Chapter Four
The Covered Wagon

Mama went to work and sold all the furniture except the bed clothes and one bedspring. Then she bought a wagon sheet and some new bows and made a covered wagon out of our old farm wagon. We went to work and loaded all the rest of our belongings into the wagon and then put the bed spring on the top at the back and made a bed for herself, Clyda and Madine to sleep cross ways on the springs, with the bed clothes on it of course. Then James was tucked in some place with a little bed roll of his own. That took care of everybody except Avalon and I. We made up a bed roll of the surplus quilts and old home made cotton comforters and a bed roll tarp which she bought in San Jon. We made it double so we could both sleep in it. That way we could just roll it up every morning and throw it in the wagon on top of everything. When we were all packed up and ready to pull out she wrote Grandpa another letter and told him we would be into Hondo the 30th or 31st of July if we didn't have any trouble and not to try to locate us as we would be on the road and no way to contact us.

Madine was our second girl in the family. Us boys had nicknamed her Little Sister. She was born while we lived on the Homestead on the 28th of February, 1916. So she was just two and a half years old when we started out in the covered wagon.

There was no doctor in San Jon at that time, but there was a family by the name of Height, that lived just over the brakes on the edge of the plains about nine mile from us, so Mama and Dad made arrangements with Mrs. Height, who was a well known midwife, to come at what they figured was a few days before Mama would deliver. So she was on hand and had everything ready when Mother went into labor. So some time in the morning, pretty early I think, we had a new baby sister squalling at the top of her lungs. Mrs. Height stayed on for another week, or a little more, until Mama and Clyda was able to handle things at home.

Some time in the years there, a little yellow dog took up with us, on a Saturday afternoon, when we were in San Jon selling our produce and buying the necessities that we needed on the ranch, and when we left town and went home the little rascal just followed us right out home. We could never find any one to claim him so just kept him around the ranch. He was a smart little dog. He kept the hawks away from the chickens and the rabbits away from the garden.

What we soon learned was that he insisted on going to town with us every Saturday, and that he was a fighter and didn't let any of the town dogs run over him, even if he was little. Oh; we named him Pancho Villa, as he seemed to be always getting into trouble. But he held his own and was never whipped. So it was not long until he had built up a pretty good reputation as a fighter. The bankers son, a boy about my age, had a german shepard and he was supposed to be the boss dog in town. The boy who owned the shepard was named Mose Aston, and when he heard Villa was whipping all the dogs that challenged him, Mose started talking around town that one day his dog would be in town and that would be the last of Villa's reputation. So the men in town started promoting a fight and teasing Mose and telling him he was afraid to bring his dog into town. Mr. Aston was the president of the bank, and they didn't really live out of town, just lived in a big fine house up at the north end of town. The outcome was that when Mr. Aston heard about the build up for a dog fight he told Mose to bring his dog into town and rid the town of all this speculation.

So it came to pass that on the next Saturday afternoon when the street was the most crowded, Mose came along and turned his dog loose close to the Garage and it wasn't very long until the dogs spotted each other and began getting acquainted. Dad, Avalon, James and myself were hanging around with Villa to make sure nobody hampered him in any way. They didn't waste any time, in just a few minutes the shepard made a big leap at old Villa and tried to get a hold on the back of Villa's neck. But Villa didn't play that way, he just ducked under the big dog and grabbed him by the neck and flipped him over on his back, before anybody knew what was happening. All at once everybody realized that Villa was standing astraddle of the other dog with teeth right at his throat and letting out a challenging growl, just daring him to move. Every one let out a lot of loud hurrahs and started calling Pancho Villa as the winner. By that time Mose had come to realize what was going on and he started screaming at us to get that dog off his dog. Avalon looked around at the crowd for a signal to call off our dog. Then as he got approval from the crowd, he stepped out just a little and said "that's OK Villa," and the dog just turned and nonchalantly walked away from the other dog and came to us for an acclamation of our approval, and the crowd just roared some more, and Pancho Villa just looked around at them and came over to me so I could rub his ears. The shepard bounded to his feet and took off for home just like there was a whole band of coyotes on his tail.

We didn't have Villa very long, maybe a year or year and a half. Then one night he just disappeared. Mama said she heard the coyotes howling that night and we thought that either the Coyotes killed him or he just took up with them and went away. That was just the same way that old Bulgur disappeared a couple of years after we got to New Mexico.

Back to our problems of leaving Quay County. When we had everything in readiness, Mama gave the order that we should all get to sleep early as we were going to get on the road at first light the next morning and try to make it over to Mrs. Height's the next night. So we were all up and ready to go as soon as we finished breakfast and washed up everything and was on the road just before sun-up. That was pretty early as the sun came up at about four thirty at that time of year. We had the mules hitched to the wagon and had our horse saddled up, and Avalon and I took turns riding the horse and riding in the wagon. I am sure we started out with me in the wagon and Avalon riding the horse, since he was 2 years older than I and therefore had seniority over me. Any way our first day on the road proved to be very uneventful, with the exception that we were actually heading on a two hundred mile trip across eastern New Mexico, in a covered wagon, with a woman and five kids, the oldest of which was only 16 years old, and a girl at that, and the youngest also a girl and only two and a half years old.

We made it to Mrs. Height's long before sundown and were all very pleased with our travel time. The second day out we were on the plains and much better traveling and drove into a little town called House, and stopped for the end of our second day, about twenty miles or so. The third day was more of the same and we made it in to Taiban. It rained on us that night, in fact the rain started early and we were allowed to pull into the livery barn which had once been used as a barn for the stage line teams before the railroad came. The rain ceased during the night, and we were up early and on our way down to Ft. Sumner where we had to cross over the Pecos River. We were in rather early but we needed some supplies so Mama went shopping. Since this was already an irrigated farming area and she found alfalfa hay at about two bits a bale, she bought two bales to carry along for the horses. Did they go for it. It was the best feed they had after we started on the trip. Since it was along toward sundown by the time we completed the shopping and stored the things in the wagon, Mama decided we would just stay in Ft. Sumner that night and get an early start the next morning as we had to ford the Pecos River. We were more confident in crossing early just in case we had any trouble, there would be a lot of people stirring around that would be very happy to help a widow woman with five kids to get across safely.

We got going and soon after leaving Ft. Sumner we headed a little west of south so we could follow the road to Dunlap, the only town between there and Roswell. It was no problem to follow the road as it was part of the Old Chisum Trail.

But we didn't do so good that day, as a thunderstorm began to boil up over to the west and when we were about sixteen miles out of Ft. Sumner we came to what was ordinarily just a dry arroyo, but had some water in it. The rains they had been having had caused it to flood and the waters had cut the west bank down considerable and not much passing that way. It looked as if it would be quite difficult to pull out of it and we were not sure the mules would be able to get us across. With the storm getting more threatening all the time Mama decided we had better wait until morning to go on. There was a small line shack right by the crossing and we figured Avalon and I could spread our bed roll in it if it did rain. So we made camp and hobbled the horse and mules and let them loose to graze as there was a lot of green grass along the creek. Since it was a couple of hours before sundown we decided that Avalon and I would get a shovel and the grubbing hoe out and dig the bank down all we could, so it would not be so steep when we went across the next morning. We decided the next morning that we would take advantage of every possible thing we could think of to make it possible for the mules to get up the other side. Our plan worked out that we would hook the horse to the front end of the wagon tongue with the lariat rope and I would ride the horse and make him pull and Mama would drive the mules and Clyda and Avalon and James would get behind and push.

We had a little excitement when day light came the next morning. Mama rolled out and started calling the rest of us to get up. Because of the rain during the night Avalon and I had thrown the top fold of the bed roll tarp all the way up over our heads so we were completely covered with it. Anyway when Mama called we started squirming around, and about the first move we made we heard the unforgettable sound of the rattle of a rattlesnake. So we just did what we had always been told, and stayed perfectly still and quiet. Pretty soon Mama realized that we should be up so she called to us again to get out and get to work. We did not know where the rattler was so we just stayed quiet. Pretty soon Mama called again and said she was coming after us with a rope. She still got no action. The old house did not have any windows or doors as they had all been carried away. Pretty soon she began to get angry with us because we did not even answer her calls. So she said "I am coming after you and you better be up from there." Pretty soon she took one step inside the door and the old snake started his warning system again.

She of course realized then why we had not answered her. She stood just inside of the door until her eyes got adjusted to the darker inside and saw the snake coiled up all ready to fight for his bed, with head sticking up about six inches from his coils. She did not say a word, she just turned around and walked back to the wagon and got her 22 Winchester and came back to the door of the cabin and when her eyes adjusted again she just lifted up her gun and shot the head off the snake. Then she just spoke to us and said "now you boys get up from there and get to work." We threw our tarp back over the squirming snake and got up and dressed. Then we uncovered the snake and moved it off the bed roll and took it out side and found it to be about a five foot diamondback with ten or eleven rattles, which we promptly cut off to take with us.

We rolled up our bed roll and loaded it, and by that time Clyda had breakfast ready so we all sat down and ate. Since Mama had done all the chores while we waited to be rescued from the snake we only had to hitch up the mules and saddle the horse and we were all ready to give it a try. Mama went over the plan again to be sure that we all understood. I climbed on my horse and got him across the creek and over the steep part so he would have a straight pull, and Mama settled herself with reins in hand and let out a war whoop and cracked the slowest mule with the blacksnake and we started to roll. Everything went just fine until all the wheels of the wagon got to the bank and the teams started slowing down and Mama started putting the whip to the mules and I put the spurs to the horse and the teams really laid into the harness and soon we realized that the front wheels were over the hump and we were still hollering and whipping and spurring and before we hardly realized it the back wheel came over and we all started laughing and yelling at our success. As soon as we got the wagon on the level Mama yelled whoa to the mules and we stopped and gave them time to rest a little before we rearranged everything for the road and started on our way.

Although we had a little late start, we were determined to make it to Dunlap that night. So we pushed the team at a faster clip than we had been doing. Our luck was not the best and we did not enjoy the "now famous New Mexico sunshine" that we had been having on the trip. The weather clouded up and started raining about an hour before we got to Dunlap. The first place we stopped was the one small store with the post office to inquire about shelter for the night. The store owner was also the Post Master and the school teacher. The school had a shelter for the children's horses when it was bad weather. A number of the children lived so far out they had to ride in, either on saddle horses, or if there were several in the same family they usually had a buggy to come in. Anyway the man was very helpful. He told us to put our wagon under the shelter and Avalon and I could sleep in the school house since it was July and there was no school. The shelter was very much like the tabernacle they had near the school and church in San Jon. It was built of pine poles and hog fence wire. It was open on three sides with wall on the north side to keep out bad weather in the winter time. They simply framed it with the pine poles and stretched the hog wire over the frame and then covered the whole thing with bear grass (now known as Yucca, but is still just bear grass to me). As the covering dried out and flattened out they would bring in more bear grass and add to it each year. This made it quite weather proof and dry underneath it. We all had a good nights sleep and were up early getting ready to go when one of the school teacher's children came over and told us to come over to the house as her Mother already had breakfast ready and we were to eat with them. That was really fine and very muchly appreciated as it was a real treat after having cooked over a camp fire since leaving Mrs. Height's the second morning out.

Anyway we got an early start as we were determined to reach Roswell that night. Since the days were about fourteen hours of daylight, we got in to Roswell just before sundown. There was a wagon yard on the banks of Spring River, which was just a small creek running along the north side of the business area. The wagon yard belonged to the town and was free to all travelers coming in to Roswell. The man who looked after it had a general store which had all kinds of the necessary things for travelers coming in. So the first thing after we parked the wagon where he directed us, Mama and Clyda went to the store to buy what we needed for the rest of the trip, which was two more days travel time. She bought another bale of alfalfa hay for the animals, and groceries. When they came back Clyda was so very excited she couldn't wait to tell us that Mama bought some peaches. James popped up right away and wanted to know if they were dried peaches or full peaches. We older kids got a big kick out of that and had a good laugh, but James couldn't understand what the joke was all about.

From Roswell it was all up hill, up to the top of Big Hill, where the road went down into the Hondo Valley. The Big Hill is what many people called it then, Picacho Hill, and many people still call it that, but the natives called it Big Hill because there was another very difficult hill near Picacho that was called Picacho Hill.

Even though it was quite a hard drive, with a early start, we made it out even with the Diamond A ranch, which was and still is twenty miles from Roswell. The ranch is located several miles south of the road in the Hondo River Valley. So we made a dry camp that night on the road. This gave us a little trouble the next morning, even though we had hobbled all three animals that night, they were no where in view of the camp site. They just decided they would go and look for some water. It took about an hour after daylight, to locate them over a little rise about a mile north of camp. They didn't find any water but they did find some nice green grass to graze on. So we bridled the three and rode the horse and led the mules back to camp and got started as soon as we could, but as our start was delayed, we only reached Picacho that second day out of Roswell, which we had expected to get us all the way to Hondo.

We camped on a level place under a big cliff about a half mile from the store in Picacho. That was where we got a second unexpected excitement on our trip. We had set up camp and just finished eating supper, when an old mother skunk came to investigate our cooking odors and she had six little baby skunks following along behind her. When she got close enough to discover that it was people making all that smell, she signaled her babies and headed up the hill to the base of the cliff. Well Avalon and I couldn't let something like that go peaceful about their business, without us molesting them some way. So we took out after them. But they climbed the hill on four feet faster than we could climb it on two, so by the time we got up there they had taken refuge in a small cave under a big rock. We couldn't arouse them the way we were, so we went back down to the wagon and got the long handle shovel and went back. We decided that we could stir them up some with the shovel handle. We didn't have much luck with the babies but we got an immediate rise out of the mother. She didn't like that shovel handle getting so close to her babies and she immediately went into action with her spraying equipment and she really made it most unpleasant for us. So we took our shovel and shoved off back down the hill to camp. But when we got there we were in more trouble, Mama was not about to have the shovel around the wagon. When we examined it we found about a foot of the handle well saturated with skunk perfume. So we decided the only thing we could do was to dig a hole and bury the top end of the shovel handle. Which we did and left it all night. But that didn't cure all our problems, we never got all the smell off that shovel handle. We did not try to use that shovel right away but when we did try it was so bad that Dad got out his saw and sawed off about 12 inches of that handle.

The next morning we got up early and got on the road as we were already late and we knew the folks would be worrying about us and sure enough when we got almost up to Tinnie we met Grandpa riding horse back coming down the road looking for us. Anyway we got into Hondo at about eleven o'clock, on the 31st of July, 1918. It had rained on us that night at Picacho and it came a cloudburst up the Bonita River and the flood was already below Hondo. Grandpa was afraid we would try to ford the river when we got to Hondo. If we had we would all have been washed away and drowned.

There was a toll bridge at the store at Hondo that we did not know about, and they were afraid we would be in such a big hurry to end our long trip that we might not even stop at the store. When there was a flood in the river the owner of the store, who also owned the bridge, would charge all strangers 25 cents to cross the bridge. When there was not a flood in the river he only charged 10 cents as otherwise all local people went up the river about a half mile and crossed at the ford.

We learned after we got to Hondo that all the confusion about Dad was finally clarified. He had been notified to report for induction in the army and he was supposed to report on the 10th of November 1918, and he received a telegram not to report because the war was over. But in the meantime after the wheat harvest was completed in the summer he had gone into Kansas City and entered an auto mechanics school. That was why he did not get Mama's letters and we did not know where to contact him until the San Jon post office finally forwarded a letter to Hondo.

So here we are in Lincoln county, at Hondo, New Mexico. In the beginning this story was supposed to be written about the covered wagon trip from San Jon to Hondo. The first rough sketch was started by Madine before she passed away in 1979. I found her notes, among some papers that her son Douglas Noble asked me to take and go through them and sort them. After the idea was talked around, someone decided I should write the story. After pondering over it, and several false starts I decided to just write up this little book.

Dad put in a garage in Hondo soon after he got there, and we stayed in Hondo until I graduated from grade school in 1921. There was Clyda, Avalon and I in high school then, so Mother and Dad decided we just as well move to Roswell. In the meantime Dad had bought a Reo Speed Wagon and was hauling out of Roswell to Capitan, and soon joined with a partner, Mr. J. L. Naylor, of El Paso and they started the first truck line from El Paso to Roswell. Of us three oldest, I was the only one who graduated in the Roswell High School.

The family stayed on there at Roswell for many years. In fact Dad died there on April 29, 1959, and Mother died there May 17, 1963, and Madine died there on August 1, 1979. Sister Clyda had died there many years earlier with heart trouble on October 29, 1933.

Then the rest of us scattered. Sister Norene was born in Hondo January 22, 1920, now lives in Austin. Another Brother not mentioned earlier was Faye Dee born 21 June, 1921. He passed away with pneumonia May 19, 1922. Avalon lives in Portales, New Mexico, and Jimmie lives in San Antonio. Norene died of a heart attack while she and Buford were vacationing in Ruidoso on November 2nd, 1985.

End

Addendum: The writer claims the authors license, for any statements or contradictions,
from any one else's memories of the happening of the times.