| for help. All that he asked was some
feed for his oxen and some corn for bread for his family. One day the
new man became desperate and for want of food for his oxen and his
family, he drove his wagon to house of a well-to-do farmer and told the
farmer his situation. He said, "I'm not going to steal your
corn, but I do have a gun with me and I'm going to take a load of your
corn 'till fall harvest." The farmer quickly replied that he
could have the corn and from that day on, the new man had all the help
he needed. He made a good crop with his yoke of oxen, although it could
be considered very slow farming for us today.
I remember that the Missouri man used to come to our barn for the husk off our corn. Pa would try to throw some nubbins of corn into the husk pile, but the man would reject the corn. He said that all he asked was the husk from our corn, which he fed to his stock. There was another family that lived close by us by the name of Land. The old man Land passed away. Another neighbor by the name of Russell knew that Mr. Land had butchered his fat hogs for the year and stored the meat in the smoke house. Sometime after midnight, Russell pried loose a plank in the floor of the dead man's smoke house and stole a large amount of the meat. The next day a search warrant was issued and the meat was found at Russell's house. Everyone knew that Russell had not butchered any hogs. After Russel was sent to jail for theft a girl composed a song with words as follows: "Oh Mr. Sam Russell, we think it a treat We got you in jail for stealing some meat. It's hard times in the Paragould jail It's hard times, poor boy!" VENTURING WEST In 1900 Pa sold our farm and we started to travel for his health. He had contacted Tuberculosis. He thought by selling out and going to a different climate he would get well. He wanted to venture out west where he must have thought money grew on trees. We sold out in October of 1900, just a couple of
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