Brother Felix was still working for -- or with -- Debs Hall.
They had rented the stand in front of the Elkhorn Tavern from Mrs. Ramsey Scott. They were now selling, to the tourists mostly, ice cold apple cider, ice cold watermelons and ice cold soda pop. Nehi had put up a large sign from all directions for advertisement of their wares. Of course, the boys had to sell Nehi Soda Pop. In 1931, the main highway from the state line and the east ran past the Tavern. The junction of the highway was just south of the Tavern and one arm went to Pea Ridge and Bentonville and the other arm followed the Old Wire Road to Rogers. The monuments of the Civil War were open and free to the tourists and this helped sales.
Each morning, Felix would load up the old Model T Ford with whatever Debs had to sell. A fresh supply of pressed apple cider was there each day. In the stand they had a water trough for the watermelons and an ice box for the cider and soda pop. They also had apples, grapes, cantaloupes, tomatoes and whatever else Debs had to sell. His father, Ed, also had a fruit stand in Oklahoma that he was supplying.
The Ward's ice truck would come about 8 a.m. each day and Felix would buy enough ice for the day. I would go with Felix and help him at times. One day Mrs. Scott asked me if I wanted the job of mowing the lawn. I said "yes," and she told me that each Saturday I could take the mower and mow around the Tavern and over to and around the monuments. Altogether it was about five acres of mowing with a reel lawnmower.
When I got done she would send me across the Pea Ridge road to mow around two old graves with sand stone markers. She never did tell me whose the graves were. They were probably her grandparents, the graves were on property owned by Charley, Laife and Anna Cox, two brothers and a sister who were nephews and a niece of Mrs. Scott. For all I knew they might have been the graves of the original settlers of the Elkhorn Tavern, William Ruddick and his wife. I think Mrs. Scott was a descendant of William Ruddick.
Laife told me his real name was Lafayette, and only his father called him that now. Mrs. Scott would pay me a dollar and I thought I was rich. It took me all day to mow. I didn't have to pay Felix for the cider, but he would have to charge me a nickel for the bottle of Nehi red soda pop. If Felix would have cider leftover at the end of the day, he would bring it home and the family would have cider to drink.
I worked with Felix when I could all summer and for Mrs. Scott on Saturdays until well after school started that fall. David and I had been picking up windfall apples for Debs Hall with two other boys. We would pick up all the apples in bushel baskets and put them beside the apple row. Debs would come with the wagon in the evening and dump the apples in the wagon. When he would get a load, he would take to the Speas Vinegar plant in Rogers.
David and I rode with him one time to the vinegar plant. There must have been 30 wagons waiting to get their apples weighed on the scales. After the apples were weighed, the wagon was driven unto a platform and the team unhitched. The wheels were chained to the platform, the end gate removed and a hydraulic lift raised the front of the wagon dumping the load of apples into a large vat. This was an interesting event to us boys.
When Debs would pay us on Friday afternoon, we would go to Pea Ridge and buy us a sack of candy. Then we would go to Charley Tetric produce and buy a 50-pound hunk of ice. Charley had a big pile of sawdust out back of the building and he kept the ice covered with it. It kept it from melting. He would dig out a 50-pound hunk and we paid him and put it in a tow sack and carried it home. Mother would mix up the makings and we would freeze a gallon of ice cream. A gallon of ice cream would barely be enough to go around the big family of Pitts' boys. We would then cover the freezer and the rest of the ice for another gallon of ice cream the next day.
Poor people had the poor ways and we were probably one of the poorest families during the lowest time of the great Depression. At least we had a place to live and three square meals a day. A lot of people were homeless and standing in soup lines all over America.
When we went back to the Pea Ridge school that fall, Charles had graduated from the eighth grade. He was now working for Leonard Miser. Bob was in the seventh grade and I was in the fifth grade. David was in the third grade and brother Hugh was just beginning his schooling in the first grade. Sam and Helen were too young to go to school.
Bob took his own lunch as he was trying to play football with his buddies, Cooper Williams, Coalie Hall and several others. Pea Ridge didn't have a football program at that time, but several of the boys would practice. They asked Bob and Coalie were asked to practice with them so they could have enough players to have a practice squad. I remember that the team played a game in a cow pasture just west of the Baptist church. I don't know who their opponent was. Bob and Coalie didn't get to play as they were too young. The team was allowed to play a couple of games away from home.
As I remember, one of the games was in Bentonville. I don't know if they ever won a game or not. What I do remember was that George Hall was a good player and he could knock the other team players for a loop!
Mom would fix David, Hugh and I a lunch in a four-pound Jewell Lard bucket. It would usually be three biscuit and ham sandwiches and three biscuit and jelly sandwiches. We each had our own folding tin cups. At lunchtime we would go by the school well pump and get a cup of drinking water and then eat our lunch in the Old Band stand. The schools at that time did not have a cafeteria to eat in. Some of the rooms made the children eat their lunch in their room. I explained to Miss Mable Hardy that I had to feed David and Hugh and she told me to take them to the bandstand and eat.
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Editor's note: Joe Pitts (1920-2008) was a native of Pea Ridge and regular columnist for the newspaper. He began writing a column for The Times in 2000 initially entitled "Things Happen" by Joe "Pea Patch" Pitts.