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

Father was a preacher. That is, he became a preacher about the year 1900. I remember when he was ordained. It was at old Shady Grove Church about half-way between Granbury, Texas, and the old Mitchell Ben where we lived at the time. There is a possibility of an error as to the time, as we moved from Mitchell Bend to a place nearer to Neri about the Fall of 1900. We still went back to Shady Grove Church for a few years. After awhile they reorganized the church and we moved our membership to Mambrino which was some three or four mile nearer. I don't know if that had anything to do with Dad's moving so much or not. Lots of times we moved every three or four years at the most and lots of times we stayed in one place but two years. The first place that Dad owned was a 100 acre tract that he bought southeast of Neri, Texas about four miles. We stayed there four years and then he sold that place to a widow named Morrison. Dad then went up north of Neri and bought the Alf Place just east of the Granbury-Neri Road right east of the Comanche Peak.

We stayed at that place two years and then Pa went a long way off -- clear to above Tolar between Tolar and Lipan and bought 200 acres. Here we stayed two years and then he swapped that place for a place in Childress County, Texas. He swapped land, cows, horses, furniture, and everything. No, I take it back, they did not swap teams for we drove our work stock through by land with a wagon and a hack in which the family rode and a wagon in which the younger boys and I rode. It was pretty heavily loaded for a trip that long, but we made it not withstanding the Pease River and all its quicksand. A four horse wagon with a printing press had gotten stuck there a couple of days before. In order for the horses to be freed from the wagon their harness had to be cut all to pieces. The horses were saved, but the wagon and printing press were abandoned.

I did not know as much about quicksand then as I do now or we might not have tackled that place without putting all four of our workstock to the wagon. The mules pulled until you could have put a board over their backs under their traces. That is not a good stance to be in when your life depends on the continual progress of the vehicle. To let the vehicle stop means that you never move it again in most cases. In some instance the entire vehicle will sink under the sands in a very short time.

In those days highways were not very well marked. When you got into a town you usually had to stop and ask someone how to get out of that town. Many times out in the country there were two roads forked and you had no way of knowing which one went where. Some time a prankster may have moved the sign so that you did not know if it was right or not. We would usually stop someone coming from the way we were going and ask them where the road we were led to. We would drive out to the side of the road at night to take our teams out and tie them to a tree, a fence post, or to the wagon wheel. We would then feed them and leave them there all night. Then we men would take some quilts and spread them on the ground and lie down and sleep. We never thought of danger from insects, snakes, or rabid animals. Those were risks that you took in stride. I will never forget one night we had driven until a little after dusk to get across a river that we had been told was easily fordable BUT if the river should rise there might be a delay of three or four days before one could get across. It ws thundering and lightning and did not look as if it could possibly keep from raining the bottom out just any minute. We crossed the river and drove several miles trying to get out of the river brakes. However, the teams were given out and it looked like the brakes were going on forever, so as it was getting too late to see the road very well we decided to camp right in the cedar brakes with low scrubby cedars thick every where with none over head high with most about waist high.

The coyotes were already yelping in every direction when we stopped to make camp. We pulled out to the side of the road, took our axes and cleared a small place to make camp, knowing that the brakes were full of rattlesnakes. The rattler thinks about as much of man's companionship as man thinks of his. If there were any in that vicinity, they left out as we never saw nor heard one throughout our stay. We built a fire but there was a misting rain and what wood we could get was wet, and the fire smoked. Poor Mother had a hard time ever getting our meal fixed. That meal consisted of fired pork and the grease that cooked out of it along with onions and light bread. I had been sick all the way on the tip and this fare really had bushed me. I just could not hardly go to it, but you get so hungry that you can eat a little of anything. We ate then Mother and the Sister had a place in the wagon where they slept, but we boys and Dad made a pallet on the ground and spread a sheet over us and went to sleep. A group of coyotes came up in the night and ate the meat rinds and scraps of bread that the family had discarded in eating supper. We could hear them cracking the meat rinds. They were not more than twenty feet from where we lay and they kept up a constant chorus all night. We woke to a bright sunny day with only a very light drizzle. Had we known it, we could have camped on the other side of the river in a nice camping place. But what of it, we were all still intact even if we did sleep with the coyotes that for one night. It is a good memory some sixty-five years afterward.

We camped at a large artificial pond or lake in a large pasture the next time we camped, and tried to get some doves, but was unlucky. We also tried for fish but was equally unlucky. It was the next day that we found that we had gotten off the road somewhere. We had asked some cowboys the way and they had misdirected us. I always will think that they did it especially to get us into that vicinity. I thought then, and still think that they meant us no good. Only the fact that they found out that we were armed and that at least two of us boys were good marksmen kept them from giving us trouble.

An elderly man came out from the ranch house when we camped at the lake that night about a half mile from the ranch house and talked with Father after two of the boys that had misdirected us came out and sat on their horses and watched us for a while while Brother and I shot at some signs and made pretty good use of our guns. Then they left and the older man came and told us we would have to go back the way we had come for nearly a day's drive. He told us that we should have taken another road and that he would lead us back to the road we should have taken back at the last town where we had asked those cowboys about the road. That was the day before we got to the Pease River. It was in that river that we came close to getting stuck. We whipped the poor old mules unmercifully. We had one big mule and a smaller one. I hooked the large mule's stay chain tightly so she could help the little mule. If I hadn't done that, I expect that we would have gotten stuck. That little mule done all that was in his power, but he just didn't have enough strength. He was all in a jerk all over when we got out of the river. We stopped to give him a chance to rest. I was so sorry for him that I could almost cry. In fact, I think that me and the brother who was helping me whip them both done a little tear shedding partly over the mules and partly over the relief of having that muddy river behind us and having nothing but clear dry roads ahead of us.