| told me that before we went to work
that he would kill me enough hogs to make my meat for the year. I told
him that I never could work enough to pay for that much meat. He told
me I could and more too. He said, "Today's good hog killing
weather, let's go and butcher enough hogs to make enough meat to do
you for the year."
After this hog killing was over, I went down the next morning to go to work. Still I couldn't see what he would put me to doing. I couldn't see anything to do. When I got down there he had a long handled shovel, a chopping axe, and a pick. He said, "See this forty acres of stumps here? I want all this dug up!" It looked like a mountain to me. I didn't think I could ever get them out, but by the time spring came, I had them all cleared out. I got .75 cents a day. I had a hundred dollars above our meat and other expenses. THE FAMILY There were six children born of our union. Three are deceased. Lowell Dacus, died in 1947. Bernice died in 1951, and James Paul died in 1957. We have three children with us. Mildred, Avery L., and Thomas E. Also one stepson, Carlos Garland. James Paul was an unusually smart child. By the time he was three years old, I began to teach him to sing. I couldn't discover anything unusual about him, but people would come to my house and tell my wife and I that we'd never raise that boy, that it was too unusual to see a child sing like that! Thomas E. was two years older than James Paul, and Thomas would play the Piano and James Paul would sing. This went on for a year or so. One morning James Paul got out of his bed and came into the dining room and threw up his hands and his eyes shot up and he got down on his knees and a flash came over him. I went at once to see a doctor and told him how these flashes would come over him when he got up in the morning. He to me to forget it, that nothing could happen to a boy like that. But to our sorrow, it did! 34 |