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"Our main excitement was seeing men swim across the ford in flood time. My little brother was a born fisherman. As soon as he could toddle over the big cotton ridge he would go fishing. I had to go along much against my will. Occasionally we would land a crawfish with our bent pin and sewing thread tackle. We had a flock of puddle ducks on the creek. They roosted in the orchard. Each morning was an Easter egg hunt, and the eggs were almost every color except red. We tried cooking some but that broke us as might say from sucking eggs.
I suppose all tubs had worn out. There were none in the stores, so they would dig a trough out of a big poplar log and use them for washing. They would cut them out as smooth as a cup.
There was a fine big orchard at our home and such wonderful fruit. There were no insects or blight. They would wash and pare these fine apples, pour them in this trough and with clean wooden mauls would beat them into a pulp, put in a little press on an inclined floor and press the cider out. It would turn to vinegar soon and eveyone had a supply of fine apple vinegar.
Our next excitement was the bee robbing, but we kept at a distance. Every container was filled with this fine honey, even the wooden bread tray. You know poverty is said to be the mother of invention. These resourceful people had the determination to overcome the things that this war had brought about. They raised big gourds that would hold nearly a half bushel, sawed the tips off, cleaned out life a tea cup and then they were filled with lard, honey, salt, sugar, soap, and then set on benches. The old dirt floors of the smoke houses had pits where the people had dug up the floors of the smoke houses after the war, put the dirt in hoppers, and poured water over it, boiled it down to get salt which was a precious as gold dust. I used to watch them mold candles and run bullets for the rifles.
The farmers marked their live stock's ears and turned them loose. Each person knew his neighbor's mark, but in time the swamps were full of wild dangerous hogs. The swamps were alive with every king of wild life. The mink, otter, and beaver had yielded millions of dollars worth of fine furs, but at that time was very cheap. We paid little attention to the flight of the pidgeons as they were here before we were. They would start on their flight in the bottom and by sun up would fly in such close formation that the sky was almost hidden as far as you could see in any direction. It would be 8 o'clock before this morning cloud passed and from 4 in the evening till dark to their roost in the hills. They would pile on the smaller limbs till they broke, the woods looked like they had been torn down by a storm. The men would ride up there at night and when they returned they would have big long meal sacks full of pidgeons thrown across their saddles. They all disappeared at once, and there has not been one in the country for over 80 years.
Sometimes previous to the War a Mr Merith Meadors owned all the land between the Christopher Jones place (now the Elliot farm) up to Turon church. He also had dozens of slaves. He was the grandfather of the Booker family. In the spring his son went looking for redhorse fish, something the people had never heard of. He found Bull Mountain and Bigbee almost dammed by these fish--millions of fish. The men went wild. They camped on the creeks, and would haul out fish by the level wagon beds full. That was the first of redhorse fishing.
I cam remember the great timber rafting. It took 70 years to destroy the forest of this fine timber. This was the dangerous hard work enjoyed by the adventurous. Many lives were lost. Also much timber was lost in the breaking up of rafts and sinking from weaker bridges. At the head of Bigbee there is probably a fortune of this fine timber in the bottom of the river.
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