The Life of Me: An Autobiography

by Clarence Edgar Johnson

When the wind came out of the north, it became very cold and began to snow. The temperature got down below zero that night and many rabbits froze to death and were buried under the snow.

For a week or two after that storm, we went hunting and shot dead rabbits, not knowing they were already dead. They were still sitting under bushes and looking very much like live rabbits. We continued to shoot dead rabbits until they were all eaten by coyotes and buzzards.

It was reported that one rancher near Lamesa lost 500 cows that night from the cold and the snow.

On one side of our house snow drifted into a huge pile halfway up our windows. After it melted, the sand which blew in with the snow was at least two feet deep. That was the first time I can remember when snow was so dirty we couldn't make snow ice cream. However, there were many other times later on.

Here is another little rabbit story. On one occasion when Frank was home, he went rabbit hunting with the other four of us boys. We hadn't had much luck until almost sundown. By that time we were still about four or five miles from home and we came to another windmill and waterhole. There was a lot of sagebrush around the waterhole and jackrabbits began to hop up here and there. This place was so far from civilization the rabbits were not much afraid of us. They would hop off a way and stop and sit up and look back at us.

We all spread out and took a swath about the width of a city block and circled the waterhole one time—and killed more jackrabbits than we could carry home. We swung some of them over our shoulders, tied some to our overall suspenders and carried some in our hands. It was a long way home and we were plenty tired before we got there.

During our stay on the plains, tractors had not yet established themselves on American farms, at least not in our part of the country. Men were still raising fine work horses and looking forward to raising even bigger and better ones. A neighbor named Debnam bought the biggest horse I ever hope to see. A big man had to reach high to touch his nose, and few men could reach the top of his shoulders. He was one of the six largest stallions in the United States and he cost the man $3,600. By the time he was three years old he weighed 2600 pounds, and his feet were about as large as a cedar water bucket.

Now Papa needed at least four of those fine work horses but he didn't have the money to buy them, and he couldn't get the money. And farm tractors were almost unheard of before the late 1920s. However, there was a company that made an attachment to go on a Model T Ford car which was supposed to make a tractor out of the car. The manufacturers name for the "thing" was "Pull-Ford." Papa heard of a man who had such a contraption, so he went to look at it.

Now, the fact that the man was not using the gadget should have told Papa something. Moreover, the fact that he was willing to sell it at a bargain should have told Papa something more. And finally, when he went and looked at it and saw that it was practically unused, that should have been the final message to Papa.

But Papa wasn't listening good. He was a man in trouble. Dry weather and sand colic had claimed some of his best work horses. And he could buy this thing for a lot less than four horses would cost. Anyway he bought the attachment and made it fit on the Reo. I suppose he reasoned that a Reo owner had more sense than a Ford owner, and even if it was not a success on the man's Ford, he could make it do the job on a Reo.