Part III-The Farm, Chapter 24-Family Stories

CHAPTER 24

Family Stories

The Cat in the Barn

Everyone that has ever milked by hand knows the cow feed always attracts mice. In order to control this problem, you keep a few cats around the barn. If you ever start supplementing the cat’s meat diet with milk, the cats become very attentive at milking time. Most barns I was ever around had a small bowl to put a little milk in for the cats. When you first walked into the barn, the cats would start clamoring to be fed; of course you had no milk in the bucket at that time so as soon as you sat down the natural tendency was to squirt some milk in the direction of the begging cats. They soon became experts at snatching the milk out of midair and letting only a minimum amount fall to the ground. It was quite entertaining to watch the cats perform their ballet.

Grandpa Cook had such a barn full of cats. He also dipped snuff. One day he went to milk; he didn’t pay any attention to the cats but he had a mouth full of tobacco juice he needed to get rid of. He turned his head and let it fly towards the gutter in the floor. A nearby cat saw it coming, thought, “Oh boy, here comes supper!” and snatched it out of mid air.

He said that cat left the barn in a hurry and never came back at milking time.

Uncle Henry’s New Car

Uncle Henry had just bought a brand new car. He was showing it off to Grandpa Cook and took him for a ride in it. As usual, Grandpa had his mouth full of tobacco juice. As they were going down the highway, he needed to unload so he turned to the window and let fly. The car was so new and the window so clean that Grandpa didn’t realize it was still rolled up. To say the least, the window was no longer that clean and Uncle Henry’s mood was less jovial than when they started the ride.

The Race Track

Grandpa Cook told me this story himself. It happened when he was in grade school. The desks were designed for two students. Grandpa and his desk-mate noticed lice were running up and down the neck of the boy in front of them. They got to betting each other which louse would get to the top first. They got in trouble with the teacher when they got too rowdy while cheering their steed on.

Crossing the Mississippi

Grandpa Cook told me this story too, but I was young and don’t remember the details. He said one of his relatives was a scout for the Confederates in the Civil War and one day the Yankees almost caught him on the banks of the Mississippi. He spurred his horse into the river and hung on to the horse’s tail while rifle shots splashed all around him. He got away by crossing the river.

For years I thought it was Grandpa’s father that was in the river but Great Grandpa was only 14 years old when the war ended so it was probably someone else.

Crossing the Canadian

Grandma and Grandpa Sullivan moved from Cedar Vale, Kansas to near Mangum, Oklahoma in a covered wagon in January of 1906. Aunt Maurine was just a baby. I have heard Grandma, Grandpa, and Mom all talk about the trip from time to time. They just about lost everything trying to cross the Canadian River. There was supposed to be a barge to float them across, but the river was too low, so they had to ford. They made it across but just barely. Grandpa had to get out in the freezing water and lead the horses two different times.

At Kingfisher, Oklahoma it was bitter cold. They tried to find a hotel but there were no rooms available. There was a saloon but Grandma didn’t want to go in. She finally relented long enough for her and the baby to get warm. The sheriff thought Grandpa might be a horse thief because he had a four horse team instead of just two. His name was cleared when the real thieves were caught. It took 18 days to make the trip; today it would be an easy five hour drive.

Playing Bear

Grandma and Grandpa Sullivan were born on adjoining farms about a week apart. Grandma told the story of when they were all little kids and would play the game “bear.” I guess it was similar to tag; one of the kids was designated as the bear. He would hide and jump out and scare the others as they wandered around. Grandma said one day Grandpa was the bear. All at once he jumped around the corner without a stitch of clothes on. He had decided if he was going to be the bear, he was going to be bare.

Prize Bull

Grandpa Sullivan was always known as one of the more progressive farmers in Greer County Oklahoma. He especially liked his Shorthorn cattle. One year he decided he was going to buy one of the best bulls in the country. He found one and paid $6000 for it. The rascal up and died before he got a single calf out of him. That was a lot of money in those days and I don’t think Grandma ever let him forget it.

Radiator Problems

Mom told of a trip her family took to see all the kin folks in Cedar Vale when she was a child. She said the old car they were in started overheating and there was no water around for the radiator. It burned kerosene and Grandpa had a five gallon can full for fuel. He used it to fill the radiator and got to the next town where they made the necessary repairs.

Uncle Ray

Grandma Sullivan returned to Cedar Vale by train when it was time for Uncle Ray to be born and then returned to Greer County. Grandma said when she had to go to the well which was about 100 yards from the house, she would set the table leg on the tail of Uncle Ray’s night shirt so he couldn’t crawl off and get into trouble. Since Uncle Ray was born in Kansas, when he started school, some of the kids called him “yellow belly”, a derogatory Southern term for Yankees. When this happened, he took his shirt off so the color of his stomach could be clearly seen.

Guess My Name

Nell used to teach kids in Sunday school class. This didn’t happen to her but one of her fellow teachers told this story. In a classroom of six-year-olds, a new boy came in one morning. The teacher asked him what his first name was; he told her. She asked him his last name. He said, “Guess”. She told him she couldn’t guess, he could just tell her. He gave the same answer again. She was just about to lose her Christian dignity until she got it straightened out with the boy’s mother, Mrs. Guess.

Can’t Say Rabbit

One day Nell had taken Randy to the doctor. There was another lady in the waiting room with two kids, one sick and one not. When the mother took the sick boy in to the doctor, Nell was reading children’s books to Randy and the four year old that was left in the room. They had a book with animals in it and Nell was asking the boys to tell what each one was. They did fine until they came to a rabbit. Nell said, “Can you say rabbit?” The little boy said he couldn’t. No matter how much she prompted and urged him, the little boy insisted he couldn’t say the word. When his mother came back in the room Nell told her what had happened. His mother look puzzled for a second and then said she knew what the problem was.

She said the day before some teenage neighbor boys had shot a rabbit. They told the little boy he could have it if his mother didn’t care. She had no use for a dead rabbit and told her son he couldn’t have it. He begged her all afternoon to let him keep the rabbit. She finally got tired of the subject and said, “Look, if you say ‘rabbit’ one more time, you are going to wish you had never seen a rabbit.” He took his mother seriously and refused to say the word.

Babies Come From Hospitals

As a teenager, Nell had a friend that had to have her tonsils out. Her friend told Nell that while she was waiting to be wheeled into the operating room, a six year old boy was on another gurney, waiting for the same operation. They wheeled him out first and he started yelling, “I don’t want to have a baby, I don’t want to have a baby!”

Cat Boo

My brother-in-law, Ron, had a cat named Boo for many years. Mom and Dad were in San Antonio when the cat died of old age. Ron asked Mom if she would bring the cat back to the farm with her and bury him in some peaceful place. Mom said she would. Ron bought a nice piece of cloth and used it as a burial shroud to wrap around the cat. Mom was never one to waste anything; she figured the shroud was just for transportation. When she got it home, she washed it thoroughly and added a fringe around the edge to make a table cloth. I understand Boo was given a proper burial, but the cloth was replaced with a paper bag. You can imagine Ron’s surprise the next time he came to Decatur, ate at Mom’s table and saw his beloved cat’s shroud as a tablecloth.

Dead Man in the Yard

When my three little brothers’ average age was about twelve years old, they pulled a prank on Ron. I’m not sure how much of it was planned and how much just happened. Anyway, Ron and Linda were visiting Decatur, all the beds were full and kids were sleeping on the floor and couches. In the middle of the night an armadillo was rooting around Mom and Dad’s window. He had been tearing the yard up on previous nights so Dad got up to shoot him. When he turned on the light to get his gun, it woke up some of the kids. The commotion woke Ron up and as he walked into the living room, Dad walked outside with the shotgun. Ron asked what was going on and one of my wise little brothers said, “There is a prowler outside!” About that time, “BOOM” the shotgun goes off. As Dad came back in the house, one of my brothers asked, “Did you get him?” Dad, a man of few words, especially in the middle of the night, said, “Yep”, and went back to bed. In the meantime, Ron couldn’t figure out why someone didn’t want to call the sheriff or do something since there was a dead man in the yard.

Come on in Grandma

When my niece, Ellen, was about four years old, she locked herself in Mom’s bathroom. No matter how much Mom and Linda coached her, the lock was stuck and she couldn’t get it open. Mom and Linda were the only ones at home. They finally decided they would have to take the screen off and climb through the window. Of course the window was about head high so it was no easy job. With Mom’s help, Linda finally got into the bathroom. Before she could get the door unlocked, Ellen looked out the window at Mom and said, “Grandma, aren’t you coming in too?”

The Four Wheeler

After Ellen got older, she wanted to learn to drive the four wheeler we used on the farm. However, she wasn’t near as calm when the four wheeler started moving as she was when she was sitting in the bathroom, waiting to be rescued. She started squealing and squeezed the handlebars, including the one with the throttle on it. She didn’t stop until she ran into a telephone post, but thankfully no one was hurt.

Mama, Come Wipe Me

I think my nephew, Chris, was three years old when he decided he was too big to go into the ladies restroom with his mother. One day at the airport he needed to go, but he insisted he go into the men’s room by himself. All went well until it came time to finish the job. He came out the door with his pants around his ankles, paper in hand and said loud enough for several people to hear, “Mama, come wipe me.” She did, and threw the paper in the trash can. But he insisted on digging it out and disposing of it by flushing it down the toilet. He knew the job wasn’t finished until the paper work was done properly. You have to admire a boy that age showing that much independence.

Night School

One day my nephew, Carl, came home from school exhausted; he laid down and fell into a deep sleep. Just as it was getting dark, his big sisters came in and woke him up. He was groggy and they told him to hurry up or he was going to be late for school. He grabbed his books and left. There was some kind of meeting going on at the building and several of the teachers were there. One of them called Carl’s mother (Linda) and said, “You might want to come down here and pick Carl up; he seems kind of confused.”

Pinch through the Curtain

When Mom had her knee operated on, several of us, including my nephew, Collin, were in her rehab room for a visit. Collin was about six. A nurse was also in the room and had the curtain pulled around herself and another patient that shared the room. The nurse was backed up against the curtain and you could see the outline of her posterior. I noticed Collin looking at the bulge and he reached out like he was going to pinch her. Just before he made contact, Allan caught his arm. I wonder what the nurse’s reaction would have been if Collin had got a good hold on her.

911 Call

About a year later, Collin had a camping tent and kept pestering his mother to let him set it up in the living room. She refused but he kept begging. He kept after her and finally she finally sent him upstairs to his room. Not long after that she got a call from the 911 operator. The operator said she had just received a call from Collin saying his mother was being mean to him. Collin had called from the phone upstairs.

The Gas Mask

About a year after the 911 call, Collin and his daddy were in an Army Surplus store. Collin found a gas mask and thought he had to have it. Allan refused to buy it but told him if he would save up his money, they could come back and get it later. He saved his money and when Allan took him back, Collin told his dad, “You know, this gas mask sure is going to come in handy because mama does toot sometimes.”

The Haircut

My niece, Rachel, was just as cute as she could be when she was a baby but you had to admit she was almost bald until she was two. By the time she was three she had grown a good head of hair and she was a real beauty. Then one day, she and Roy slipped off into a bedroom with a pair of scissors and set up a barber shop. What had taken three years to grow in, Roy destroyed in about three minutes. Cheryl didn’t know if she should laugh or cry so she did a little of each. She took Rachel to a real barber shop and they were able to make it look passable. They went back to California and a few months later Rachel decided her hair needed a little more trimming. I didn’t get to see that haircut but from what I heard, she managed to get any long hair that Roy had left.