Lucky for all of us, Joel went down lengthways in a furrow between two ridges. The ridges held the horse up somewhat. Joel wasn't really hurt—just had the wind knocked out of him and it left him unconscious for a few minutes.
Along about this same time in my boyhood, I had something that one of my brothers wanted to buy from me. I don't remember what it was but I do remember I offered it to him for eight cents. He offered me a nickel for it. He had a nickel and four pennies. I finally offered to take the nickel if he would pitch the four pennies up and give me all that fell "heads." We didn't make the deal because Earl learned what I had offered to do and he shamed me scornfully. He said, "That's just the same as shooting dice or playing poker." I didn't know how to shoot dice nor play poker. I only knew that either one was a bad thing to do. I was deeply hurt, not because Earl had scolded or shamed me, but just to think that I would bring dishonor to my family by even thinking of gambling, after all the moral training my parents had given me. Also there was the element of ignorance. I hadn't realized that such an act would be gambling, and I was too proud to admit my ignorance.
Anyway, I resolved to myself then and there never to do a thing like that again as long as I lived, never to gamble in any way. But, like Adam in the garden of Eden when he blamed a woman for his disobedience, I too can say, "A woman tempted me and I did gamble." I'll tell you about it later.
This last year we were on the plains, it looked like we were sure to make good. But it seemed that fate was trying our patience. I think the devil also had a hand in the turn of events. I never did like that guy. Sometimes I think he is still after me.
Anyway in late summer Papa and the neighbors looked at our cotton crop and came to the conclusion that we couldn't keep from making 100 bales. And cotton sold that year at $200 a bale. It looked as though the Lord had finally smiled on us as he did on Job. But I guess we hadn't suffered as much nor repented as well as Job had. When the Lord favored us with a good rain one Sunday afternoon, our neighbors saw the rain and said, "Man, that Johnson family sure must be living right. Look at the rain the Lord sent them."
But what the neighbors didn't know was that the devil had put a boll worm in each and every drop of that rain. None of us knew about the devil and his pesky worms until later.
What happened? We made 20 bales instead of 100, about enough to pay the taxes, interest, and the annual note. If the devil had left us alone, we would have had about $16,000 left over.
So now what? Sell out, of course—sell out and get out. We sold the farm for $25 an acre; we had paid $18. That would have been a good profit on the place except for the fact that the improvements we had made on the place cost about as much as we made on it. So we just about broke even. But the value of land had begun to rise and we didn't know it. Before we moved off the place, even before Mama signed the deed, the farm sold again for $10 an acre more than we got for it. When Mama learned about the last price it brought, she said, "I don't think I'll sign the deed."
Papa told her, "Oh yes you will."
Of course, Mama had not really meant what she said.