Rutabaga Creek
I was raised by my Mother, Grand Mother, and Grandfather, on my Grand Parents farm in a small Texas community named Rutabaga Creek. The area consisted of farmland, trees, brush and a creek which ran through our family farm. Rutabaga Creek was our place for swimming, fishing, and an excellent cooling off spot during the hot weather. How it got its name, “Rutabaga Creek,” was and still is a mystery to the community. Evidently, it had something to do with rutabagas. My Father died in the Civil War. He fought for the Confederate States of America. We lived in the South, and the enemy had invaded, burning farms, taking livestock, and destroying everything worth saving. Had we lived in the North my father would most probably have fought for the Union? But be that as it may, it’s over now, and Mama still cries regularly.
Paw did not die with hero status. He was never wealthy but a good man who answered the call of his country. I remember him as a hard-working man with thick calluses on his hands.
-He was a mild-mannered man, a devout Christian, and a Father, which anyone would be proud of, anywhere and anytime. He taught me to do right and to live right. I learned never to lie unless it was to spare someone’s feelings. Such as agreeing that Grandma’s hat was pretty when I thought it looked ridiculous. He said, “A man’s word is the most important thing he has.” He taught me many other things and sayings that I keep in my heart. He was killed right after my thirteenth birthday.
My Grand Father, which I call Papa, tells me stories of Paw; when he was young. Just about every day, I’d hear one of twelve or so different stories. Sometimes I listen to a new one. He loved and missed my Paw, but at least, he talks about it. My Grandmother who I call Grandma seldom spoke of him but whenever she did; it was where Mama couldn’t hear her. Mama seemed lost without Paw. Her pain was great, and nothing helped.
As a kid of fourteen, I felt sure I knew everything about raising cattle, hogs, and farming. Every couple of months, my family made the long twenty mile trip into the town of Spanish Grove. It was the closest big town to our community One day to get there, one day to trade, and one day to return home. I looked forward to this trip.
What I saw in Spanish Grove I perceived as the way regular people lived. Our monthly trips to Spanish Grove was exciting.
After unloading our homegrown potatoes, corn, or livestock that Papa had brought to sell, Mama, Papa, and Grandma went about doing their frugal shopping. When I say frugal, I mean they bought nothing extravagant, only necessities, and very few of them. I had no money to spend, but while they did the shopping, I was free to look about the town as long as I stayed close to their location.
Being fourteen, Spanish Grove seemed to be a big city. There were some two-story buildings along the downtown streets, also a giant courthouse and all sorts of businesses. I was a big-eyed kid running around in the best pair of homemade pants and shirt I owned. Occasionally, I would find a penny. What I collected were the spent cartridge casings which I discovered in the street around a couple of saloons that were near the stockyard. While Papa was selling his livestock, I ran around looking for anything I could find that didn’t belong to anyone. The forty caliber bullet casings were shiny. I picked them all up and kept them in my pocket. I know now that they were there from the cowboys shooting their pistols, firing into the air.
After causing such a commotion, they would reload before going into the saloon.
I didn’t go into the pubs, but I peered through the windows and saw the dancing girls and the waitresses as they worked the Cowboys for drinks and tips. The piano player was regularly playing lively tunes and after an hour or so, would stop, and sometimes come outside to rest his fingers.
One day that I remember, in particular, I stood looking through the window and noticed two men in fancy clothes, stacking paper money, and twenty dollar gold pieces on the table where they sat. It was right beside the front window. After they had counted out their stacks of money, they invited a tall cowboy to sit with them. He wore his pistol low and strapped to his leg. He laughed as they spoke to them. They took some money from each stack and placed it in a third stack. The third pile was only a few bills of paper money and a small stack of the twenty dollar gold pieces. The tall cowboy looked around the saloon and pointed out a cowboy that was loud and evidently trying to start a fight with anyone who would fight back. Mostly ignored, it seemed to infuriate him further. The tall cowboy shook hands with both the well-dressed fight promoters and proceeded to intimidate the drunken cowboy.
Soon, a gunfight challenge resulted from the ridicule. The Gunfighter and the drunken cowboy walked outside along with half the crowd. The two men at the front table knocked on the window and made hand motions for me to move from where I stood. They watched as the tall cowboy outdrew the drunken cowboy and shot him in the chest.
As he lay on the manure coated street, he took his last breath as I watched in horror. However, I did see a dime fall from his pocket and onto the street. Soon the Sheriff was there, and he questioned everyone. Well, everyone but me. The road traffic stopped while the dead man lay in the street. I could not get the dime off my mind. Some deputies picked him up placing him on a wagon. As they pulled away, before the traffic started again, I ran and sifted through the sand where he lay and found the dime. A man on the boardwalk yelled at me and raised his hand up for a freight wagon to stop. He scolded me whenever I was out of the way.
I ran to where Papa sat at the livestock sales. I was scared the man that scolded me would tell Papa, so I told him what I had done. Papa turned sort of pale and said, “Boy, what would I have told your Mama and Grand Mama if you would have been shot or else ran over in the street?” I replied, “But, Papa, I knew right where the dime landed.
It only took a second to find it.” He said, “Franklin, you stay right here with me and don’t get out of my sight.” I sat there beside Papa, and after what seemed like an hour, the two pigs and three goats sold, and Papa collected his money at the office. On the way back to the wagon he said to me, “Boy, don’t you breathe a word about the shooting or about you running out into the street for the dime to your Mamma or Grandma. I mean it now because they will crawl all over me for not keeping up with you.” I agreed not to mention anything other than finding a dime. Papa said it would be okay to mention that but not to say that it fell from a dying man’s pocket in the middle of the street. I agreed and from then on; it was Papa’s and my little secret. I bought candy with the dime and shared it with the four of us.
Later that day, I heard the train stopping at the depot, and I took out running toward it, making those long toe-digging strides just to see the giant iron machine. It made the ground tremble as it rolled along the tracks. It was fascinating. It spewed and hissed with the bell ringing and the sound of the steam engine as it boiled out coal smoke.
The passengers quickly unboarded and boarded. The depot men unloaded and loaded a few things, and it thundered away. I was so excited that it tired me out. I had to take a nap when I returned to the wagon.
That particular trip to Spanish Grove was not the typical, routine, market visit. Papa didn’t like to talk about that trip because of what I did while he was supposedly keeping an eye on me. The image of the gunfight and the dying man permanently burned into my fourteen-year-old mind.
I felt as if it aged me or awakened me to realize how quickly that cowboy went from walking around to dying. I was at the age where I could be a child or else a grown-up at my convenience. I would try to make serious talk, but it would usually fail due to the overbearing presence of my adolescence.
Papa understood what I was attempting to do. One day he told me that he understood my frustrations regarding my lack of experience and ability to express myself confidently. He was a patient and very understanding person and took the time to listen to me. One point Papa made helped me so much; to think about the subject spoken of before interjecting my thoughts.
He explained that by listening long enough, I would usually hear the answer to my question. If I didn’t, then it was okay to ask. Papa helped me to understand I wasn’t stupid, but instead, in too big of a hurry to know everything. He said, “Don’t rush life Franklin; you have the rest of your life to learn.”Farming is hard work and a year-round job. Papa knew what and when to do things. I found out by repetition.
When I was sixteen, I could plow and do most everything there was to do. If the weather doesn’t cooperate, the crop suffers. It can rain too much as well as not enough. Times were hard, but we ate three meals a day, were warm in the winter, and had a simple dry house.
I looked forward to each trip to Spanish Grove. Papa had some dies for lead projectiles which were for reloading cartridge casings. Each time we went to Spanish Grove, I sought out and found cartridge casings in the same places as usual. I again saw the two fight promoters in the same saloon at the same table as I had seen two years earlier. I didn’t hang around to see the gunfight like I witnessed when the cowboy got gunned down.
I went to the other saloons and found casings on the ground and trampled into the dirt. I added them to the collection of empty brass casings I had collected during previous trips. I was now in search of the soft metal lead.
On one Spanish Grove trip, I found three pieces of lead pipe about a foot and a half long. Also, some lead from an old glass-paneled door discovered in a pile of trash. The more I searched, the more lead I found. I wound up with about ten pounds. I put it with my stockpile of forty caliber shell casings.
I was almost seventeen, and Papa had given me two pigs to take care of, fatten up, and to carry to the market. The next trip to Spanish Grove, I herded them along with the other animals to the sale. We were expecting about Ten dollars, but they brought fifteen dollars. I was happy at getting such a price, I gave Papa Seven dollars and a half, and I kept the other half. I bought Mama a hairbrush and a hand mirror, Grandma a pair of reading glasses, and for me, a gallon of black gunpowder. I bought sugar and flour with the balance left over. It felt good being able to give. Grandma took her glasses and swapped them for some she could see with better. They were all happy with their gifts.
After returning home, I proceeded to melt lead and make projectiles for the forty caliber shell casings. I had over two hundred casings. Soon, with Papa’s help, I had over two hundred live rounds. I had eyed my papa’s old forty caliber six-gun and holster that mama kept put away. After constant pleading and begging, Mama finally gave-in, letting me use it to learn how to shoot. Papa had to agree to teach me to be safe with it before I could even touch it. He wasn’t wild about the idea because he figured a rifle or shotgun was all I needed to learn to shoot. A pistol was considered unnecessary for farming or hunting.
At Seventeen years old, I fired my first gun. I, like everyone else starting out, could not hit a mule in the butt with a bass fiddle. Gradually, I became better. Not to the point of being excellent, but only better. I sat up targets and practiced every day. I reloaded casings regularly and kept plenty ready. When Papa wasn’t with me, I practiced my quick-draw. There was a washed-out gully where I practiced. I had gotten pretty quick, or so I thought. I had no one for comparison. I still remembered the cowboy shot down as I watched. I knew I was faster than he was. However, he was drunk and humiliated before the gunfight. The gunslinger was lightning quick.
I kept practicing. Eventually, I found a place to practice drawing fast and shooting, out of Papa’s hearing range. He had grown concerned that I might be spending too much time practicing for only shooting targets. He did not want his only Grandson to be a gunslinger. I was quick and accurate, but I had no intention of being a gunslinger. I only wished to defend myself if forced to do so adequately.
At Nineteen Years old, I had finished school but was not recommended by my teacher to further my education. I did not have the educational ambition needed for attending college. I was ready to strike out on my own and hopefully find a good paying job, a girlfriend, and have some things that were not necessary. I had discussed my desires at length with Papa, and he helped me prepare to tell Mamma. Mamma was still mourning the loss of Paw and didn’t want to lose me. Papa convinced her that I was going to go with or without her permission. She finally blessed my decision, and I prepared myself to try making it on my own in Spanish Grove.
I gathered a few clothes, my Paws old pistol, and gun belt and put it all into a burlap sack along with some bread, butter, and jerky. Also, some smoked pork and boiled eggs. Papa gave me four dollars which I promised to repay as soon as I could. He encouraged me to give it a try. Papa was kind, considerate, and understanding. He said, “If you don’t try son, you’ll always regret it. Spanish Grove is only a day’s walk, and your home will always be here for you. You never know, you might be able to build yourself a nice nest egg to help you in the future.”
At the Rutabaga Creek Trading post, the community gathering place; I stopped to see if there were any job listings on the bulletin board. Some old men were sitting around, and one of them volunteered the information that the railroad was hiring laborers. They were paying Three dollars a day. Top pay for experienced construction workers was Three dollars a day, so this railway construction was considered “big” money. I walked lively all the way to Spanish Grove. I could imagine myself returning home with a sack full of cash when the job was over. I could imagine Papas face when I gave him fifty or sixty dollars to spend however he saw fit. Mostly, I wanted Mama to be proud of me.
I could buy Grandma a new stove with bread warmer and six eyes. If I could get the railroad job, think how proud my family would be of me. Soon I reached the regular, “off the beaten path” place, where we Johnson’s always spent the night before going into Spanish Grove.
I was confident that I would be working on the railroad tracks by the next day. The following morning, I went straight to town without making coffee or hot cakes.
Once in town, I began to feel much less confident in myself and was, in fact, a little frightened to be alone. The first stop on my mind was the train depot where I should be able to sign up for a laborer job with the track laying crew. As I rounded the corner, I saw a long line of men standing and sitting on the boardwalk at the depot. I was informed immediately, where to find the end of the line. There were probably a hundred people there. I heard the talk of possibilities regarding having a job laying track and it was depressing. Some guys had sat in line since yesterday morning. It seemed that by the time people in Rutabaga Creek Community heard of the job, it was full up and not likely to hire any for a while. I was not going to give up and go home. I was there, and I had enough to eat for a couple of days if I rationed it out. I also had four dollars.
I met a guy there waiting in line that was my age, and he was going to sit there until he spoke with someone. His name was Mike. I had a feeling that Mike would get mighty hungry before he talked to anyone about hiring on. Who was I to say, heck, a miracle might happen, and he would get hired. I walked and looked from one end of town to the other for any job.
I didn’t care if it was a job taking out slop jars from the hotels and washing them out. I was determined to hire on somewhere doing something. Finally, I sat on a boardwalk and rested. Everywhere I looked had no job openings. I decided I would walk back to the downtown area again. This time, I would go into the stores to ask for a job instead of looking for help wanted signs. I walked until I was tuckered out. Across the corner from where I stood was a saloon named the Cool Breeze Saloon! Its wooden shutters were wide open. The patrons were visible while over-drinking and shouting. The saloon name, “Cool Breeze” was from the open windows causing a draft to circulate through the place. The cigar and cigarette smoke billowed out of one side as the piano man played the same three tunes for an hour. I had never set foot in a saloon, but there’s a first for everything.
