The first thing I would do mornings after I had all of the cotton chopped, I would go to the barn and milk the cow. Then I would put the mule in his stall and feed him.
Starting on Monday morning, I would plow up the six rows of turnips that the greens had been removed the week before. Then I would hitch the mule to a sled and pick up the plowed turnips. These turnips would be fed to the hogs, chickens, cows and even the mule would eat them. Everything on the place would eat the turnips except the people. You would think that everything would taste like a turnip.
After I had the turnips picked up, I would harrow the ground to smooth it out, then I would lay off six rows and plant more turnips. The rest of the week I would plow and hoe cotton, then plow out the middle of the turnip rows.
Homer had what he called a go-devil plow. It was angled back from the front with smaller plow shares and on the back was a small drag. It had handles just like any other horse-drawn plow. It was just big enough to go down a 3-foot row. It was used to cultivate cotton and the turnips. The soil in that area was sandy and no rocks. It couldn't be used on the hillside farms that I was raised on because of the rocks. The old mule was well-trained and would stay in the center of the row. I plowed the garden with the same plow that I used in the cotton and turnip patches.
After Homer would get home from his route, he and the wife and daughters would cut a quarter mile of turnip greens for the next days peddle. I could see why his son, Howard, had gone to California to look for work, the scene never changed. There were two events that happened while I was working for Homer that caused some excitement.
On June 15, 1936, Joe Louis beat Max Smelling and became the heavyweight champion of the world. About 15 minutes after the fight, the highway in front of Homer's house became like a California freeway. When I asked Homer what was going on, he said, "The colored people from Hot Springs and Arkadelphia were celebrating the Joe Louis win."
About 10 o'clock, someone knocked on Homer's front door. When he opened the door it was a boy about 18 years old. He said that the car he was riding in had stopped so that the folks could relieve themselves. The driver got spooked and drove off without him. The young man acted like he was really scared. Homer told me to take a lantern and some blankets to the barn and the young man could sleep on the hay. When I had him bedded down, I told him I would come and get him for breakfast. He asked me to leave the lantern because he was afraid to sleep in the dark. The next morning when I went to the barn to get the boy, he was gone. I suppose sometime in the night his friends came back and picked him up. He probably wanted the lantern to show his friends where he was.
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Editor's note: Joe Pitts was a native of Pea Ridge and regular columnist for the newspaper. He died on Aug. 18, 2008. He was born Jan. 29, 1920, at Sunny Slope Orchard Farm near Pea Ridge, and was the fifth son of Charles (Choc) and Phebe Buttram Pitts. He attended Cross Lanes, Liberty and Garfield schools and graduated from Garfield High School in 1938. He began writing a column for The Times in 2000 initially entitled "Things Happen" by Joe "Pea Patch" Pitts. He started research for the book Nicholas Pitts YK2 in about 1980. The book was published in 2000. This column was first published Oct. 12, 2005, in the Pea Ridge TIMES.
Editorial on 05/06/2020