Bend, Texas
Chapter 6 - Pecans

by Harland Moore

‹ Chapter 5

Jarrell Moore loved the pecan business. He helped Uncle Frank Moore set out his pecan orchard at Bend. He was an excellent pecan propagator budding and grafting both large trees and small seedlings in the nursery. Most of all he liked to gather pecans from the native pecan bottoms. He was known far and wide for his ability to climb and thresh large pecan trees. At that time there were no mechanical shakers and each tree had to be scaled and flailed or threshed by hand using cane and cedar poles. Some said that Jarrell got around in the tree like a squirrel and that he would stand on a swinging limb without holding as he used both hands on the threshing pole. Every Fall would find him in a pecan bottom gathering pecans by the pound. Some time he would buy a pecan crop on the trees. He would thresh the trees and hire people to pick them up by the pound. Many times during the depression years the earnings from the pecan crop was the only income for the year. One year we gathered pecans near San Angelo, other times around Gonzales or Oklahoma but most of the time it was around Bend or San Saba.

We were back at Bend on my fourth birthday, I seem to remember a bit about my birthday party. Several kids about my age were there and we played some games that were new to me, like" London Bridge" and something about going "In and Out the Window" I remember two of the girls that were there, Norva Gee Cates and Wanda Gibson. One of them gave me a men's handkerchief for a present and told me to keep it until I grew to be a man. I think I kept it for about twenty years before using it. At that time I think we lived in a little two room house near downtown Bend.

We moved so much and so often, I am not sure which is next but I believe that the next was Devils Hollow. That place was a flat fertile black land valley between two steep hills. It was about two or three hundred yards wide and a mile and a half long. It was very seepy and boggy during wet spells. There were four farms in the hollow. At the upper end was the Lewis farm, then the Barefoots. We lived on the next farm which at that time belonged to Watt Smith. The next place below us belonged to Uncle Neigh Gorman and it was next to the Colorado River. These places had lots of pecan trees on them and squirrels were abundant. Uncle Neigh would walk up through the trees to our house while hunting I never saw him without a gun. Fried squirrels were delicious and they provided an excellent supplement to the beans and potato diet during the depression.

Devils Hollow is about two miles from Bend and we had no car at the time so we either had to walk or go in the wagon which was pulled by a span of mules. At times Daddy would cut and haul some cedar posts to a cedar yard at Bend. I think that the cedar yard was owned by Boss Warner. Dad would get a little money for them and it would be used to purchase some staple groceries such as flour, soda, salt, sugar and coffee. Skippers General Store in those days was quite different from the modern supermarket. If you wanted to purchase some dried beans you simply told the man that you wanted "a quarters worth of beans" or maybe if you wanted a larger amount you would tell him that you wanted "four bits worth of beans". He would place a paper sack on the scales, scoop some beans out of the barrel and pour them in the bag until the scales indicated the proper amount. He would then fold the top of the sack down and secure it with a piece of twine. Almost everything was sold in bulk except some canned goods. If you wanted to buy some bacon, the grocery man would open a large wooden bin. He would take a meat hook and pull out a side of "sow belly" and cut off a chunk and weigh it. You took the slab home and sliced it with your own knife.

Watt Smith also ran a store at Bend. He had a soda bar where he sold soft drinks. On request he would make you a milk shake by putting some milk, sugar and flavoring in a metal container with some chipped ice. He would then put a metal covering on the container ands shake it vigorously. He would then pour it into a glass and say "Here, Kid, Here's your milkshake". He also had a sort of cafe in the store and he would serve such things as a bowl of Chile or a can of sardines with crackers. He used the same bottle of pepper sauce for years. When it ran dry he would simply pour some more vinegar over the same pepper. After a few years and many refills that bottle contained nothing but alight green mush and pepper seeds. It tasted like sour vinegar.

Other places of business in Bend consisted of a Drug Store, a blacksmith shop, a barber shop, a post office and at one time a moving picture theater. There was no electricity in Bend at that time and I am not sure what kind of light was used to project the image on the screen. It may have been a carbide light. The screen was a large cloth tacked to the wall and whitewashed with lime. Since there was no electricity to turn the projector, Uncle Jess Banta turned the crank by hand. The silent movies were not very good but they were a modern marvel.

When the movie was over it was already dark. Of course there were no headlights on the wagon. I guess the mules could see better in the dark than people could because they went right down the old dirt road all the way home and stopped at the gate. By this time most young kids were asleep on a quilt in the wagon bed and had to be carried in the house by an adult.

Chapter 7 - School and growing up ›