One day I was squirrel hunting and had the gun with me. I was only a short distance from the house when I heard company arrive at the house. I started to the house, and met my brother Harold and a group of girls and boys. They had come to go fishing in Clebit Lake. The lake was about two miles through the woods from our house so I joined them.
When we got to the lake there was a bunch of boys from town in the lake seining fish. They had been dragging the seine out onto the bank filled with fish. They picked out the big ones they wanted and left thousands of small ones on the bank to die. The bank was lined with dead fish.
I looked them over and recognized one of them. He was Kenneth Maxwell, he lived in Texarkana, Arkansas. Sometimes he lived with his uncle in our community.
I spoke to Kenneth and told him they were destroying a lot of fish they were not using. I told him if they would put the seine up, I would be glad to come in and help them fill their sack up, by catching them with our hands. That way. they wouldn't kill all the small fish. He told me to kiss his ... I reminded him of the young girls that were in our group. I told him to respect them a little.
He jumped out of the water, naked, and said that this was the respect he had for them and myself. I asked him out on the bank to fight. He did not want that. They had me outnumbered and knew it was a slim chance of my coming into the water He kept repeating his little statement from the water. I had set the shotgun down by a big tree behind me. I stepped back, got the gun, and told him that if he was smart he would not do that again. I told him I would break him from the habit. He saw the gun and told me that I didn't have nerve enough to shoot a rabbit and turned his bottom toward me. I told him that after this he would believe what I said to him and I cut down on him with the shotgun.
They scattered like a herd of cows, all in different directions.
That evening the sheriff came down with a warrant for Harold and I. They had told the sheriff that Harold had brought me the gun and I didn't have it to start with.
I told the sheriff I had only shot to scare him. I told him I knew the range of my gun and if I had wanted to kill him I would have waded out to where I could have done the job. The sheriff told me I had scared him pretty badly and I had stuck a few shot in him. He told me he would have to carry us both into Texarkana with him.
We only stayed in jail one night. They got the story all straightened out and let us go home the next day.
A few months later something funny happened as a result of that.
When the word was spread around that I had shot the Maxwell boy it somehow got twisted. Some of the people understood that I had shot him for cussing me.
About two months later, Buddy and I were duck hunting. We were at Little Pond. This is an open pot hole of water back in the bottoms, three miles or so from our house. We were using live ducks for decoys. We had them tied on a string, all lined up in front of our duck blind. We were quiet and watching for ducks when all of a sudden someone shot our live decoys. Three men ran from the brush out into the open and shot them again. We finally got them shut down. Buddy really got hot, They were our old tame ducks, we had brought from home. They were well trained for what we used them. Buddy demanded pay for the ducks. He told them how much money they could fork over. They were digging in their pockets trying to rake up the money
I had the gun at the time. I was with the ducks looking them over to see if any of them would live over the ordeal.
The men had pooled their money and they lacked a dollar having enough. They had all the stuff out of their pockets looking for more money. Buddy saw a pocket knife one of them had in .his hand. He told them the knife would do to make up for the other dollar The fellow told him he would not let us have his knife.
One of the fellows was a giant of a man. He was six foot six inches tall at least. He was scared out of his wits. He was shaking all over and I had been watching him pretty close. All at once he burst out in a panic stricken voice and told the other man to give us the damn knife and get out of there. He said he didn't know the biggest boy but the little one with the shotgun shot a boy down here, two or three weeks ago, for just cussing him.
The way the man had been misled was funny. It was hard for me to keep from laughing. He thought I was a mean boy that went around shooting people. He did not know what I was like inside and the inside of a man is the most important part. He did not know the real reason I pulled the trigger He never knew that I was willing to work, for nothing, if it would keep small fish from dying and going to waste. He didn't know that I pulled the gun to make him respect the young girls. He didn't know I pulled the trigger to keep my word.
I did not tell Kenneth that I would kill him. I am very careful what I tell a man, but what I do tell him is the way it will be. I told him if he continued to do what he was doing I would break him from the habit and that was what I did.
It is very important to me whether people believe me or not. If people do not believe what you say, you are nothing.
Later in life, feeling like I do about the truth, caused me to lose a mighty fine girlfriend. I was sure stuck on her I could tell she liked me very much too. Everything was going fine until one day she brought her cat to school with her. My desk was close by her's in the schoolroom. While we were all out playing at recess her cat climbed into my desk and helped himself to my lunch.
Now, when it came to my food, I was very serious. It was hard to come by and the cat had no business in school in the first place.
I told her about the crime her cat had committed and that it would be better for the cat if she would leave him at home. She said she would bring him with her anytime she got ready. I told her that I was not over him eating my lunch and if she brought him back to school I would make a bobcat out of him. She said she didn't believe I would cut her cat's tail off. I told her I had just got through telling her that's what I would do. She said that didn't make it the truth. I pulled my knife out, reached and got the cat's tail, and relieved him of his tail. She almost fainted.
I got whipped by the teacher and when my brothers and sisters told my Mother, she got very upset.
She knew I loved animals and was always kind to them. She asked me what caused me to cut the cat's tail off.
I said, "Mother, it is a long story. The first thing I want you to know is that it was not meanness. I have a much larger problem and the poor cat just kind of got caught in the whole thing. The girl is something very special to me. Someday I hope to marry her. I do not want a wife who does not believe what I say and I have not given up on her yet."
"It was something very important to me and it needed to be straightened out right then. I was thinking of our future. We could never be happy if we were going to lie to each other. I want her to know she can believe what I tell her, and that was the way it all happened."
I am sure the cat did not understand the worthy cause of losing his tail. He split the scene immediately
Time proved that the girl did not understand my feelings or the real reason for my behavior, because she quit having anything to do with me.
If I told her something today I just imagine she would take it for the truth.
Mother understood me and knew my intentions were good. She did not stop me from using the shotgun or my knife, but gave me quite a lecture on what they should be used for, and I promised to keep the cats out of my personal affairs.
Chapter Five
Winter was coming on and our wood burning heater, we used for heat, had barely made it the winter before.
We had no way of getting another heater. They had to come from the store and that meant money.
Mother must have been doing some real thinking. She came up with the idea of building a fireplace. We all knew this fireplace would have to come from what we had or what we could get for nothing. We all had ideas but Mother's were usually the best.
We had an old mule Daddy had bought from Bill Cox. We were still making payments on him at the time Daddy