PITTS: City boy doesn’t know how to call the cows home

Charles. When Charles tried to catch him he bit Charles through the upper lip. He then headed down the railroad track. Charles carried that scar on his upper lip until he died.

Two of Grandfathers’ grandsons came down from Wichita, Kan., to spend the summer with him. Their names were Frank and Steve Davis. One day, Grandfather brought Steve to work with him. He told Steve to watch Dan while he was plowing with Ribbon. He told him to let him graze but to keep him out of the corn.

Grandfather asked Steve, “Didn’t I tell you to keep him out of the corn?”

Steve answered, “But Grandpa, I called him everything I could think of and he wouldn’t come back.”

Of course he couldn’t blame Steve, he was a city boy.

Just as school was out for the year, we got to move into the better house. The only drawback was that we had to walk about a quarter mile to a spring to get our water. Dad built a sled and got a wooden barrel, so we could hook up Kit, the mare, and haul a barrel of water to do the laundry. But we still had to carry the drinking and cooking water. We liked this house a lot better and Mother didn’t have to put up with the cat anymore. An old bachelor moved into the old house and he had about a half dozen old cars that didn’t run. We never knew what he was keeping them for. We boys had a lot of fun playing in them.

We had a neighbor by the name of O’Neal. He was Irish, a bachelor and no one could understand what he was saying. He had one daughter and three sons living with him. He had a married daughter living in Kansas. The girl’s name was Maggie, and the boys were Jim, Bill and Barney. Maggie married another neighbor boy by the name of Lonnie Dart. Lonnie’s uncle was named Frank and he was a watch tinker. He taught Lonnie the trade, and Lonnie became the watch tinker of the neighborhood. I was always amused by Frank when he would ride his highwheeled bicycle. I could never understand how he could stay on the thing. I was also amused by Barney. He was always humming or singing a tune. It went something like this, “I had a piece of pie and had a piece of pudding. I gave it all away to see Sally Goodin. I thought to my soul that I would be a dumb one, then I looked down the road and saw her a comin’.”

One evening Wix came home and we saw a big blaze in the east. Mother sent Wix to Garfield to see what it was. When he came back he said that Harry Baker’s two-story general store had burned to the ground.

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Editor’s note: Joe Pitts (19202008) was a native of Pea Ridge and regular columnist for the newspaper. He began writing a column for The Times in 2000 initially entitled “Things Happen” by Joe “Pea Patch” Pitts.