The Cross Timbers Read Online Free PDF Page A

south of us, eventually sold his farm to the Ponder family, who had a grown son and four or five daughters, but we never came to know them very well. Another family nearby were the Bourlands, who owned a large farm. They belonged to my father’s church—the Primitive, or Old School, Baptist Church, commonly called the Hardshell Baptist Church.
    Until John and Mattie Briley and their children left that part of Texas they were our closest friends. They came to Texas from Tennessee and lived a year or so on a rented farm adjoining the one that my father had rented on the prairie. About the time Father moved his family to our new home in the Cross Timbers the Brileys bought and occupied a farm about three miles northeast of us. It was deeper in the woods than was ours but had a fairly good house, outbuildings, fenced fields, and an orchard.
    We visited the Brileys often and they often came to see us. These visits were usually on Sunday, and when we spent the entire day together. They had three sons and a daughter. The older boys were Walter, a couple of years younger than George, and Oscar, almost exactly my age. They were good kids and would sometimes come over on Saturday afternoon and spend the night and all day Sunday with us, or George and I would visit them for a short weekend. We missed them a great deal when, about 1890, Mr. Briley sold the farm and took his family to the Prairie West.
    In addition to our social contacts with the neighbors, we frequently had visitors who lived several miles away. One of our perennial callers was Uncle Bill Lopp, who came to see us almost once a week for ten years. He was a talkative old fellow, who was reputed to have considerable knowledge of medicine.
    One day, when I was about four years old, my sister Mattie slipped out the back door and fled to the orchard when she saw a mother and daughter coming whom she thoroughly disliked. My mother gently reproved Mattie after the visitors had gone, but the incident impressed me a great deal. As a result, the next time I saw Mr. Lopp coming I hurried to the smokehouse in theback yard and sat down in a corner behind a barrel of salt pork. Mother and George called me but I remained still as a mouse, fondly believing that the old man was being deprived of all the pleasure of his visit!! Not until by peeking through a crack I saw the old chap walking away smoking his pipe did I appear to face the family, somewhat flustered by my mysterious disappearance.
    Although Mattie was a typical “teenager” of the time, she married when quite young, and therefore had only one beau who came to see her quite often while she lived in our Cross Timbers home. This was Benton Scott, a young telegraph operator of the Keller railroad station. As there were few social affairs for them to attend, Benton was more or less a “fireside companion” except for walks about the farm.
    George discovered that by leaning a post up between the chimney and the outside wall of the kitchen it was possible for us to climb through the north window of the attic, where we slept. As soon as we had reached the attic George and I would pull dirt dauber’s clay nests from the rafters, crumble them with our hands, and drop them through the cracks in the attic floor onto Benton’s head when he was being entertained by Mattie in the living room below. She would grind her teeth with rage but was helpless. Aften Benton had gone she would urge Mother to give us both a licking, which of course we deserved, but our mother had such a keen sense of humor that she never did.
    Since our house stood on a hill in plain sight of the railroad we were frequently visited by tramps. We always fed them but never let them come into the house. They were always asked to sit down on the little front porch and were given a generous meal of bread and butter, cold meat, preserves, and a quart can of milkor buttermilk. In cold weather my mother or Alice would substitute a pot of coffee