CHAPTER 9
BACK TO OUR LAMESA FARM IN 1919; SCHOOL AT BALLARD
So we moved back to our big farm near Lamesa and farmed there in 1919. Susie and Dode moved to Hamlin. They quit farming and Dode got a job in town.
After those two dry years on the plains, there seemed to be more coyotes than ever, at least we saw more of them. The drought and hunters had taken their toll of rabbits and I guess it was harder for the coyotes to find something to eat. They would come almost to our barnyard in broad daylight in search of food. Old Scotch managed to keep them away from our chickens, but he was no match for two or three of them at one time off out in the pasture, and he was wise enough to know it.
I have seen him chase a lone coyote a few hundred yards away from our house, but then that one would join another one and the two of them would chase Old Scotch back into our yard. Then with us to back him up, he would chase them away again. When there were more than one, they made the dog stay in his place.
Now I guess you are wondering why we didn't shoot the coyotes when they came that close. The answer is simple. Coyotes are not stupid. They can tell a boy from a man, and they can also tell whether or not the boy has a gun. They simply would not come that close to a big boy with a gun. We kids had guns but they were small 22 caliber. They were too small for coyotes. And besides, the powder in the shells at that time was nothing like as powerful as the powder we use today.
We four boys had our own guns and naturally Papa had his. Albert was the youngest of us four. He had a gun by the time he was ten and he killed his share of rabbits, prairie dogs and rattlesnakes.
You see, we did a lot of target practice with our guns. Sometimes we would sit on our front porch and shoot nailheads in the front yard fence. We would also stand matches up in nail holes in the fence and shoot the heads, striking the matches without breaking the stems. Shells cost us only eight cents for a box of 50.
No one could deny that we were pretty good. One man told that Earl was so good with his rifle that we boys didn't climb trees to pick peaches. He said we other kids would walk around under the trees with buckets and Earl would shoot the stems and let the peaches fall into the buckets. But Earl denied it, explaining that we tried it but Papa made us quit because it bruised the peaches when they fell.
Now Joel was a year-and-a-half older than I, and no question about it, he was a smart boy. He was almost as smart as I was. But he was so good-looking the girls wouldn't leave him alone. So he sort of drifted away from his smartness and concentrated on dressing well and looking good. He wound up selling men's clothing, and later on, insurance. But when he was a boy on the farm at Lamesa, I remember he made a windmill. I mean this was a windmill to remember. He set it up on a tower and made it pump water. And he made a real cylinder out of a piece of pipe, with two leather valves attached to two wooden spools. One spool moved up and down, the other one was stationary at the lower end of the pipe. When the wind blew the mill would pump water from a can that was buried in the ground, up through a little pipe, out through another pipe and into a small watering trough. The mill must have been about two or three feet tall, tower and all. And the water it pumped would water a herd of about 20 tiny little imaginary cows.