The Cross Timbers

by Edward Everett Dale

  Fishing for George and me was confined to the streams within walking distance of home. This meant only three: Marshall Branch, the upper part of which was hardly a mile to the north; Henrietta Creek, a much larger stream about three miles to the west of our home; and Bear Creek, which had its source near Keller and flowed eastward, presumably into the Trinity River.

  Marshall Branch and Henrietta Creek ran north into a much larger stream called Denton Creek. We were told that it and the county and town of Denton were named for himself by an early pioneer settler of that area. It was also said that he had three daughters, Henrietta, Elizabeth, and the baby girl, little Harriet, and that he named the three southern tributaries of Denton Creek for them. If so, he erred in naming the westernmost of the three tributaries “Little Harriet Creek,” for it is the biggest of the three!

  While George and I hunted in summer as well as winter, as there were no closed seasons, we usually preferred fishing during the spring and summer months, though we sometimes took the gun or guns with us even when going fishing. Always there was the possibility that we might see some ducks, plovers, rabbits, or some other game.

  Marshall Branch, being the nearest fishing stream, was visited far more often than Henrietta Creek; I do not recall ever fishing in Bear Creek, but George did at least a few times with some boys of his own age. We seldom fished more than four or five times a summer in Henrietta Creek and always spent the entire day, taking a lunch with us.

  Our fishing tackle was very simple. All we ever had was a long willow pole with a line, hook, sinker of lead, and a large cork, usually from a pickle bottle, for a “bobber.” We punched a hole in the middle of the cork, through which the line ran, and then moved the cork up or down depending upon the depth of the water. We had seen reels but never dreamed of using one; and flies, plugs, spinners, spoons, snell hooks, leaders, minnow buckets, landing nets, creels, casting rods, fly rods, and all the other gadgets that fishermen use now, we had never seen.

  If we needed a stringer we made one by tying one end of a yard-length of line around the middle of a green stick the size of a lead pencil. The other end of the line we tied close to one end of a short green stick that was sharpened to a point at its other end so that it could be easily passed through the gills and out of the mouth of any fish caught. The sharpened stick could then be pushed into the ground near the edge of the water to serve as an anchor to all fish we had landed.

  For bait we used earthworms, sometimes called redworms or fishworms. Lacking these we used grasshoppers, crickets, grub-worms, liver, or the flesh of a bird or rabbit which we had shot. Some persons asserted that small balls of dough or a bit of red flannel might be used as bait for catching certain kinds of fish.

  Many superstitions were applied to fishing and wide differences of opinion were held as to how and when one could have the best luck in fishing. Fletcher Williams and other boys in the neighborhood would always spit on the bait before putting the hook in the water. Other fishermen thought that the direction from which the wind was blowing influenced one’s luck in fishing, and these quoted a little rhyme:

  Wind’s in the east,

  The fish bite the least.

  Wind from the south,

  Blows the hook from their mouth.

  Wind in the west,

  The fish bite the best.

  Still others declared that the moon had something to do with one’s luck in fishing but apparently they could never agree on whether it was better in the light or dark of the moon. Considerable difference of opinion also prevailed as to the time of day when the fish were most likely to be biting, though it was generally conceded that early morning and late afternoon were better than the middle of the day.

  My brother George and I had little faith in such ideas but fished any time during the spring and summer months that we were free from work, which was usually Saturday afternoon. As Marshall Branch was within easy walking distance it was our favorite fishing stream when we had only a half day to fish. It traversed a short-grass prairie region with two or three trees and a few clumps of willows on its banks for a mile or two from its source near the railroad.

  We usually dug a can of worms and started fishing on the upper reaches of the stream and fished down it for a couple of miles, since the so-called “fishing holes” became progressively larger and deeper as we got farther downstream. The water was usually a little cloudy, at least compared with the much larger Henrietta Creek.

  We had no particular rules to follow in fishing except to set the float or “bobber” on the line high enough to let the hook come within a few inches of the bottom of the pool. If set so high that the hook lay on the bottom crawfish would steal the bait. We never spat on the bait, for that we regarded as a foolish superstition, but we were careful to bait the hook in such a way as to keep the point covered.

  Once the baited hook was in the water it was necessary only to watch the cork, and when it went under or started moving across the water to jerk quickly and pull out the fish. Of course you sometimes lost one which you always felt was bigger than the largest one you caught. At least that was what you told your comrade and the folks at home!

  We caught plenty of fish in Marshall Branch but they were small. Most of them were perch, bream, sunfish, and catfish so small that we often referred to them as “kitten fish.” Once in a while we might catch one a foot long but the average length was about seven to nine inches. We often caught as many as forty or more fish in a single afternoon but three-fourths of them would be perch, bream, and sunfish. Rolled in corn meal and fried in deep fat, however, they were quite good eating.

  Fishing in Henrietta Creek was more fun, and more of an adventure than in Marshall Branch. It was not only a much larger stream but it was in a limestone area and the water was usually very clear. Also, because it was bordered by large trees it was possible to sit on a rock in the shade and watch comfortably, as well as patiently, your cork floating on the water.

  The first fishing trip to Henrietta Creek that I can recall was when by brother Henry visited us before he had joined Mattie’s husband in establishing a store at Navajoe. In addition to bringing us a caged prairie dog, a pair of kangaroo rats, and a lot of dried turkey meat, he had in his wagon a “trammel net.” When he proposed that we go fishing our father, George, and I accompanied him to Henrietta Creek.

  A trammel net consists of two nets, one with large holes and the other with small holes. After it is stretched across a stream the fishermen go upstream some thirty yards and drive the fish toward the net by wading downstream. The fish go through the large holes and strike the smaller meshed net, which stops them.

  The two nets are so close together that the fish cannot turn completely around and are caught between the two when the net is pulled out of the water. We made a good catch that day, hauling up three or four drum, a couple of large bass, and two or three good-sized catfish. The small fish, of course, escape through the holes of the smaller meshed net. The use of trammel nets and seines is now illegal in most states, but in the late eighties Texas had comparatively few fish-and-game laws that we knew of in our community.

  Sometimes my brother George and I would take a neighbor boy or two with us when we went fishing at Henrietta Creek. Upon one occasion John Clark was with us. It was a beautiful June day, and the water was clear as crystal. In many pools we could see bass sixteen to eighteen inches long; but though we dangled a hook baited with worms, grasshoppers, crickets, or a small frog directly in front of them they showed no interest in any kind of bait we might offer.

  As we walked along the creek bank we came to a large deep pool of water with a long narrow inlet stretching away sixty to seventy feet to the southwest. Near the upper end of this we saw a beautiful bass at least eighteen inches long apparently sunning himself in the shallow water. George whispered softly to John and me, “Boys, you stand here and stop him from getting back into the main creek. I’ll slip up and dangle this big grasshopper on my hook right in front of him. Now
turn him back if he starts for deep water.” John was standing on the bank of the inlet and I was a yard or so below him. We both hardly breathed as George sneaked very cautiously to a point well back of the bank and gently tossed his hook into the water.

  Evidently the fish saw his shadow and was gone like an arrow. Turn him back! We might as well have tried to turn back a flash of lightning! John jumped into the middle of the inlet with a mightly splash, but before he hit the water the fish was far below and in the deep pool. John came out looking a little foolish and pretty wet, for the clear water was a good deal deeper than it looked. He dried out quickly, however, in the hot sun.

  We fished all day and caught nothing but a few small bream and perch until late in the afternoon when we were all fishing in a big deep pool. George’s cork suddenly plunged under and he landed a channel cat at least eighteen inches long. While George was removing the hook John rushed up and, standing almost in George’s tracks, threw his hook into the water at as nearly as possible the exact spot where the fish had been caught. Evidently he thought that fish came in pairs like shoes. He fished diligently there for fifteen minutes but not a nibble rewarded his efforts.

  The sun was nearly down by this time, and we had three miles to walk. We reluctantly wound our lines around the end of our fishing poles, pushed the sharp end of the hook into the cork, and started for home. It had been a happy day even if we had caught but few fish. George was very proud of his big channel cat, which is one of the most delicious fish to be found in the streams of Texas or any other state.

  During the summer that my brother John and his wife lived with us my father took me with him on a fishing trip to Henrietta Creek. For some reason George and the rest of the family did not go, probably because they were eager to finish some job on the farm. Father and I went in the spring wagon, took a lunch with us, and spent the day. On this trip my father proved that he was not idly boasting when he claimed to be a superior fisherman. I managed to catch a fairly good string of perch; but he caught two black bass, one of them weighing over three pounds and the other slightly over four.

  While we never felt that fishing was quite as much fun as hunting, we were ardent anglers just the same, always ready to go fishing when the opportunity was offered us. Moreover, we rejoiced as much when we caught a long string of fish as we did over a successful hunt. Our method of fishing with a cork or bobber which had to be watched closely may have increased our powers of concentration. At any rate, when I went to bed at night after fishing half a day, the moment my eyes were closed I could see my cork on the water bobbing a little at times as a perch or catfish nibbled at the bait.

  Perhaps it is not surprising that most people of the Cross Timbers had some superstitions as to fish and fishing. Apparently most persons today are not entirely free of such superstitions. Fish seem to bite or not bite “without rhyme or reason.” Sometimes one may find the fishing good one day and the following day never get a nibble at the same spot using the same bait. Occasionally fish may take the bait ravenously for an hour or so and then mysteriously stop biting.

  Scientists may provide the answers, but the average person fishes in the realm of metaphysics! He has no idea what causes him to have “good luck” one day and “no luck” at all the next; or why when three or four persons are fishing, one catches a dozen and the others catch only two or three. It is not surprising that “fisherman’s luck” has become a stock phrase. Even today anyone passing a fisherman dangling his hook in the water never asks, “Are you catching many?” Always it is, “Having any luck?” or “What luck are you having?”

  Not only did the age-old mystery which clings to the vocation of the Apostle Peter and Izaak Walton affect us in my boyhood but it seems to be nationwide, if not world-wide, even today. In addition, the “fringe benefits” of a fishing trip which we received as boys were not too unlike those that come to modern business or professional men who go fishing. We had a day or half day of freedom from work in the field, just as they can get away from the office and the petty details of their business.

  I can still recall with great pleasure the long walks over the green, flower-spangled prairie to Henrietta Creek, with a big jack rabbit jumping up occasionally to go loping off, turning slightly sideways just to show that he was in no particular hurry. Once the stream was reached it was real luxury to sit on a rock in a shady spot beside a deep foam-flecked pool and watch your cork floating on the water, hoping any instant to see it plunge under. Even if only small ones were caught, or none at all for an hour or so, you knew that big ones were in there and sooner or later you would surely hook one.

  When the sun indicated that it was about noon there was the lunch to unpack and eat. Bacon-and-egg sandwiches made with big slices of homemade bread, sweet sandwiches with butter and jam or jelly generously spread on the bread, and perhaps a few cookies or pieces of cake tasted much better when eaten while we were sitting on a rock beside a clear stream than they would at home.

  No doubt the “tired business man” on a similar trip carrying a hundred dollars worth of equipment now feels as we boys of the Texas Cross Timbers did nearly three-quarters of a century ago—that going fishing is always fun regardless of whether you catch any fish or “have no luck” at all. Moreover, it has been said that “Providence does not deduct from one’s life span the hours spent in fishing.”

  9. School and Schoolmates

  My formal schooling began late. The school laws of Texas during the time we lived in the Cross Timbers provided free schools for all pupils from eight to sixteen years of age, inclusive. Compulsory education lay far in the future and it is doubtful if any proposal for a law compelling parents to send their children to school between specified ages would have received many votes, at least in our community.

  Since I had learned to read long before I had reached free-school age, my father saw little reason to send me to school earlier or to keep me there the entire term if I was needed at home to thin corn, chop cotton, or do other useful work. George had attended school a little at Lone Star Schoolhouse when we lived on the rented farm on the prairie.

  One day, several months after my mother’s death, Alice took me with her to visit one of her friends in Keller, who lived near the two-room schoolhouse. When we saw the children playing at afternoon recess, she asked me if I would like to go to the school playground, sit with George during the final period, and come home with him. Of course I was thrilled at the prospect of visiting a schoolroom and ran over to the playground as fast as my little legs could carry me.

  A game of ball was going on, but George seemed glad to see me. In a few minutes the bell rang, and all the youngsters trooped into their respective rooms, the small fry to the “little room” and the larger ones to the “big room.” I tagged right along with George, who was in the so-called “big room” presided over by “Professor” Moore, while the teacher of the smaller kids was Miss Jennie Curtis. A man teaching, even in a one-room school, was always called “professor,” while the pupils were called “scholars,” a gross overstatement of fact, but hardly more so than referring to all young persons in college as “students”!

  I sat down by George, who had a double desk but no deskmate, and gazed with wondering eyes at my strange surroundings, for this was my first time inside a schoolroom. The blackboard, the raised platform on which Professor Moore’s desk stood, the erasers hanging by long strings from nails just above the blackboard, and the mottoes on the wall all fascinated me. I noticed too that the girls all sat on the south side of the room and the boys on the north side, that a big wood stove stood in the center of the room to supply heat.

  The first class called was in algebra and had only three or four of the biggest boys in school. One of them, Albert Hussey, was called upon to solve a problem. He wrote some strange symbols on the blackboard, combined them with large letters of the alphabet and figures, and at last took a long stick, which I later learned was called a pointer, and pointing it at the various letters and symbols be
gan to speak with a strong nasal voice, “Now, if A eenqual B and B eenqual C, then A eenquals C.” I looked and listened goggle-eyed, as I said to myself, “Gee whiz, how does he know that?” Such wisdom was far beyond by understanding!

  The algebra class was at last dismissed and returned to the seats its members had originally occupied. Then a class in grammar was called, and a dozen boys and girls arose and moved forward to sit on the two long benches directly in front of the platform on which stood the Professor’s desk.

  Half of them were sent to the blackboard and Professor Moore read from a book a sentence to each member of the group to be written on the board. I could read the sentences fairly easily; but when the teacher asked the pupils to “diagram the sentence” and they began by drawing long lines on which some of the words were written and from them drew slanting or broken lines on which other words of the sentence were written, I despaired of understanding what was going on and lost all interest in the subsequent proceedings. Apparently George did not have a class in the period following afternoon recess and could devote the entire time to studying his lessons for the next day.

  The grammar class was followed by one in geography, which interested me a great deal. Then came one in physiology, which was also of considerable interest. Finally, at about ten minutes to four, when school was to be dismissed, or “let out,” or “turned out,” in the idiom of the Cross Timbers, came roll call.

  As the teacher called the roll, in which names were in alphabetical order, a pupil who had reached school on time and had not whispered to any schoolmate during the day answered, “Perfect.” If he had been late, his answer was, “Tardy”; if he had whispered without permission it was, “Imperfect.”

  Then two of the older students each passed a small tray of little cards bearing the words One Token of Merit. Everyone who had been “Perfect” took one. George had told me that when you got five of these you exchanged them for a larger five-tokens-of-merit card, and that fifty tokens of merit brought you a large and very beautiful colored card.