"Have they always had to haul water in Fisher County?"
"Yes, but during the World Flood they didn't have to haul it so far. The flood water came within a half-mile of Roby."
I guess Grandpa farmed at least one year in Fisher County. They tell me that Ed, one of the younger boys, went to school in that county at White Pond one year.
Grandpa had bought the l,000 acres for all the family. Andrew and Will were the first ones to buy their portions of 100 acres each. The raw land had cost $3 an acre. Papa's farm cost him $300.
Papa was fast becoming a good carpenter and he did his part in helping build a two-story house on Grandpa's portion of the land. The house is still in good shape and has a family living in it 77 years later.
Andrew first lived in a dugout on his 100 acres. They used the dugout for a kitchen and storm cellar many years after they built a house beside it.
Papa's land was in the southeast corner of the 1,000 acre tract. He built his house about a quarter-mile south of Grandpa's house. It is still standing also. Since that time some of the Johnson boys and girls have bought and sold and swapped portions of the land. But most of it is still in the hands of the Johnson boys and girls or their sons and daughters.
After farming in Fisher County in the year of 1898, Papa moved to a farm in Jones County, a mile northeast of Neinda, and farmed there in 1899. And there, in a half-dugout, my sister, Susie, was born.
Many years later as we would drive by the farm in our hack, on our way to church at Neinda, our parents would point out the old dugout and explain, "There is where we used to live." Year after year as the old dugout deteriorated and began caving in, we still went by it on our way to church and there was always something fascinating about it to us kids as one or more of us would point to the old dwelling and say, "There's where Mama and Papa used to live."
During the two years my parents farmed away from their own farm, they spent many days of hard work driving back and forth, building a house, clearing some of the land, and building fences on their land. And of course they had to have a well drilled and put up a windmill and water tank.