We always had Sundays off for rest and play, but never for work of any kind, that is, work which was of any monetary value, except routine work like milking cows and feeding the livestock. The question of work came up one Sunday afternoon when we put some new tires on our car to go watch an airplane at Lamesa. But then, that was regarded as play since it involved only recreation and had nothing to do with work which could in any way produce anything of value. Sunday was a day for going to church, resting, visiting friends, playing games, reading, or just sitting.
Now, if we boys wanted to go out into the pasture and kill a snake or two with sticks, that was okay. And if we could get a rabbit without a gun, that was all right too. But, no guns on Sundays. When a rabbit ran into a prairie dog hole, we could twist him out with a barbed wire. That was okay on Sunday.
We would run a barbed wire down into the hole and twist it by means of a crank at the upper end, which was nothing more than the wire itself bent in the shape of a small crank. As the wire revolved over and over down in the hole, it would get the barbs entangled in the rabbit's fur and we could pull him out of the hole. That was called "rabbit-twisting."
The idea of sin being connected with shooting a gun on Sunday had probably been handed down from pioneer days when men lived by hunting game. In those days hunting was a means of making a living, therefore it was work, and work was not to be done on Sunday.
Despite the dry weather that seemed to threaten our very existence, we used water from our well and grew quite a bit of garden produce. Our garden was like an oasis in a dust bowl. And then, one day we received a bit of news that was like an oasis of good news in our desert of bad news.
Uncle Robert got word to us that Old Scotch had returned home to the Exum place. Papa began getting the car ready immediately and went after him. I think maybe Joel went with Papa.
A family named Bristow was living on the Exum farm when Old Scotch returned. Mr. Bristow thought this might be our dog, but he was not sure. He said it looked as though the dog had traveled a long, long way. The first thing Old Scotch did was lie down in the yard and rest. Then he chased all the chickens out of the yard as he had done many times before. Next he went into the house and slowly looked through all the rooms, as if looking for something familiar to him. Finding no one he knew, he went back out into the yard to rest again.
Then Mr. Bristow phoned Robert Johnson to see if he might know our dog. Robert drove over in his Buick. Old Scotch met him way down the road and leaped for joy beside the car all the way back to the house. He had finally found new hope. The Buick motor was music to his ears and, although Robert was not home folks, at least the dog knew him as a friendly neighbor.
When Robert got out of his car, Old Scotch leaped up into the
front seat, sat down and put his paws on the steering wheel.
When Robert saw him do that, he turned to Mr. Bristow and said,
"That's their dog all right."
We had no telephone on our farm on the plains. And we were ten miles from Lamesa. I don't know how Robert got word to us about Old Scotch, but Papa lost no time in bringing him home. The round trip was 280 miles.