Ten

            I only ever saw one Mulberry tree.  That was in Pennsylvania on the farm where we lived before.  They looked just like big blackberries to me.  I used to call it the blackberry tree and I spent a lot of time up in it after the berries.  It was a big spreading tree and had only about eight feet so it was easy to lean a board against it and get to the first limbs.

            That was the farm me and my brother was alone one day and decided to take my Father’s Model T ford for a ride.  We didn’t have the keys so we took a jackknife and stuck it in the switch and got it turned.  There was no starter but we managed somehow to crank it and get it started.  We couldn’t steer it straight and was all over the road.  We only went a couple of miles until we run off the road and over the bank steep anyone could’ve lifted on the upper side and tipped it over. 

            We were stuck and we had to show Father where it was.  He hired a farmer with a team of horses nearby to hitch the team to it while he tried with the motor and between the two of them he got the Model T out.

            When Father first saw it he asked us how we started it.  We took him to show him the knife in the switch but it had shorted the wiring and melted the blade off.  Boy, we both sure did get it that time.

            For a while it was back to the every day life.  Nothing different to do.  Nothing new happening.  And that’s what got to me.  I was always trying to think of something to do and when I couldn’t think of anything it sure got to me.  I could always think of things I was supposed to do but I just seemed to be hunting for things I wasn’t to do. 

            I know in school the teacher seemed to always be picking on me for some reason.  It seemed every time she looked at me she sent me to stand in the corner or made me clean the blackboards.  I had to stay after school a lot of times.  She made me sweep the floor or carry some wood in for the next day.  Sometimes I thought our school must be the cleanest school in the country because I was always cleaning it.

            At one school there was a couple of older boys that always picked on me.  I was always fighting with them.  Sometimes I’d get in the school before they did and I set a lot of carpet tacks on their seats.  They came running in and jumped in their seats and boy, did they holler and jump up with some of the tacks still sticking in the seat of their pants.  They never did find out who did it.

            Once I had a big toad and I carried him around for a couple of days wondering what to do with him.  I put him in a drawer in the teacher’s desk.  I saw her open the drawer and shut it quick.  She didn’t open it no more all day.  She must’ve been afraid of it jumping out on her.  I never did know what she done with it.  I think she got it out after we was all gone home.

           I used to stick a soda straw in the back end of frogs and blow them up like balloons.  I threw them back in the water but all they could do was swim around on top of the water.  The next day the air leaked out and they were ok.  I wanted to take them to school but they made too much noise.  They kept croaking and wouldn’t be quiet long enough so I gave that idea up and went back to being good for a few weeks.