Sunday School Dropouts

Play time on the farm happens after it gets too dark to
work anymore. Sundays were usually left to us  if there wasn't an
emergency like a load of cotton almost ready for the gin, lacking three
or four hundred pounds. That wasn't too bad we all went out there
together and got it done real fast,It's nice when your all working
toward one goal it makes you feel like a plus instead of a
minus.

 Our house was built
up on stilts,  we had plenty of room underneath it to make a play
house.   We swept it so clean under there it looked like a
white rug. There were rafters there for our junk, and we made a hammock
out of an old cotton sack. Since there were just two of us we got sick
of each other pretty quick, we were starved for other kids to play
with.

 
   

The Church folks came by one day and stopped to talk to our
folks about letting my sister and me come to Sunday School. "Were
just  too busy working to stop what needs doing  and haul
them back and forth every Sunday,  sometime you  need to rest
and that's when I rest&;quot; my Dad told the preacher. Well that's
that I thought.

&;quot;What if
we came and picked them up, and brought them back right after
Church&;quot; the Preacher said. I think Dad, finally said we could
go just so the Preacher would go away. I thought Sunday would never
come.

We were so excited about going to Sunday
School,that's all we talked about all week. When we came home that
first Sunday, we were full of information.If we go next week they are
going to give us our own little Bible, and if you go ten Sundays
without missing you'll get a neckless, with the Lords Prayer in it. I
loved to go to Sunday School.

I never did get that
neckless they would always find some reason why we couldn't go this
week. The church people came by Sunday after Sunday once in a while
they would let us go but when Dad found out that one of our closest
neighbors was a Sunday school teacher we didn't even beg to go
anymore.

 &;quot;Every word out of that man's mouth is
a cuss word&;quot; my Dad said,which was true. &;quot;He puts on
his suit on Sunday and acts like a Christian it ain't  right,and
yall ain't going no more either and that's the end to
that&;quot;

My Dad also had a dog that the
neighbor had threatned to run over.I think that was the reason he
wouldn't let us go to Sunday school. This dog would take off barking
and chasing his truck every time he came down our rock road. Once he
had to run off the road and through the cotton patch to keep from
running the dog over. He stopped Dad and told him &;quot;Next time I
see that dog I'm gonna run him over, if you want to keep him you better
keep the little bastard in the house&;quot; They cussed at each
other for awhile I thought they were going to fight and they almost
did.

This neighbor finally got what was
coming to him according to Daddy. He was filling his tractor from the
big gasoline tank that stood in his yard, apparently he was smoking got
gas on his clothes which caught fire and burned him really bad. He was
in the hospital for a long time. &;quot;See what happens to people
who claim to be something they ain't&;quot; Daddy
said.