Charleston Had It All # 51 Farming at The Reeves
By Mildred Reeves Burnett
Some folks in town fenced chickens in their back yards, desiring to eat fresh country eggs. The fertile eggs were deep yellow, and occasionally double-yoked, which was delightful to discover. There were those who even grazed a cow.
Ah, chickens and cows didn’t mean just eggs, milk, cream and butter, but also delicious homemade ice cream. We children would gather excitedly around the wooden ice cream freezer and even cranked it too.
We anxiously awaited the freezing of the sweet creamy concoction of milk, cream, eggs, sugar, and vanilla our mother had whipped up and cooked on the stove. Sometimes peaches, crushed strawberries, or chocolate was added to the ice cream.
The cylinder-shaped metal container of mixture became harder and harder to crank within the salted ice chunks poured round it, for freezing, inside the freezer.
Finally, after the freezer sat covered for a while, Mom dished up ice cream for us all. When she removed the paddle, which stirred the cream, we’d rake off the leavings with our finger and lick it. We’d also licked off our finger traces of buttery rich vanilla or maybe chocolaty batter left in the mixing bowl when Mom made cakes. Yummie! Everything was made from “scratch.”
Every day brothers Joseph “Tud” and Byron scurried along the dirt lane between our front yard and the cotton fields to the barn lot. It was located within the fenced farm about a quarter mile from the house.
There they cut bailing wire from bales of hay stacked in the barn hallway, tore them apart, then stuffed the hay mangers feeding the cattle and mules, having already tramped inside and waiting. Sometimes they came running across the pasture when they saw my brothers headed for the barn.
After filling the mangers, they threw ear corn from the corn-crib to feed hogs, and a little to the mules, the cattle, too, and several goats when we had them. (Occasionally the goats got loose, climbed our steps onto the porch, and to our surprise we’d discover one standing upon our living room window sill looking inside. We were fond of the goats. When televisions came along, Mom would think someone was knocking at the front door, but would find a goat with neck stretched looking through the window watching it. It was right comical.)
The boys kept water pumped in the wooden watering trough for the livestock to drink. Numerous times I’d walked to the barn lot along with my brother Byron to help him pump water. We counted the pumping strokes, making a game of it since every drop of water had to be pumped by hand.
Mules, when they were not being worked in the fields, grazed along with the cattle in a fenced green pasture. Hogs were kept separate to root and wallow in the mud holes. Cotton was grown on the remainder of the farm.
Reverend Sylvester and Mrs. Brooks lived nearby in a small tenant farmhouse my dad had built. Brooks worked on the farm. He was a Baptist preacher, who enjoyed fishing, and fished by signs of the almanac. When fishing, he’d stand in the boat and gig fish while young Irvin Cates, who lived at the homestead on our adjacent farm, paddled the boat to where the fish were. Brooks fished at Ten Mile Pond and caught buffalo, carp, and once in a while catfish. He caught lots of fish and sold many of them in town, so Cates told me.
Maud Brooks carried my baby sister Donna around on her hip, helped watch after me, and assisted Mom in the home. She became very special to us. The Brooks lived on the farm even after I married.
Two little “shotgun” houses sat next to Brooks’ home. All, of which I hadn’t mentioned earlier, stood sort of in line with the railroad tracks. Cotton seed was usually stored in them. One held last fall’s seed, and the other held year- old seed which many farmers preferred to plant. Cotton planting began last of April and first of May.
In spring, “Preacher” Brooks caught his team of mules, hooked them to a breaking plow, and draped the lines over his shoulders. He then gripped the plow handles to plod along through the field breaking ground, and later disking, and lastly harrowing, ridding the ground of large dirt clods preparing it to plant garden, cotton, and once in a while corn. Turning the soil gave the air a fresh earthy smell.
Usually three pairs of mules were kept on the town farm. Of a morning each fellow who worked them always harnessed his chosen pair to pull the two- row planter with seed containers, which dropped the seeds and covered them too, planting the crop.
Later, each cultivated using mule-drawn cultivators with the lines tied behind his back and attached to a bit in each mule’s mouth like they did with plow and planter. They directed the mules as they walked briskly along, up and down the rows, calling “gee!” to go right and “haw!” to go left, cutting the many weeds that grew, throwing dirt up around the plants and aerating the soil.
During this process they shouted “whoa!” to stop and “git-up!” to go, using the mule’s name, such as “Jack” and “Mack”, when calling.
In the fall the crop was harvested by hand and hauled to market by mule-drawn wagons.
Although, during that time frame farmers were still working mules, it was becoming a time of transition from mules to tractors. Back then, Dad had a Farmal tractor with iron wheels, and a special driver who disked and broke ground with it at Deventer, according to Irvin Cates who viewed it all.
To Be Continued
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