BY

Rev. Walter Pervia Rowland

EDITOR'S NOTE: So far I have been unable to locate the rest of this document. Therefore, I have no context to indicate what went before nor what followed this episode. -- rrw

In one sense of the word, I have always been ashamed of the part I had in this episode, and again I was proud in a way for I was the ring leader of it all and I was only eight years old at the time, and very bashful. I was smitten on a little girl about my age, and we managed to sit together awhile and she seemed to be on the winning side with me. Also, I remember us kissing, thinking that no one was watching -- buy there was and we really got kidded about it. At first I resented it and that made it worse, so she told me, "Let's make out like we don't care how much they tease." So we kissed again and that stopped the teasing. I guess it is the old story that the hair of the dog is good for the dog's bite. Anyway that stopped the kidding, but we never kissed any more for fear that it would start up again. I saw the same woman again about seventy years later and asked her if she remembered that episode and she said, ""Better than I remember a lot of things that have happened since."

It is peculiar how short life is and with what triviality it is filled during most of our lives. The last I heard of her she was still living in Wachita County, Oklahoma.

I remember many things that happened at that little school down in old Mitchell Bend [in Somervell County, Texas], in the years 1898 and 1899. I remember some very pretty girls there, and they were considered to be stuck up because they were very particular in their behaviour. Then there were those tomboys who would undertake to do any thing that us boys would try. I remember some of the conveniences we had. It was only about a quarter of a mile down under a hill toa flowing well and some one brought water for the girls, but we boys went to the well for our drinking water. There was no such a thing as a toilet, every one went to the timber for the easing of nature. During my school life more than one boy got caught down on the girls' side of the playground. This was considered a dire disgrace and so only those boys with a low set of morals would stoop low enough to do things like that.

We played Wolf Over the River, and I will never forget one of the almost grown boys coming over to play with us smaller boys. He would not count it when we got him out, and we could not hold him -- at least not one of us to one of them. So we made it up two of us were to catch a foot each and fall and hold onto that foot while the others would pile onto him and get him down and beat him. I am afraid that some of the kids who were really mad at him might have had rocks in their hands. Anyway, I nailed him and he got loose from all the rest, and was kicking me around pretty rough. He kicked me in the mouth and broke two front teeth pretty badly. But finally the other kids, seeing that I was holding on, came in in force and we downed that big feller and the kids beat him up pretty bad before the teacher rescued him. But, he never bothered our games any more. We learned a good lesson in cooperation.

We had our friends and those with whom we were at outs. I remember a little bit of a boy not much more than half my size, but was my age. He had more pure grit than any kid I ever saw and was always getting into fights for he would tackle anything that walked and size made no difference to him.

I remember one day we started after a drink down at the well, and there met us six other boys had already been to the well and they undertook to make us go back. We were in the midst of a hill covered with brush and flint rocks of all sizes, so we got started to throwing rocks at each other and the larger number was making rather interesting for us too. They would always dodge and you could hardly hit one of them at all because we were always fighting with one thing or another. But I got wise to the motioning as if I was going to throw and when they dodged then let them have it. I was getting some pretty good glancing ..[EDITOR: There appear to be some words missing here. -- rw] …and we were keeping the superior numbers at a good safe distance but one big bully whom I had glanced a rock off came rushing in calling us bad names, and telling how he was going to knock our heads off. I grabbed a rock about the size of a good sized hen's egg. I motioned and he dodged, and I let fly and hit him in the center of the forehead knocking him down. It scared me nearly to death, I thought I had killed him. He got up screaming and we battled around until we were almost at his father's house. The old man came running and wanted to know what the trouble was. He had a name for being a real tough umbrey [EDITOR: perhaps the Spanish word hombre -- rrw] so my pal and I forgot that we were thirsty and took off to the school house and got up under the floor.

So that was the day we all had gotten so many whippings, so the next morning when we saw the trustees (this old man was one of them) coming in and shutting the doors and all meeting with the teacher, we crawled back under the house thinking that he had come to have us massacred, or something, and instead of giving us "Hail Columbia" it was the teacher that got the ax and we felt a little sorry for her thinking that maybe we were to blame, because we almost beefed [sic] the trustee's son, but he was the attacker and his team had six where there was just me and the trustee's smaller son.

Well, such is life. How in the world do children ever live to be grown anyway? That they do makes you know that there is a God with a guardian angel watching over the naughty little brats.