Leaving the Farm

That was a very happy time in my life, but I am not sure what happened or why my Daddy decided to leave the farm, but I can remember my Mama crying a lot and one day she told us we were going to leave our farm.  She said my Daddy was going to work on the railroad where he would be paid real money and we would have a nice house and better clothes.  I do not remember the move, but I do remember the house and place we moved to.

I was in luck-down the hill an on the main road to town lived a family with three children.  There were two girls and one boy.  Their house was wonderful.  They had a real front room with chairs and lamps and a rug on the floor.  Their kitchen had a big oven to cook on and a real oven to bake in.  Their Mama made wonderful cakes and cookies.  She woul give me and her youngest girl, Mary Lou, treats to picnic on and we had such good times with my little brothers that I still had to care for.

We had a very small creek that ran down the holler where we played a lot of times.  And on the hill above there was a small "mountain" that had a rock face.  In patches of dirt on this rock there was a wondrous thing that grew.  It was what I called "mountain tea".  It tasted like what I now know as peppermint or spearmint flavor.  We gathered this mountain tea and chewed it, boiled it and just sometimes ate it.  We must have harvested a million tons of mountain tea while we lived there.

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