Earlier this year, I told y'all the story of the Rev. C.C. White (left) of Jacksonville, Texas.

The Texas Quote of the Day.

Earlier this year, I told y'all the story of the Rev. C.C. White (left) of Jacksonville, Texas.

The story came to me in the form of a remarkable book, "No Quittin' Sense,' published by the University of Texas Press back in 1969. This photo shows Mr. White serving up some of the barbecue for which he was famous. ANYWAY, the Texas Quote of the Day comes directly from this book. As we pick up the narrative, it's about 1914. This is so, SO good. You might want to grab a cup of coffee. Any mistakes in this transcription are mine. Wrote Mr. White:

“Ben Richardson come to me one day and said he was going to move to Louisiana, and he wanted to know if I'd want to buy his farm. He had 27th and a half acres, and there was a little old house on it. I thought about it several days before I said anything to Lucille about it. She didn't say much of anything when I told her, but the next day she said, "you want to buy that farm, don't you?"

I said, "well, if it was just me I had to look out for I'd want to do it. But I don't know how hard it will be to pay for. And I couldn't stand to see you and the children not have enough to eat. " Lucille walked over and stood in front of me, and caught me around the waist, and looked up in my face and said, "I'm not afraid, Charley.”

Well, so I contracted to buy the farm. Paid $350 for it. It was fenced with good three-strand barb wire fence. You had to have a fence in that community. They kept their livestock all fenced in when the crops was in, and only let them run in the woods in the winter.

The house wasn't much more than a shack. It had three rooms, and wood shutters for windows. But Lucille never complained. And the children was too little to care.

Lucille and me had always worked hard, both of us. We hadn't ever minded work. But looked like when we got some land that belonged to us, it just set us on fire. We didn't seem to get half as tired, or if we did we didn't notice it. One day when we was cleaning up a field Lucille said, "you know, Charley, even the rocks look pretty.”

We always got up as soon as we got awake, generally around 5:00. Lucille fixed breakfast while I done whatever chores needed doing outside. We carried our water from a spring, about 200 yards down the hill from the house, and I always brought a couple of buckets of water in the morning. I'd feed the chickens and milk the cow —- we just had one cow then. I always done the milking. I didn't hardly ever let Lucille do that. After the children got big enough I learned them to milk, but while they was little I done it.

After breakfast we took the children and went to the field. Lucille worked right along with me. Most of the time we went back to the house to eat at noon. But if we was working too far away, on somebody else's place, Lucille fixed us a dinner of cornbread and butter and maybe field peas or turnip greens, whatever we had. Cold cornbread and butter sure tasted good out in the field when we was hungry.

We churned our own butter. Had the same kind of old crock churn Mama had, and the same kind of wooden lid with a hole in it, and a dash I made out of some little boards and a broom handle. Lots of times I done the churning. I always helped when I was at the house. I helped with the children, too. Lucille and me always worked together. When we'd be getting them ready for Sunday School I'd comb their hair and get it ready for her to plait. I never could plait to look like nothing, but I get it ready for her to do.

Lucille generally took one day a week off to do the washing. I cut a wooden barrel in two and made her two wash tubs. She used to have a wood rub board, and she had a big iron pot like Mama used to have. Sometimes I helped her wash, depending on what else I had to do.

She made her own soap out of grease and lye. Used that soap to wash clothes and dishes. We bought our own hand soap.

We had an ironing board Lucille made out of a wide plank. She turned up two benches on end and laid it across them. She heated the irons on the cook stove, so she generally tried to do the ironing while she was getting a meal.

I made her a scrub mop by boring holes in a 2-x-6, pulling twisted corn shucks through, and putting a long wood handle in it. Them corn shucks would last a long time. When they wore down I'd put in some new ones. She scrubbed the floor with ashes. When she got through, them old boards would just be as light and pretty. Lucille could make any old shack seem nice.

Times was pretty good then. That was around 1914. Any extra vegetable we had, or chickens or hogs or anything, we could sell in Nacogdoches. Didn't get a lot for them, but we didn't have to buy much, neither. People was glad to get stuff fresh from the farm. I started butchering hogs and cattle and peddling meat - - and vegetables when I had them - in town.

One day after I finished peddling I brought Lucille a [pie] safe to put in our old shack of a kitchen. It was brand new. It was the very first piece of furniture I ever bought her, not counting the cook stove. I just noticed it there at Cason and Monk’s hardware store and I had a little extra money so I decided to surprise her with it. Paid $12 for it. I put it in the wagon and took it home, and when she saw it she liked to of died, she was so happy. She had been keeping dishes and food on some old shelves I made and put doors on. This new safe had glass doors at the top, then a drawer where she could keep towels and tablecloths, and two screen doors at the bottom, so's food would keep from one meal to the next and couldn't no flies or nothing get at it. When I seen how proud she was to have it I wished I bought it before I did.

The next thing I bought was a buggy. It wasn't new, but it was sound. Now, when I had something to peddle, I used the buggy instead of the wagon and I'd get through a lot faster. Sometimes Lucille would take it and go to town by herself or with one of the children. She really liked to drive that buggy.