There was a weed that grew on our farm, everybody called it "life-ever-lasting". When it dried up in the fall we would chew it like tobacco and smoked it, rolled in brown bag paper. I watched my Mom and aunt chew real tobacco and I wanted to chew it so bad, so one day they give me a chew and when I started to chew Mom and Dad told me I was getting sick on it because I was turning green. I believed it and throwed my chew away and got sick "in my mind" and went to bed for awhile. After that I could never stand the thoughts of tobacco in any way, either chew or smoke.
After supper at night Dad would read the Bible to us and we would sing some good old regions songs, the neighbors that were possum hunting would sit upon the hill to listen to us sing. There were bobcats or wildcats close our house, we could hear them screaming close by. I could hear them trotting along in the leaves as I would go to school. Late one evening, it screamed so close to me, I couldn't speak when I got home. Later that night it come closer to the house screaming and if I had any farther to go it could have attacked and killed me.
We raised chickens, we eat some and sold some. We would "set' 3 hens in the spring and they would hatch in 3 weeks. We also sold eggs, we would take them to a little grocery store and but sugar, lard, coffee, sometimes flour or Mom and Dad's chewing tobacco, if there was enough left over. If we had a penny or a nickel left, then we could get a penny piece of gum or a few pieces of candy and that was a treat for us.
We didn't get flour too often, we mostly lived on meal, and what we could make from it. Once I was on the hill with Dad helping him measure and cut post to go around the garden, it was my birthday . When we come in Mom had borrowed flour from my aunt and baked me a birthday cake. I was tickled pink because we didn't always have cake on our birthday. We didn't have a washing machine so we washed on a washboard, Mom made our homemade soap most of the time. In warm weather we put a iron kettle outside and built a fire under it to heat wash water but in the winter we heated it in the house on the wood cookstove. I washed for an old woman too, and made my fingers bleed. I papered and painted for people, I stripped tobacco and planted cane and stripped cane to make molasses. We had a big Hickory Nut tree right below our house and it was a big deal to get up in the mornings and go gather hickory nuts. They were real good to eat after you got them hulled and cracked but walnuts were too. We kept our cow or cows in the pasture field and we had to hunt them almost every day before milk time. They would hide in the bushes. Dad put a cowbell on one so he could find them.
We would work all day with whatever it was the season to do and then walk 6 to 10 miles to church and back, if there was a revival. Sometimes in the dead of winter with cold and muddy roads. We would walk 5 miles to closest little town, Blaine to see radio stars. We hardly ever got to go to Louisa, that was the next biggest town. Sometimes our teacher would get a truck and take all the school kids to the fair. We would get to march in the parade. We would get ice cream and that was a treat, too. I remember one day me and Daddy went to Louisa, I don't remember why but we bought bread, bologna and milk for our lunch and it was delicious because the milk was cold. Dad had a wagon and two mules that pulled it, he had other horses before and he would trade or some would die. But these mules , he raised from babies. Me and my sister tried to plow once and couldn't do any good. I would ride on the drag to smooth the ground to plant and sometimes I'd use the drag by myself. We had to hoe corn and the sweat bees would about eat me up. We'd peel apples and the yellow jackets would get on us and sometimes sting. Of course when you got out much, you'd usually get stung with a wasp. I set down on one once and nobody had to tell me to get up. I also fell into poison ivy and I had a time getting rid of that I got it in my eyes and they were almost swelled together. When anyone in school disobeyed or was mean, we had to stand on the floor, in front of the other kids. I don't remember what I done, but I had to stand once and I thought the teacher was mean to me.
We papered our room with catalog pages, I learned my first word from reading on the wall, it was "bird". We didn't have any rugs on the floors either. We put some kind of clay to make it snow white and sometimes we even got newspapers to put on the wall and we thought it was so beautiful. We finally got solid blue for the walls. We didn't have bedspreads so we used white sheets. We had to put beds in the living room because we didn't have a couch to sit on we had a few straight chairs and a couple rockers , so we had to sit on the bed. One night it was so cold, Mom and Dad, my sister and me all slept together in living room. where the fireplace was. We had wood burning and the fire popped on our bedcover and caught it on fire. Mom poured water on it and it froze, that is how cold our house was. Sometimes things seems hard but people now a days don't know how hard we had it back then.
Some woman wanted me to stay a week with her to help her in her garden to gather in vegetables and can them, to help with her house work and wash cans. The skin was coming off my hands. I was busy from morning till night. I was only a kid about 14 years old and I got tired and went home in 3 days. I guess I was a little homesick too. Anyway she give me a dollar for 3 days work. My sister stayed with a woman for $2.50 a week. She also carried the mail for the same people and I carried it some. We had to ride horseback and go over two hills, one was really steep. It was probably a 12-15 mile trip. I think it paid 75 cents a day, maybe a little more. No one got much money for what you done back then.Me, my Dad and sister hoed corn all day for $2.25, we all 3 cut corn for 8 cents a fodder shock. I picked strawberries for people for 5 cents a quart. It is a wonder I'm not rich for all the money I made in my life....ha ha...Me, my sister and some more kids used to play in the pasture field and we pretended we were sheep, we would pick and chew "sheepshire". I guess we eat some of it too. One girl told me I was her pet sheep and she picked it for me and put it on a rock for me to eat so I wouldn't have to.
When our baby sister was born, me and my older sister would argue who would get to carry her when we went somewhere. But that got old to me, but it didn't to my older sister, for she loved her so much. She spoiled her to death and kept it up as long as she lived. I loved her but I didn't want to do all that she wanted me to. We had an old rooster that would fight and I was afraid to go outside till the chickens went to roost. My sister would fight with it, and that made it that much worse. My uncle had one that would fight too and I wouldn't go there by myself. One jumped on my Mom and on my little cousin and he said "I thought I'd stumped him". I know we all had a good laugh out of that whatever it meant. One year we went to Grandma and Grandpa's in Ohio, Grandma was operated on, and we stayed awhile so Mom could help Grandma. There was a drought and all our garden stuff died. We had a rough time that winter with no vegetables to can or pickle. Mom pickled a half of a lard can of beans while we were at Grandma's out of her garden. Me and my older sister Alta were real small then.
One year later me, Mom, my aunt and two cousins went to vast Grandma and Grandpa again...... We would go out to the road and pick up pretty gravels and brought them home with us. We didn't have nay gravels on our roads, they were just mud. In the winter time, cars couldn't get to our house If we were having company, Dad would go a mile to the mouth of the hollow where we lived and get them in the wagon. We would have young chickens and when someone come to stay all night, Mom would get up early, kill one and skin it and fry it for breakfast and make gravy. Before we got a radio we would go to my uncle's house on Saturday night to listen to the Grand Ole Opery. Before we got a TV we would go to the neighbor's houses to watch wrestling, boxing and Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. We visited our neighbors almost every night or they visited us. All us kids would be running and playing. We had a dog that would play ball with us. She would run and get the ball and bring back to us to throw again.
� Copyrighted Ivory Barker