The Cross Timbers by Edward Everett Dale Page A

teacher, Miss Anna Davidson, was a maiden lady of uncertain age, who lived with her widowed mother in the southwest part of the little town. She had an excellent library as judged by the standards of the region. Among her books were most of the novels of Dickens, Scott, and John Strange Winter, the poems and some prose works of Bulwer-Lytton, and books by George Eliot, Hawthorne, Cooper, and various others.
    She soon learned that I liked to read and began to lend me books. As a result, during the winter and spring of 1888–1889 I read a number of Dickens’ novels, including David Copperfield, Pickwick Papers, Bleak House, Old Curiosity Shop, and some others. Also, I read several of Scott’s Waverly novels, George Eliot’s Mill on the Floss, and several other books by various authors. Plenty of time was available in which to read, for my school studies were easy and I had little to do except for helping Mattie with the housework.
    George remained in Greer County only about three months. As spring approached he received a letter from Tom offering to pay him eighty dollars to return and help him on the farm during the spring and summer months. As this seemed important money to a fifteen-year-old lad, George gladly accepted the offer.
    Naturally I missed him a great deal, for we had never been separated except for the six weeks between my departure with Alice for Navajoe and his arrival with Father. During those weeks there had been so many interesting things for me to see that there was little time left in which to get lonesome. Now I began to get a little homesick for our Cross Timbers home and the kids that I had played with, but especially for George!
    There was still much about life in the little town of Navajoe, however, to interest me. The Indians, wearing red blankets and beaded moccasins, with their hair in long braids tied with red yarn, especially fascinated me. Hardly a week went by without a few of them coming from the Reservation beyond the North Fork to pitch their tepees at the edge of town. Usually they would stay two or three days, coming to the stores to buy groceries, bright-colored calico, and other merchandise.
    Few of them could speak much English, but Henry knew a little of the Comanche language. He taught me a few Comanche words and to count “in Comanche.” This information I treasured carefully to spring on the neighbors’ kids when we got back to our home in the Cross Timbers.
    Early in May, 1889, Alice was married to Henry Roach, a young widower, who lived in Henrietta, Texas. I am not sure where she first met him but it was probably in Dallas when she was working in a hospital in that city. He was a contractor andbuilder, who also was an expert bricklayer and stonemason. He came to Navajoe for the wedding, but immediately took his bride to his home in Henrietta.
    With George and Alice both gone, my father grew increasingly restless and early in June decided to return to the Cross Timbers. We could not regain possession of our home until the tenant had harvested his crops, which would be in November, but we could live with Tom and Lucy and help with the farm work. Probably the chief factor in Father’s decision was his church. He missed the old friends and neighbors, but especially he missed his brethren in the Primitive Baptist Church, and the association with them in their homes and at worship.
    At first he considered leaving me with Mattie for a few months but finally decided to take me with him. We left Navajoe early in June in a covered wagon drawn by a pony team. Our route was to Doan’s Crossing on the South Fork of the Red River and to Vernon, Texas. From there we followed roads paralleling the Fort Worth and Denver Railway.
    We reached Henrietta about ten o’clock one morning and stayed long enough to have noonday dinner with Alice and her husband. It was characteristic of my father, however, that soon after dinner we continued our journey. We were both