The Life of Me: An Autobiography

by Clarence Edgar Johnson

Well, anyway he bought it and brought it home and a few days later he had it all rigged on the old car and ready to go. It didn't prove to be the best tractor in the world, in fact, it might compare with a modern tractor of today about like the Wright Brothers' first flying machine would compare with a superjet.

Anyhow it worked some. It took one to drive the car and one to ride the plow. It didn't replace the horse in the field half as well as the Reo car replaced the horse on the road. Yet it filled in somewhat when feed was scarce and horses were tired. This monster didn't have to stop and rest, just stop to get water and cool off. As a tractor it wasn't so hot—it only got hot.

We didn't spend all of our time at hard work on the farm. Come Saturday afternoon, if we were pretty well caught up with our farm work, we would spend an hour or two in Lamesa.

I remember one time we were in Lamesa, when I was eleven years old. I had spent all my money except a dime. I wanted to buy a pocketbook to put my money in. There were four stores in town that sold pocketbooks and I went to all of them but it was of no use. The cheapest one any of them had was ten cents. Now, if I spent my dime for one, I wouldn't have any money left to put in it. And if I didn't buy one, I was apt to lose my dime. What should I do? That was a big decision for me to make.

I went back to each store time and again, hoping to find a five cent pocketbook I had overlooked before. But it just wasn't there. And I don't recall whether I bought a ten cent one or kept my dime.

Now you may ask, "If you can't remember whether or not you bought the purse, how can you remember it was on a Saturday?" That's easy. Saturday was about the only day we went to town. I was a big boy before I learned that there were people in town on other days of the week. I hardly knew that stores opened except on Saturday.

I remember another time in Lamesa when a kid about my size was aggravating me. Now, we kids were taught not to fight. I grew up not knowing how to fight, not wanting to fight and thinking that boys who did fight were bad boys. And here I was, faced with the stark realization that I needed something I didn't have—the ability to make a bully leave me alone. I was about as big as he was, but I was afraid he had the know-how to fight in a way that could hurt a country boy like me.

I didn't want to fight the boy. I only wanted him to go away and leave me alone. But he had other plans. We went in and out among the cars parked by the curb. I was always in the lead, he was after me. Somehow I had hoped that I could lose him. But he kept coming back, pinching and hitting me a little harder each time. I really think my not fighting him encouraged him to get tougher and rougher.

Then he got me out behind the cars, out near their back wheels, and he was just about to really let me have it. People on the sidewalk couldn't see us. It was just him and me. I had to do something—so I hit him and ran. That proved to be the best thing I could have done. He came right after me. I knew he might hit me but he couldn't hit me in the face and bloody my nose—I had my back to him.

I jumped up on the curb with the bully right on my heels. The first man I passed asked, "Is that boy bothering you?" Before I could answer him, the boy had turned and was going away. He didn't bother me any more. He probably thought the stranger was a friend of mine and that he had better leave me alone or else the man would get him.