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she wanted some wood.
    â€œEd,” said Alice as I came in, “take this little girl out to the orchard and get her some peaches.”
    I swallowed a couple of times and replied, “Yes Ma’am!” Thinking back over three-quarters of a century to this little incident it seems plain what sort of kid I was, but I am hopeful that the child is not always “father to the man.”
    Our equipment for farming consisted of one breaking plow, a “Georgia stock” commonly called a “bull tongue” plow, a double shovel used to cultivate crops, a big farm wagon, the hack which Father used to peddle fruit and sweet potatoes, and that was about all. In addition, we had an axe, rake, pitchfork, two or three hoes, a grubbing hoe called a “mattock,” a crosscut saw, handsaw, hatchet, and claw hammer. It is doubtful if all the farming implements and tools cost much over $150.00 when new.
    Power was supplied by a small sorrel horse named Pompey, alittle bay mare called Net, and a larger, older mare known as Old Nell. All three of these animals could not have been sold for a total of $75.00, including the harness and old saddle. Old Nell died, apparently of old age, before we made our visit to Greer County. While out there Father sold Net and bought from an Indian for $14.00 a little yellow mare, that George and I promptly dubbed “Comanch.” She was a typical Indian pony with an evil temper which was probably due to being teased by some papoose, for she bit my arm the first time I sought to put a bridle on her. As compared with the agricultural machinery most farmers have today, our equipment seems most meager and primitive. One modern tractor alone would cost two or three times as much as all my father’s farm implements, tools, and horses were worth.

    Even before our western venture I had done a great deal of work in the field chopping cotton, thinning corn, and cutting sprouts that sprang up in any newly cleared field. Like most children in the South, I had also done a great deal of cotton picking; therefore, by the time Father and I returned from the Prairie West late in June, 1889, I was fairly experienced in both field work and household duties, including a little cooking.
    It was a joy to be back in the Cross Timbers neighborhood again, although we could not move into our own home until Mr. Pulliam had harvested his scanty crops. We lived with Tom and Lucy for some six weeks in order to assist Tom, who needed help in getting his crops “laid by,” which, in the lingo of the South, meant the final plowing and hoeing of the corn and cotton. Then John Briley, who was moving to Roanoke to operate a small meat market, asked us to occupy his house and care for his cowsand pigs until he could sell them, and the man to whom he rented his farm could move in. This we were glad to do and “bached” in his home for a month.
    By that time the cotton-picking season had come, and we returned to Tom’s home to help him with the first picking of his cotton crop. There would be a second picking when the rest of the bolls had opened, but that would be a month later. Until then there seemed comparatively little to do on Tom’s farm. If we had been in our own home Father would have found plenty of work for all three of us clearing land, building or repairing fences, and doing any other thing needed to improve the farm.
    Unwilling to remain idle, he decided that we should drive west to Parker County in the Upper Cross Timbers, where we had heard that there was a great demand for hands to pick cotton and gather corn. We accordingly packed the wagon with the necessary food and bedding, put on the bows and canvas cover, and headed west. After crossing the wide belt of prairie we entered the Upper Cross Timbers and on the second evening camped in a grove of trees on the banks of Walnut Creek.
    We were on land belonging to Mr. McCrory, who grew corn, cotton, sorghum cane, and other