to use our heads and develop our skills.

When we had used all the hot water washing our feet at bedtime, and there was not enough water for Papa to wash his, he didn't seem to mind. He would get a wash pan of cold water, set it on the hearth and put in live coals of fire until his water was hot enough. We kids liked to hear the hot coals sizzle in the water.

There were times when the kitchen was too cold for comfort at early breakfast time. Of course, the dining table was in the cold kitchen. Well, Papa would take an open-top, five-gallon can with about four inches of ashes in the bottom and a few shovelfulls of hot coals on top of the ashes and set the can under the dining table. That would warm our feet while we ate breakfast. And it would also help warm up the kitchen.

So, it was there at the Exum place that I spent six of the best years of my life. They were years of family contentment and prosperity—we youngsters working, playing, exploring, wading in the creek, hunting rabbits with air rifles, going to school; gathering eggs, feeding chickens, feeding cows and horses; playing in the barn, playing in the cottonseed, eating peanuts in the barn loft, wading in puddles after summer showers; enjoying the warm fire in the fireplace, washing our feet by the warm hearth at bedtime, snuggling between warm blankets in cold bedrooms; in short, growing up and enjoying every minute of it.