Bill's Stories About Growing Up
in Pistol Ridge, Mississippi
Written and Compiled by Bill Bounds
GAMES WE PLAYED
(~1940's)
by Bill Bounds
MAKE LIKE TARZAN I
About one hundred fifty yards from our house was a very thick, boggy swamp. It had many White Bay and Black Gum trees that were covered with thorny vines. The ground surface in the swamp was wet, boggy and infested with Cotton Mouth Moccasins and Leeches.
We made a game of Tarzan-like movements through the trees and vines to see who could cross the 75 yard wide swamp the fastest, traveling only by way of trees and vines without our feet ever touching the ground. Ouch! I think the risk to our “family jewels” while swinging in the trees was a greater threat than the poisonous snakes and leeches on the swamp floor.
Millard was usually the winner. He was older, more agile and more determined to be more like Tarzan than the rest of us.
MAKE LIKE TARZAN II
The object of this game is to climb a longleaf pine tree sapling, swing the tree top over and drop to the ground safely. The winner was the kid that climbed and swung over the biggest tree and dropped safely to the ground. The pine trees would gradually regain their upright position.
Growing Up
The Chicken House Versus The Outhouse
(~1940-1955)
By Bill Bounds
When Millard, Bill, Henry and Ira were young boys, there was no indoor toilet in the house. When nature called for bladder relief, the boys usually just stopped behind the nearest shed or tree to pee. If the bladder called for relief while in the house or yard, the boys would head toward the smelly old outdoor toilet, however the chicken house was located between the house and the toilet. It just seemed natural to step behind the chicken house and relieve the bladder against the back wall of the chicken house instead of walking all the way to the smelly old toilet.
Millard being the oldest and biggest had the first pee spot on the back wall of the chicken house, with Bill, Henry and Ira’s spots further and lower along the wall respectively.
As time passed these spots on the chicken house wall became higher and very distinctive, due to the yellow mineral residue from the dried urine, and the wood very smooth and yellow due to the cows that roamed freely around the place licking the pee spots for the mineral residue on the wall.
Due to the yellow spots on the wall, it soon became obvious that the chicken house usually won out over the smelly outhouse.
MY FIRST AND LAST CHEW OF TOBACCO
(~1948)
By Bill Bounds
Mother needed more corn meal. We shucked and shelled the corn and placed it in a cotton sack. I saddled “Old Molly”, placed and tied the sack of corn on the saddle and headed out riding the horse to Uncle Buck Smith’s place. He had a grist mill powered by a very old car engine.
Uncle Buck started up the engine and poured the shelled corn into the hopper feeding the grist mill. I was standing there watching. I noticed some long brown strands of something hanging in the loft above the grist mill.
I asked Uncle Buck what the brown things hanging in the loft were. Uncle Buck said, “That’s ‘chawing terbackker’ son. Climb up there and get yourself a fist full of it. Climb down and put it in your mouth and chaw it.”
I climbed up into the loft, got myself a wad of the tobacco leaf, climbed down to the ground and poked the whole wad into my mouth and began to chew it. It tasted terrible, but I decided I was man enough to chew it.
After about three minutes of chewing the tobacco, I started to get dizzy. I kept on chewing, refusing to quit. After another few minutes of chewing, I got sick on my stomach and began to puke.
Of course, the wad of “chawing terbakker” went flying out with it. Uncle Buck had finished grinding the corn. I was so dizzy and sick that I had to lay down for about two hours before I could get back on the horse.
Uncle Buck seemed amused by my reaction to the “chawing terbackker”. He said that the “terbackker” has two names and that I could chose whichever name I wanted to call it. He said the two names are “Mean Green” and “Spit or Puke”.
I decided to rename it “Spit and Puke” and to never chew tobacco again!
NEAR MISS
(~1967)
By Bill Bounds
Wild Bullaces, also called scuppernongs, were considered a real treat. The vines producing these grape-like fruits almost always grew up into the surrounding trees.
One day while gathering these treats, I climbed into a Willow tree to pick some very sweet bullaces. There was one very ripe , tasty looking bullace at the very top of the tree. I had to have it. As I climbed up the Willow branches got thinner, but I just had to have the bullace.
At about 25 feet, “Crack”, the fragile limb broke. I was falling, tumbling in the air towards the ground. Fortunately one of my legs caught on a vine. This slowed my fall a bit, turned me upside down and I hit the sloping, leaf covered ground with the back of my head and shoulders. I slid down the sloping ground about five feet.
Luckily, I wasn’t broken or bruised. I looked up into the tree. The delicious looking bullace was still tempting me. I decided to leave it for a bird.
THE HAZARDS OF FINDING SALAMANDERS
FOR CATFISH BAIT
(~1945-1953)
By Bill Bounds
We raked through damp, decaying leaves and turned over damp rotting logs to find “puppy dogs” (salamanders), our favorite catfish bait. These salamanders are also sometimes called “mud-puppies”.
We would sometimes find mud-snakes, coral snakes, water moccasins, and pygmy rattlesnakes while searching for the “puppy-dogs”. These include three of the five kinds of poisonous snakes found in the United States.
Coral snakes are very common but are actually very seldom seen because they feed mostly on worms, grubs and salamanders under rotting leaves and logs in the swamp.
The water moccasins mostly are found on creeks and in swamps on or under rotting logs, but may be found at times in much drier surroundings.
The pygmy rattlesnakes were small but were feared the most because they are very aggressive and would come forward striking at you several times if you disturbed their hiding place underneath a rotting log.
None of us were bitten by a poisonous snake, even though we had some close encounters.
Some of the salamanders are very beautiful, exciting, colorful animals to see and capture. Catfish love to eat them and we loved to eat fried catfish.
BILL WANTS A MOTOR SCOOTER
(~1946)
By Bill Bounds
As told by Penny, Millard and Henry
Penny, Millard and Henry tell this one on Bill. When Bill was about 10 years old, he had seen guys in Hattiesburg, MS riding motor scooters. Bill decided he wanted a motor scooter, but first he had to convince Mother that he could make the motor scooter useful on the farm. He knew she would not buy it unless it could help with the farming.
Bill mentioned everything he could think of that he thought it could be used for; going to get groceries, hauling stuff into and out of the fields, rounding up livestock, etc. Mother didn’t see any use for a motor scooter.
Bill schemed even harder to convince Mother to buy the motor scooter. Her tried to convince her that he could attach plows to it and plow the corn and garden.
Mother just smiled at that scheme. Bill didn’t get a motor scooter.
THE HORSE AND THE CORN CRIB
(~1948)
by Bill Bounds
It was feed the hogs time. I opened the 4-foot by 4-foot door in the log corn crib, gathered an armload of unshucked corn, and carried it across the livestock lot to the hog pen.
As I was shucking the corn for the hogs, a large grey draft horse in the lot stuck his head through the opened crib door to eat some corn. Millard grabbed a big ear of corn from me and threw it as hard as he could at the horse.
The big ear of corn struck the horse’s butt, and the big horse folded back his front legs, lunged forward and up into the log corn crib. There he stood, sprattle-legged with big feet bogged in the corn and his back scraping the roof of the crib. We couldn’t get him to lower his head or kneel down to try and come out through the door.
Finally, Millard went and told Mother about our dilemma with the horse. She came, took one look and said, “That big horse will never get low enough to come through that little door.”
Mother got in the car and rounded up some neighbors to help get the horse out of the corn crib. The men took one look at the horse in the old log corn crib and asked for our 6-foot crosscut saw.
One man had to get into the crib with the horse to man one end of the saw. They sawed out 4 more of the upper logs, making the door size taller and higher. The horse still would not come out through the door.
We finally resorted to pulling his big head lower with a rope and Henry punched him in the butt with a sharp stick. The horse lowered his head, folded his front legs and slid out through the crib door.
After the horse was out, we all just stood around and laughed until we cried.
FUNNIES
(~1937)
By Bill Bounds
BLACK PANTHER???
I had driven to Lumberton to get groceries for Mother. Uncle “Lish” Landrum was about 90 years old and sitting on his front porch as I passed his house. I stopped to talk with him. He had a big grin on his face and asked if I had heard the story about Ida, Gus and the Black Panther. I told him I never heard of it. He said, “Sit down a while and I will tell you the story.”
Ida (Mother) and Gus (brother) found a dead sheep out behind the barn. It was partially eaten by a wild animal. Ida and Gus decided to set a steel trap to catch the animal if it came back that night to eat more of the dead sheep. Gus was about 12 years old at the time.
Early the next morning, Gus slipped outside to peek around the corner of the barn. He saw something big and black struggling to get out of the trap.
He ran back to the house to get Ida to come look. Ida peeked around the corner of the barn and saw the big black thing struggling to get loose from the trap.
They decided that it was a big Black Panther in the trap. Ben (Papa) was in the hospital at the time. They excitedly came and got me to come kill the big Black Panther. I got my shotgun and went with them to kill the panther.
I peeked around the corner of the barn with my shotgun loaded with buckshot and ready to shoot. All I saw was a big black buzzard struggling to get out of the trap! Ha! Ha! Ha!
HENRY’S FAVORITE TRICK
(~1945-1953)
By Bill Bounds
I think Henry was born with a brain full of tricks. When a stranger stopped at our house to ask directions to some neighbor’s house, Henry was the first to answer.
He would tell the stranger, to find the house he needed, to continue down the road and keep making either the first left hand or first right hand turns until he came to a house with a front porch and tin roof that was located between two big oak trees that were very near the road. It never occurred to the stranger that he was right in front of the house described by Henry.
The stranger would drive off. Henry would then climb up and hide in one of the big oak trees located near the road and wait for the befuddled stranger to drive up and stop again. Of course, Henry would never reveal his hidden presence in the oak tree.
Millard, Ira or myself, with completely innocent-looking faces, would then direct the confused stranger to the neighborhood house he was looking for.
Van Henry Bounds
Bill Carman Bounds in "school uniform."
Henry. Ira, and Bill
HOG KILLING TIME
(~1948)
by Bill Bounds
It was early winter time. The onset of cool weather meant time to butcher, salt down, and smoke the fattened hogs meat for food for the rest of the winter and spring. All preparations had been made by Mother, DV, and Nancy for the task of butchering three of the fattened 10 hogs. Seven hogs were to go to market. Plenty of lightard wood had been gathered to burn to heat the required hot water for scalding the dead hogs to facilitate removal of hair from the hog’s body .
The hogs were to be killed by shooting each of them one time between the eyes with a 22 caliber rifle. An old metal turpentine barrel was partially buried in the ground, slanted at about 30 degree angle to make it easier to slide the hog’s body into and out of the hot water. Water was heated to boiling in Mother’s 3 legged iron pot by burning the heart pine lightard wood under the pot. The scalding hot water was then transferred to the slanted turpentine barrel. The front half of the hog body would be scalded by sliding it head first into the nearly boiling hot water and turning the body over. The hog body would then be pulled from the slanted barrel, reversed and the rear end of the hog would then be slid into the barrel and more scalding hot water placed into the barrel. The hog body would then be turned over in the hot water to make sure all skin areas of the hog had been scalded, when removed from the barrel. The scalding made it easier to pull and scrape the hair from the hog`s skin.
The water was hot, the barrel was partially buried and slanted into the ground , the knives were sharpened, and plenty of salt was on hand to salt down the meat after the butchering process was completed.
It had been decided that 10 year old brother Henry, who had become very skillful at shooting the old pump 22 caliber rifle, would be the hog shooter this year. While we were making preparations for scalding, butchering, and salting the hogs little brother Henry, we thought, was going down the fence row towards the hog pen practicing his shooting as he went.
It was time for the 3 hogs to be shot, scalded and butchered. Where`s Henry?? He was shooting away down towards the hog pen. Me and DV went to the hog pen to select 3 hogs for Henry to shoot between the eyes in preparation for butchering. When we got to the hog pen, Henry was standing, leaning on the pen fence, aiming the rifle for another shot between the eyes of a hog. All of a sudden we realized that Henry had already shot seven hogs and was preparing to shoot 3 more.
DV shouted!! Stop Henry Stop!! Don`t shoot any more hogs. Henry stopped shooting.
We were prepared to butcher 3 hogs and now we had 7 dead hogs to butcher. Fortunately it was cold day, and we had plenty of lightard for boiling water. Instead of about a half days work as we had planned, we were still putting up and salting down pork at midnight of that day.
Thanks to Henry we had plenty of salted, smoked pork to eat for the winter, spring , summer and fall.
NOTE: For those of you that may not know what lightard is. Lightard was the fast hot burning, heart wood of the old timber remnants left behind when the virgin timber was harvested in the early 1900`s, tree tops, limbs, pine knots ,etc.
Ira Wilke Bounds
MILLARD AND COLON’S TRICK BACKFIRES
(~1946)
By Bill Bounds
Millard and Colon were going head-lighting for rabbits for the next days food.
Colon had the carbide headlight and Millard had the gun. Younger brother, Bill, followed along behind to watch and to carry the dead rabbits in a croaker sack.
They walked quietly through the fields and down the fence rows, searching for rabbit eyes glowing from the carbide light in the dark, but found no rabbits. Millard and Colon were disappointed and bored. They decided to play a trick on Bill by snuffing out the light, take off running down an old (they thought) familiar road through the woods and leave Bill by himself in the dark.
They did not know that a new family had bought the land and built a barb-wire fence across the road.
Younger Bill was rapidly falling behind as they raced down the road in the dark. All of a sudden, there was a loud crash in front of Bill and then moans and groans up front.
Bill stopped, confused and scared as to what had happened in front of him. Millard hollered, “I’m hurt! Colon hollered, “I’m hurt too. Where’s the light?” Of course the barbed wire had separated them from the light and the gun. Millard yelled , “I’m bleeding”. Colon hollered, “I’m bleeding too. Where’s the cottonpicking light?”
Luckily, neither Millard or Colon were seriously hurt. It took them a while to find the snuffed out carbide light and gun in the dark.
The rabbits were safe for the rest of the night. Young Bill walked home in the dark with a smile on his face.
This is a typical hog killings scene. It is not a family picture. http://avbarn.museum.state.il.us/sites/default/files/images/Reid_Aun_IMG_32.jpg
HENRY SOLVES THE TUMBLE-BUG MYSTERY
(~1949)
By Bill Bounds
Being interested in studying biology in high school, I had noticed quite a few tumble-bugs [dung beetles] were impaled on barb wire points and thorns along our fence rows.
I thought that maybe the dumb tumble-bugs had impaled themselves on the sharp wire points and thorns by flying into them. Then I noticed that the tumble-bugs were stuck on the points from different angles. This made the tumble-bug mystery even more mysterious to me, as I had never seen a tumble-bug fly backwards, side-ways, or upside down.
How does a tumble-bug get itself impaled, forward, sideways, backwards or upside down on these sharp points? I asked my brother, Henry, if he knew how they got there. He just looked at me and grinned.
Several days later, Henry told me he had figured out why the tumble-bugs were impaled on the sharp points. Henry told me to watch the “French Mocking
Birds (Shrikes)” and I would see how the bugs got themselves stuck onto the sharp points.
I began to pay attention to the Shrikes that perched on the wire fences. Occasionally a Shrike would spot a tumble-bug rolling a ball of cow or horse manure along the ground. The Shrike would fly down, catch the tumble-bug in his beak, fly back to the fence or thornbush, impale it on the barb wire or thorn point, leave it there apparently to die and dry out. After two or three days curing time, the Shrike would come back and eat the tumble-bug.
I learned from Henry that in order to understand mysterious things, you have to look at the whole picture, not just part of it.
WHERE IS CLEO?
Brother Gus walked to Sand Hill Baptist Church to attend singing school at age 10. His little sister Cleo (age 3) wanted to go with him. She begged mother to let her go with Gus to singing school. Mother fixed her a sandwich and put it in a paper bag, as she had for Gus, hoping that would satisfy her. In a little while there was no Cleo around. Mother went out to the road and could just see Cleo`s white head disappearing over the hill toward the church. Sister Cleo was all the way to the Double Branch Bridge before Mother could catch up with her.
Cleo Bounds