A Grandfather's Gift

THE BEGINNING Thomas James Smith, my father was born December 16, 1905, to John and Annie Smith, in Jefferson County, Mississippi and one day when he had reached the age of 28, and still single he was over at Clark, MS at the post office talking to Hollis Segrest the Postmaster. Hollis asked, “Tom when are you going to get married”? Daddy said, “Well, I’m not against the idea, but I just ain’t found the right girl yet”. Mr. Segrest said, “Well, Pearl Beesley has a beautiful young gal up yonder named Annie Mae and I think she is about marrying age”. Daddy said, “Well, I’ll have to talk to her one day when I get a chance”. Finally another one of those parties, “Dances”, was announced and would be held at someone’s house the next Saturday night. There would sometimes be live music if the local musicians were available to play. They played for food and whiskey or whatever alcoholic beverage that was offered. Moonshine whiskey (homemade whiskey) was the main stay of alcoholic drinks. If the musicians were not available, the dance would have to be held at someone’s house who owned a wind-up record player. No invitations would be sent out. Everybody around the neighborhood had an open invitation to every dance. The dance would begin and the house would be filled with guest. There would be no cars parked in the yard, because few people had cars and few had horses to ride. Some rode work mules, but maybe they didn’t have a saddle, some just walked over. The Blue Hill and Clark communities were densely populated in those days, so the walk wouldn’t be more than a mile or two. The couples would meet at some location and walk two by two down the trail to the dance. They would be spaced out several steps, so sweet talk could be exchanged as they walked along and not be overheard by the others. The depression of that era had everybody..................... Uncle Bill said, “Tom, I’m gonna ride old Rock to the house”. There was an oak stump near the path which was left after they had cut a tree for house wood. Small limbs had sprouted out and up from the oak stump making a perfect hiding place. Uncle Bill jumped up on that stump and squatted down so he couldn’t be seen and waited for ole Rock to come slowly walking by in the path. The mule was walking like he was half asleep with his ears flopping downward and his eyes half closed. When ole Rock got even with the stump, Uncle Bill sailed out of those sprouts onto ole Rock’s back. Rock didn’t know what that thing was that had jumped out of those woods on him and he wanted whatever it was off and right now. He was bucking and bringing all four feet off the ground and Uncle Bill without anything to hold on with, came off the mule and sailed through the air and hit the ground hard. Uncle Bill jumped up and brushing the dust off his clothes said, “Tom, if I hadn’t jumped off that crazy mule, I believe he would have thrown me”. Daddy told………….. It seems the house had cracks in the floors wide enough for snakes to crawl into the house. She had pulled out a dresser drawer one day and found a rat snake or chicken snake coiled up on the clothes in that drawer. Somebody who didn't know about this incident just simply asked, "Annie Mae, why are ya'll moving?" Mama replied, "Let me tell you something, when snakes start getting in your drawers, it's time to move!" One can imagine the wonder the other person had when she asked, "What in the world are you talking about Annie Mae?" They then moved to............ Grandpa and daddy were gathering vegetables in the garden one day and daddy saw a snake. He didn’t have a hoe or anything to kill it with, he just had a bucket. So, he started stomping the snake. Grandpa was a couple of rows over and asked, “What are you doing over there boy?” Daddy said, “I’m trying to stomp a snake.” Grandpa yelled, “You better leave that thing alone boy, he might bite you.” Daddy yelled back, “Well, you better look out, he’s coming your way!” Grandpa yelled, “Stomp ‘im Tom, stomp’im.” After that…………………… Fortunately the job had lasted long enough for my parents to save enough money to buy a farm and build a house. The farm is located in Jefferson County, one mile south of Hwy 552 on the left side of Lucky Hollow Road heading south. Every country boy wanted a farm and my daddy was no different. He made a deal with Krause and Company to buy a farm with one hundred acres more or less (which was actually 128 acres) in Jefferson County, which later became our home place and still is until this day. They bought the place for $ 10.00 per acre or a $ 1,000.00 for the farm and two old houses and a barn. The area was populated mostly small farmers. The farms were anywhere from a few acres to several hundred acres in size……………. The folk would sit out on the front porch at night and listen to the steam engine on the old Dummy Line blow it’s steam whistle. Daddy said you could tell which engineer was at the throttle by the lonesome sound of the whistle. There were many railroad songs in those days and the freight train whistles were very popular. The engineers knew people lived all over those woods and liked to hear a train whistle. In the still of night that whistle could be heard miles away. When the train approached a crossing they would pull that cord on the steam whistle for a few seconds, let off and pull it a couple more times more slowly and make sounds that would chill your blood. Then the train would snake on around the hills and approach another crossing and blow that whistle again. As the train traveled farther towards Red Lick you could barely hear the whistle in the distance. If only that could have been recorded. There are a few Jimmy Rogers records that have that sound on them and that kind of gives me an idea of how it must have sounded. You can also hear that sound in the movies, but the movie sounds aren’t as romantic as the whistles on the Jimmy Rogers records. Uncle Dan and the Sheriff spoke and sit on the front porch and did a certain amount of small talk for awhile. Uncle Dan said that was the longest time he had spent in his life. He was waiting for the sheriff to get to it. He finally just asked, “Bob, what do I owe this pleasure.” The sheriff said, “Come on with me, I want to go out here and look at your dairy cattle.” They walked down the path toward the barn out of hearing of anyone in the house. When they reached the point along the path of Uncle Dan’s whiskey stash, the sheriff stopped. Uncle Dan was really nervous now. The stash was right there and the sheriff was going to raid it. He said, “Dan, you and I have known each other for a long time.” He continued, “I know you are making whiskey and I know where your still is located.” Uncle Dan said he almost hit the ground at that point, he just knew what was coming next. He had illusions about picking cotton in State Penitentiary up in Parchman and was wondering just how long he would have to be up there. The sheriff said, “I don’t want to bust up your still, so you shut it down, bring it in and store that thing in your barn or someplace around here.” Uncle Dan said, “I have a few barrels of mash aging, would it be alright if I make that much more whiskey, but no more than that?” Uncle Dan couldn’t believe what he was asking, especially what he was asking a lawman. Anyway he had asked it and at the same time realized that in his nervousness he had admitted to a major crime. He immediately thought the sheriff might be using him to get a confession. If he had, Uncle Dan had fallen head first into the trap. Uncle Dan asked quickly, “If you think I’m making whiskey, why ain’t you arresting me?” The sheriff turned to Uncle Dan and said, “Dan, let me tell you something, you know this is an election year.” Uncle Dan acknowledged that he knew that and the sheriff continued, “If I bust up all you moonshiners,