Submitted by:
Kay Cunningham
Vacations and Vicissitudes
CHAPTER 3
Clean out the daily cobwebs
That doubts weave in your mind. Clean out the little hatreds
With heartstrings oft entwined; Then cultivate, with loving care,
The sweetest tho'ts you'd have bloom there.
-From "Practical Poems," by J. W. T.
During
the summer of 1886 I was paving the way to a higher education by peddling books,
exercising my potent personal charm on belligerent bulldogs and bringing
reluctant smiles to the frowning faces of ofttimes unliterary farmers.
I was a boy of fifteen at that time, and as I have said, I already
had been awarded a second grade certificate to teach. I had not yet secured a
school, so I took an agency for books and traveled over the territory now
occupied by Camp Hood, over the Cowhouse River Valley and down to Killeen and
Nolan Creek. I canvassed from house to house, my main stock in trade being a
book on "Labor and Capital," and another book entitled "The Land of the Midnight
Sun."
It was a good way for a boy to learn how to approach people and
talk to them, and it taught me to study human nature and to weigh and understand
different personalities.
One time an old farmer tried to set his bulldog on me - said he
didn't want any agents coming around his house. I talked to the dog, called him
fond names and petted him, and he refused 'to bite or chase me; so the old man
had to grin and go back into the house. One can never fool a dog or a child. If
a person is kind-hearted, either will know it.
At that time I was so bashful and so backward about meeting people
that I felt like backing out each time I left on Monday morning to start on
my week's work. But when I came in again on Saturday night I would grit my teeth
and determine that I would keep on meeting people and trying to hold my own with
strangers. I knew I'd never amount to a thing in the world without
self-confidence.
That two months of meeting new people and learning to adapt myself
to them, gave me more in the development of my personality than any other year
of my life. I also became acquainted with a minister by the name of French. He
had come from New York and he had a beautiful daughter and a fine piano. The
family was the center of attraction in that community because of the novelty of
the piano and the charm of the girl.
Through my brother Jim, I secured a book from Mr. French, and later
we got another book written by Professor O. S. Fowler, the great phrenologist.
The study of phrenology was very popular at that time. I read
everything I could find on the subject and studied people closely. Such
observation was really an important thing; it was psychology in a practical
form. I grew to understand human nature better, learned how men's actions were
motivated, and realized the power of ambition.
My ambition to become a doctor constantly increased, and I read
everything available to me along that line. I was nearly sixteen-almost a man.
My favorite pastime was playing the fiddle. Leigh Gillespie, my
nearest boy friend and neighbor, loved music, too. His family lived about three
or four hundred yards from us, and his mother was a musician also. She bought an
organ about that time and I remembered hearing its beautiful tones sounding out
through the morning air after it was first unloaded. We could hear it plainly
from our house, and, thrilled with excitement, we all went to see the new organ
and to hear it played.
My friend Leigh had such a talent for music that he could hear his
mother playa piece two or three times and then could sit down at the instrument
and play it better than she could. He had a natural aptitude for all kinds of
musical devices. I remember seeing six different instruments in his at one
time. In fact, Leigh did not claim to be a student; he talked of nothing but
music.
I took my fiddle over to the Gillespie's place and practiced with
him, and we also discussed medicine and literature. I suppose we had an
influence on each other, for later on he studied medicine, too, and moved to
Oklahoma. Of course I never stopped playing the fiddle; it has given me much
wholesome enjoyment through the years. I understand that Leigh made a success in
his profession, but I had not seen him for a long time when I heard of his death
in 1945.
Reverting to my boyhood, during summer vacations I used to help
break up the ground where the wheat had grown. I drove three mules to an old
sulky plow. One day I found a book that had been thrown away by some people from
the North - a text-book on English and American literature. I memorized much of
it and declaimed it to the mules, thus improving my speaking voice, which was
rather tricky at that period. I had read somewhere that Henry Clay read his
speeches to the barnyard animals before he tried them on people. The mules would
cock up their ears as I read from John Wycliffe:
"Come gather rosebuds while you may, Old
Time is swiftly flying,
And those that bloom so sweet today, Tomorrow may be dying."
To which I added, inspirationally:
'Tis but the song, the sad refrain, Of
flowers that sweetly bloom;
The emblems true of joy or pain From the cradle to the tomb.
The
ears of the mules seemed to droop with the last sad lines. Josh Billings once
said, "I never saw a mule standing still that didn't look like he thought he was
thinking." Maybe these mules were, for when I tried Shakespeare on them,
reciting from Hamlet and trying to make my voice very deep and profound, their
ears definitely went down.
When those mules got distemper, I treated them. I noticed that when
I would smoke them with tar and make them stand up with their heads down, their
lungs were relieved and they would get well. If they lay down, with their heads
up, they did badly. So I would stir them up, make them stand, and smoke them
with tar.
This experience made so great an impression on me that I have used
the knowledge thus gained, and in 1918, when the terrible "flu" epidemic was
raging, I brought it into use. People were dying by the hundreds everywhere, and
the doctors were overrun with work. I never was so crowded in my life. I think I
treated about 200 cases of flu and pneumonia, combined, many of whom I did not
see. I gave directions over the phone as to their care, and sent medicine to
them.
In the first place, the patient had to be kept warm; and in the
second place, he must not be given depressing remedies to run the temperature
down. Nature uses fever as a means of burning up the poison in the system. I
kept my patients in bed, warm (or hot), with a thermolite twice daily.
Camphorated oil, with a little oil of mustard, was rubbed into their chests, and
out of the 200 cases I lost only two patients. One of those had arthritis,
involving several joints, and was very weak when I first saw her; the other was
five months pregnant, and had been ill for several days. It was then that
I learned that the patient should not lie flat on his back, but on one side,
with the foot of the bed elevated about six inches, thus draining the lungs. I
was reminded of the mules that I would not allow to lie down while I smoked them
with tar.
Just a little horse sense - or mule sense - utilized in the
practice of medicine, and I am sure better results often would be secured. After
all, common sense is the most important thing in treating the majority of cases.
All through this book, I expect to give practical remedies to be used while
waiting for the doctor to arrive - remedies that I have employed, even before I
began to practice medicine, and that I have always recommended.
For instance, about this period of my life I had a bad case of
acne. Naturally, I was self-conscious and well aware that it greatly marred my
would-be manly beauty. In a desire to cure the skin trouble that was causing me
so much embarrassment, I read all I could find on the subject, bought a highly
recommended facial soap, and scrubbed my face with it thoroughly, once a day, as
directed. I found that diet was an important consideration - that pork or sweets
always made my skin worse. That is not true in all cases of acne, but it was in
mine, so I regulated my diet and my daily habits, and found that when I did, my
face always got better. Even now, if I eat too much pork or sweets of the sugar
type (not honey or syrup) it results in a new crop of pimples.
As I related in the preceding chapter, one of my duties about the
was to milk the cows morning and night and to take care of the bees and the
trees. We did not use the scientific methods then that are being taught to boys
and girls of the 4-H clubs over the country.
I have always been interested in the wonderful discoveries of
Luther Burbank, who, when he began his scientific work, was an average country
boy about ten years old, in a New England state where the climate was very cold.
One of his first experiments was with corn. He would take it down into the
basement of his and leave it until it had sprouted, and at the right time
he would plant it out and thus get roasting ears about a week ahead of the other
boys in the community. Of course he could sell them at a much higher price, but
it wasn't the selling that interested him most.
Burbank continued his experiments with plants and finally decided
to go far away from the little town of Lancaster, Massachusetts, to a climate
that would be more conducive to the growth of vegetation. So he left his and his people and went to California, securing a job in a nursery at a very
small salary. He found a wonderful climate around Santa Rosa, beneficial not
only to plants but to himself. A good lady gave him a quart of milk a day, which
with other nourishing foods built him up so that he no longer feared an
incipient tuberculosis. He worked industriously in the study of plant life, and
the remarkable things he accomplished are a matter of record and of world-wide
knowledge. His books had a profound influence on me. Like Burbank, I felt that I
had a lifework, and I put my mind and soul into it, as I wrote:
I'm a dreamer with a mission,
Just to help folks dare and do; Body, soul and mind physician,
Thus to help your dreams come true.
-From "Practical Poems for Daily Use."
* * *
PROBLEMS OF A COUNTRY TEACHER
"We shape ourselves the joy or fear
Of which the coming life is made;
We fill the future's atmosphere
With sunshine or with shade.
"The tissues of the life to be
We weave with colors all our own,
And in the field of Destiny
We reap as we have sown."
-Whittier.
As I
have told you, at the debate in which Tom Morgan, and myself were paired against
a school teacher and a preacher, we won the decision. Tom went all over the
country making speeches and met hundreds of people. Consequently, he secured a
good school -- one of the best rural schools in that section. It was located at
Mount Zion, near Turnersville, Texas, popularized by the late Dr. J. B. Cranfill
was a poet, a doctor, a writer, and a fiddler, like myself.
Tom told me that he could help me get a school at Enterprise, in
the valley about three miles below Mt. Zion, between Gatesville and Jonesboro. I
went with him and secured the school, through the aid of one of his uncles, who
on the board of trustees. I began teaching there on October 10th. Tom and I
boarded for the first six weeks with Tom Hamilton, a trustee of the Mt. Zion
school. We ed the cows as a part of our contract, so that the wife i have plenty
of time to give us good meals. I had thirty- six pupils that year, and received
the enormous salary (at time) of forty-five dollars a month. Ten dollars of this
paid to my host, Mr. Balch, for board and room. He had boy and girl, both very
bright and interesting.
On the 15th of January, 1888, I rode to Gatesville to draw salary.
As I started there came up the most terrible blizzard -- one that was
remembered far and wide throughout the years as having been the most destructive
experienced in this section. It came as a rolling mist from the north, with such
fury that it almost froze my horse, though I forced him to a gallop all the way
home. I was almost frozen myself when I got there, and could hardly dismount. I
was helped into the house and rubbed vigorously, while warm blankets were
applied to my faithful horse. The next Saturday I went back to Gatesville and
counted sixteen cows lying by the road, frozen to death.
The Enterprise school, of course, developed me considerably. After
school was over I would stay in the schoolhouse read aloud important and
interesting pieces from the readers. In away, I was speech-making, for I
cultivated my voice and my memory at the same time.
I had some German students who were dependable and learned their
lessons well. I helped them all I could, and " in turn, taught me a lot of words
in German, so that I took it up when I went to college two years later. Their
name was Guggoz.
Just feed your soul on kindly deeds
Performed for others in distress;
For that is what this old world needs
Its lonely, hungry souls to bless.
For if you thus your heart employ,
You'll give and get a lot of joy. Just try it!
-From my "Practical Poems."
Tom
Morgan was what Pat Neff sometimes called a narrow-minded Baptist, and he said I
was a shallow-minded Methodist. But Tom and I got along very well. Tom believed
strongly in the old motto, "Spare the rod and spoil the child," and in enforcing
discipline he did not hesitate to administer corporal punishment, sometimes
severely. However, he made a very loyal friend.
At the end of school he invited me, and also his father, to make
speeches that might have an influence in securing the school for him again the
coming season. When we arrived, the trustees were there for the closing
exercises, and so were a good many of my former pupils from the neighboring
school at Enterprise. The children came running to meet me again. The trustees
observed this.
The speech which I made ended with the little poem "Raphael" by
Whittier. It seems that any lengthy expression of mine, be it a speech or a
written narration, invariably runs into poetry at the end-sometimes at both ends
- or even in the middle.
After the exercises were over, one of the trutees asked me to make
application for the Mt. Zion school for the coming year. I told him I would do
no such thing, that Tom had been a friend of mine all these years, that he had
helped me to get the school at Enterprise, and that I would be loyal to him. The
trustee said, "We're not going to give it to him, anyhow; he whips too much."
They had heard that I did not whip any of the children at all during the period
of my teaching at Enterprise. I told him to tell Tom I would not make
application, so Tom was told, but he said he'd rather that I would have the
school than anyone else. So when the trustees asked me to accept it, I
consented.
I boarded with Uncle Shafe Weaver, who had a large family, mostly
boys, going out into the world. It was not necessary for me to administer many
severe punishments, though the pupils were used to it and seemed to expect it. I
had found there were better ways of leading them in the right direction. It was
surprising how cooperative they became, and how important they felt, when I
pointed out to them that it was their school, not merely mine, and that
they must help me make it the best in the country. I used this method of
cooperation through all my school-teaching days, and still use it in handling my
patients.
If you give loving kindness
In all the deeds you do,
'Twill make you many friendships
That will come back to you.
-From my "Pastime Poems."
Miss
Genella Cannon, daughter of Dr. Cannon of Jonesboro, was my assistant teacher.
We had eighty-six students. W. B. Hamilton was one of our boys. He was six years
old at that time and his sister Lillie was seven. He frequently sat on my lap
and asked me questions. Since then he has become a very prominent man in the
State of Texas. It was Mr. Hamilton who built the Hamilton Building, a ten-story
structure at Wichita Falls, Texas. Wichita Falls, it might be said here, is a
city of enterprise and adventure, which has made many millionaires through its
oil industries. It is a town that is always in the headlines, if for no other
reason than that it can boast of having the coldest, or the hottest, weather,
according to the season of the year.
Many men from Wichita Falls have gone out into the world and made
their mark; for instance, Joe Perkins and Joe Bridwell. These two outstanding
men have done great things for humanity in the way of charity. They have used,
and are using, their money to make the world a better, brighter and happier
place in which to live - and they get more fun in giving their money away than
any other two persons I ever have known.
Which reminds me of a little motto originally written and published
in one of my books of verse, "Pastime Poems of a Busy Doctor."
Who never learns the joy of giving,
But lives alone for pelf,
Has missed the greatest joy of living,
In giving others of himself.
* * *
IN OLD CENTENARY
The smallest flower that blooms and dies
Fulfills its own predestined course;
The glittering stars that deck the skies
Are guided by the self-same force;
Each changing scene is wrought by laws,
Yet all obey that great First Cause.
As a
boy, however I was not a visionary; I took myself very seriously. I remember
well what an important question it was to decide where I should go to school -
what college I should select. I recall, too, how Tom Morgan's friends influenced
me.
Billy Ware, a stepson of Tom's uncle, who had been attending Old
Centenary College, at Lampasas, Texas, had just married Genella Cannon, my
former assistant teacher. Naturally, my thoughts were directed to that school.
It was inexpensive, they said, and the boys were allowed to work their way
through, if necessary. I had to be very economical, as I had not saved a great
deal of money out of my recent salary of fifty dollars a month.
It was in September, 1889, that I boarded the train at Killeen and
went to Lampasas, arriving there on a Sunday afternoon to begin my course at the
opening of the fall term of Centenary College. The young man who met me was W.
E. Spivey, who now lives in Brownsville, a very friendly sort of fellow, and
apparently a fine scholar. I imagined he could speak Latin and Greek better than
I could speak English.
Spivey introduced me around, and the next morning when! we went
into our classes I was surprised to find that I was ahead of Will in all my
studies. That gave me more confidence to try to excel. We were all just country
boys with ambitions and dreams, and I stood as good chance as any of the rest of
them to forge ahead and go places.
I took German, Spanish and Latin as my languages. In those days we
had to have two modern foreign languages and one dead one in order to get our
B.S. degree.
After we had been in Old Centenary about a month, I took part in a
debate on the subject: "Resolved, that Napoleon was a better general than
Washington." I had read everything available on Napoleon, though I never did
like him on account of his wanton destruction of human life and his disregard of
the nations that he conquered. It was his avowed purpose to unify Europe and put
all countries under one rule. He had a most brilliant mind, I learned as I
studied his life and the accounts of his great victories, and I contrasted him
with Washington, who was so much superior to him as a man. History revealed,
however -- or so it seemed to me - that Napoleon was a more able general than
Washington, and I won the decision on our debate that night in October, 1889.
About that time, near the end of the first month in school, the
young ladies gave us a soiree, entertaining the young men at the girls'
dormitory. I had some trouble knowing what to do with my hands and feet, and how
to talk to the girls entertainingly, but I was very glad when they put me on
their program, which was a charade. Charades were' very popular in those days.
Perhaps some of you may remember how much they were enjoyed.
A month later, the boys gave a return entertainment for the girls.
I was on the program, representing Romeo. Bert Hoover, a very good-looking young
fellow, dressed up in a home-made Mother Hubbard, stood coyly on a table while I
knelt on the floor and made love to him as Juliet.
One of my roommates was Dan Nelson, who later became a doctor. He
practiced several years at Richland Springs, rendering fine service to that
community and section. The other was Homer Perryman. There were three students
in each room, and in some of the larger rooms there were four.
In those days I had very regular habits, arising at five o'clock in
the morning and going to bed at ten at night. In the evenings I took long walks,
which served the double purpose of cultivating my memory and exercising my body.
I would read a page from a book and repeat it while I walked. Since I always
recited it aloud, I was also training myself in voice and expression. The
constant reviewing, every evening, of the work done during the day, together
with a general review at the end of each week, was a method of fixing facts in
my mind so that they could be recalled at will.
About that time, I read a book on memory, by Dr. O. S. Fowler, whom
I have mentioned. He told about a man who was so forgetful that he often was
unable to remember what he had started to his house for, or what he was to do
when he reached his place of business after leaving home. This man was a tailor,
but he conceived the idea of reading two lines at a time from whatever selection
he chose, then closing the book and repeating those lines over and over, adding
another line or two from time to time. By constantly reviewing and putting his
mind, heart and soul into this undertaking, he finally acquired the power of
concentration and developed a marvelous memory.
Edison, Burbank, Henry Ford, and other great men noted in economic,
scientific and inventive lines, have done that very thing - put their whole
minds and hearts into one certain subject. I decided this was the only way to
succeed, so I followed their examples and made outstanding progress - not
because I was the most brilliant student, but because I was systematic and
persistent in my methods.
The next fall I was given a regular assistant's place, and taught
several classes half of each day, reciting in my own classes the other half, and
studying my lessons at night. Professor McIlhany, who had founded Centenary,
became its president again, Dr. Reynolds having passed away. I was then given
full charge of a department and became very enthusiastic about the future.
I went back the second year with Professor Kilgore, in Professor
Hall's place, and was elected assistant teacher, giving instruction, attending
classes, and studying my senior class work. This year my roommates were W. H.
(Bill) Matthews - a very fine-looking fellow who later became a preacher and
filled many places in Texas conferences; Jim Pool, and Bob Matthews. Bill
Matthews was the founder of the Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth, which will go
down the years serving humanity. It is a very large hospital now, and has been
taken over by Dr. Charles Harris, who freed it of debt. It is now called the
Harris Memorial Hospital, in memory of Dr. Harris' father. Charles has done a
great thing for the Methodist church and in honor of his departed father. Long
may he live!
Looking back, I consider with joy the work I did in Old Centenary
College in Lampasas during the fall of 1890 and the for the remainder of the
term. I completed a four-year course in two years, and graduated April 28, 1891.
There were three students in our graduating class: W. H. Matthews, mentioned
before as my roommate; Miss Lillie Bean,
a young lady from one of the leading Texas families, and myself. It was a rather
small class but we realized our importance and felt that we made up in quality
what we lacked in quantity. My graduating speech was "Our Future."
I went back to Old Centenary that fall as a teacher. The Rev.
Marshall Mcllhany was president; Dr. Reynolds had died. Prof. F. S. E. Amos had
resigned and gone to Oklahoma, and Rev. James Kilgore, who had married during
the preceding year, had started preaching. I was made dean of the Boys' Home,
which housed many young boys, as well as older ones. I had a great deal of
responsibility during this time, for I was young myself - just past twenty. Some
of the students were older than I.
Prof. E. I. Hall, who taught mathematics in Centenary, is still
living in Arkansas. He is the brother of Rev. A. W. Hall, a prominent Methodist
preacher in Texas.
In the fall of 1892 I again returned to Old Centenary as a teacher,
but a depression was prevailing by then, so I resigned on the first of November
and returned to my in Coryell County. Soon after that I accepted a school
at Olive, near Leon Junction, where I taught for four months, finishing the term
that had been begun by Captain Smith, an excellent teacher, who had died.
I boarded with the Friend family, which was the beginning of a
friendship that lasted through the years. When the school closed in the spring,
my mind turned again to the medical profession, my ultimate objective. It
occurred to me that I might go to Norman, Oklahoma, where French Amos had gone
to teach in the University.
Will Friend and his sisters, Misses Minnie and Ethel Friend, are
now living in Rockport, Texas, where Will has been city secretary for more than
eight years. Miss Ethel has been postmaster of Rockport since 1937. Miss Minnie
wrote to me that all three of them would be delighted to have their names in
this book, as, so far, they had never been able to get past the fly-leaf in any
book.
A few days ago I 'phoned
MY FRIENDS
Big, happy Will is jolly still
The many years he has been ill;
Sweet Minnie, too, with eyes so blue
Speaks wit and wisdom, kind and true.
Then Ethel fair with long blond hair
And voice of melody to share.