Chapter Two
All my life I have drawn a wide line between right and wrong. I will not lie to a fellowman for my personal gain.
I have a temper and I am fast to take action on what I think is wrong. When I was raising cows, if I saw a cow with long horns haul off and hook another old cow that had no horns at all. I would take up the fight. I might run that old cow for five minutes or slam her upside of the head with something.
I cannot stand to see anything. man or beast, take away the rights of another I will fight for something else, or someone else's right as quick as I will my own.
I have always stayed away from politics because I am too strong for right and I could never turn my back on right for money and I know I would, at times, be required to do this. I Sincerely believe that right is right. regardless of who it belongs to, even if it belongs to a cow When someone takes away the rights of me and my family, the Lord and I will straighten it up between us. As a rule I let the Lord try it first, if it is a large job. If he seems to be busy I give him a little help.
I feel like I am stronger for right than any man I know I insist on treating a man right and I see that he treats me at least half way right. That is what this book is all about. I am trying to get back the feelings and what I had before this movie was filmed.
I will unfold parts of my life to you and what went on behind the scenes while this movie was being filmed. Everything I have to say will be the gospel truth and you can believe it. I will work hard on this story to make you acquainted with me. You will need to know me as I am in true life to understand what has been done to me, my family, and friends.
My father died soon after the time my brothers had their mishap. I can still remember things that he said and did. I have been told by many people that he had more friends than any man in this country, in his time.
Mother was left to raise us seven children. She was a school teacher by trade, when she had worked long before. She looked into going back to teaching school. The world had changed a lot by then and you had to have more college and things that she didn't have. She was told she couldn't qualify.
Our house was sitting on forty acres of land. Dad had it half paid for at his death. Mother went to the people we were buying the land from and told them it would be impossible for us to pay for the place. She told them we would get off it as soon as we could find a place to go.
The people were kind and told us to consider it paid for as long as we made it our home. We never forgot that.
Mother is a wonderful woman. She was forty-two years old when Dad passed away She devoted her entire life to us children. She never remarried or at any time dated or gave another man a minute of her time.
She told us that we were her life and that there was no room for anyone else.
She is the type of person who can make it with what she has. She would prove it to us, she wanted us to learn to make it with what we had.
She would say, "Don't quit because you need something, you might set there from. now on. Just think things out, and make it with what you have. Don't give up because you need something that you can't have."
For an example, one time when I was a small boy, I wanted a small wagon.
She said, "We will make you a wagon."
I said, "Out of what? We don't have a thing to even start with."
She said, "We will see what we have."
She got out the crosscut saw and some tools, We went down in the woods and cut down a tree about eight inches in diameter Then we cut some cuts off the tree about one and one half inches long which formed the shape of a wheel. She used four of these and drilled holes in the center with a brace and. bit. She then got some hickory limbs for the axles. She actually built a wagon, that worked, right there in front of our eyes. We used the wagon for a long time. There was no limit to what she could do.
I inherited a lot of her Ideas and they are priceless .to me. They save me money every day, even now.
I would not take a million dollars for being raised back in the woods on the river or for the knowledge I gained.
I have worked very hard to make it possible for my boys to enjoy some of the things that I did as a boy I think it puts something into a boy that he needs badly to make a real man out of him.
I see people that have not had that opportunity and I feel sorry for them. They are helpless and cannot enjoy life.
Things shaped up and Mom got a job working in a government sewing room.
It was a relief project of some kind like the W P. A. that President Roosevelt established to help poor people.
The job site was in Fouke, Ark., our small town seven miles away. The closest grocery store to our home was in Fouke too.
Mother walked fourteen miles a day through dense woods with only a wagon road most of the way Her wage was $29.00 a month. In time she gained enough to get her a small horse and saddle and she rode to work horseback.
When it was raining she would put on a slicker coat and ride fourteen miles in the rain and cold to supply our needs.
We children were walking three miles one way, barefoot through the mud and cold to school.
We were eating out of bucket lids for plates but as a rule we had plenty of food to eat. It came out of the woods and the river Our budget allowed us $5.00 a month to spend on food. Five dollars a month was feeding Mother and seven of us children, so we only bought what we could not raise or catch. As a rule we only needed sugar, flour, and coffee from the store.
We had twelve of our forty acres in cultivation. We milked two or three cows, for milk and butter We usually had a hog or two to kill in the winter We never owned an icebox. We salted the meat down and cured it out to keep it from ruining.
Most of our meat carne out of the woods or the river. We never had money to buy shells or fishing tackle. We had to make it with what we had.
At the age of seven I could dive off the river bank and come up with a fish in my hand. I have done that for money and. guaranteed to come up with a fish in each hand. I can still do just that.
There is a real art to this. I will spend a little time on it with you.
A long time ago the timber people had no roads or any way of hauling the large logs to the mills.
They cut the logs and dragged them by mule teams to the river's edge. There, they would dump them into the river, crib them together to make a raft of a sort. They put plates, with the owner's name and address on them. They turned the raft of logs loose down the river
It was fifty miles or so down the river to Shreveport, La. to the mill. They had crews working down there that would catch the logs, pull them in, mill them up, and mail the money to the owner
Thousands of these logs did not reach their destination. They would hang up and sink for some reason or other In the bottom of Sulphur River these logs are bedded up in clusters and some are scattered out by themselves.
The catfish wallow out holes under these logs and den up under them. Some of the holes are big enough for a man to actually go under the logs himself. Some of the holes are only big enough to get your arm or leg under them. When I first started catching fish with my hands, was to live.
Things were very serious and I had to figure out ways of outdoing the fish. Practice and experience will payoff. You will never catch a catfish like that until you gather some experience and knowledge.
First of all you need to know the habits of the catfish.
The catfish will not let anything but his own kind live under the log that he's claiming for his home.
When you find his home you can forget sticking your hand in a turtle's mouth when you are feeling around. There will not be one with the catfish.
Turtles