Life story of Clyde Law, Part 2

Continued from last week In HONOR of

Sammy Cicero Law

I cannot remember just the date some of these things happened, as to when one store was burned down or torn down and rebuilt in brick. It is like where the Walgreens Drug Store is now. I was a big boy when Mr., Jet had his trading lot there, where he traded horses, he had to move over behind Porter’s store, so they could build that store in bricks.

I can remember Mr. Ruffus Allday, Mr. Aquilla Miles, T.A. Miles’ daddy who started the Drug Store. I really liked Mr. Jim Pepper.

The picture of people selling their potatoes, I can remember those days. Everyone around here grew at least one acre of potatoes. They had to haul the potatoes they were going to sell to town so they could load them on the train. The wagons were parked along where Endsley and Newkirk have their wholesales now.

My mother, Emmy Maxwell Law, told us lots of tales of her riding side saddle on her mare up and down the trail. She said, ‘one evening she was riding and while she was in deep woods and it was wilderness then, that a panther or bear scared her mare and he threw her off with his sudden up movement, she sat there on the ground wondering what she was going to do, then she saw that her mare had not gone very far so she hurried and mounted back on him and rode home. It was nothing to see deer, bear, panthers, etc. running across the trail ahead of you. We have her old spinning wheel and side saddle.

Mama said her parents had to go to Jefferson to get their food supplies, flour, sugar, coffee and seeds etc. Her dad would tell them he planned to go to Jefferson on such and such day, so that her mother could prepare enough food for them, because they had to leave one day, spend the night on the road, spend a day in Jefferson, camp out that night, start back and spend another night on the road then in to home.

On one of these trips some of her brothers got to go with their father. This one trip, they saw the wagon coming back from Jefferson, they saw one of the boys driving the mules, and they could not see their father. All the family gathered at the picket fence where they knew the wagon had stopped. As they stood there, the wagon drove to its place and stopped, the boy that was driving got out on the tongue or double trees, placing his head on the mare and started crying, they finally got him to tell them, his father had died on the way home. Mama did not tell us how old she was, and we never thought to ask her but this is the way Grandpa Maxwell died. I have lived on this farm since I was about 6 years old and raised my family, here in the Huffines community.

Sammy, Mr. Law’s youngest son asks his father to tell about Cloraridie.

Clorandie, is a little Indian woman, who wore a size 3 shoe. It is the Grandmother of Mrs. Addie Law.

Clorandie was a wonderful old soul if there ever was one. She had a rocker she sat in, her head came about half way up the back. She has a quilt box and every time she moved you had to put her mattress, quilts and things in her box.

She lived with Mrs. Jody Arnold for six months then she would go to her daughter that lived in Alexander, Louisiana, Mrs. Addie Bowen. She would sit in her rocker, looking so small but we all would gather around her, and she would tell us old tales about J.J. ,her husband. J.J. Arnold was not any kin to these Arnold around here. J.J. came over to go rabbit hunting with Bill McDowell and me one day after it ha had snowed. He had a rifle, one like Bill Law has, Remington 1800. We did not get very far until he said, “there is no need to go any further.” We thought we were being real quiet but to him we were making too much noise. He said, “you two couldn’t slip up on a dead bear. He could slip upon you, and you would never hear or see him until there he was beside you.

Clorandie told us how J.J. went deer hunting. When they needed meat, he would tell her that he was going hunting, he would catch and saddle her mare, leave his dog in the house with her, she would go to bed and to sleep. J.J. would go out into the woods, he would carry with him a long pole with a pan nailed to the end of the pole. He would locate the deer, then put the long pole on his shoulder, with feed in the pan and walk as quietly as he could pass the deers, they would smell the feed and start to follow the feed on the end of the pole. J.J. Would shoot the deer, he was a crack shot with his gun, he seldom just wound a deer, so when he shot the deer, he would blow his horn, the dog ( I cannot remember its name) would hear the horn and wake Clorandie. She would dress, get on the mare and the dog would listen to the horn, which J.J. would blow every so often and take Clorandie to J.J. and the deer. J.J. would tie the deer behind the saddle on the mare and Clorandie would take it home. She would tie the mare to the fence and when J.J. got home he would take the deer off the mare and dress it.

Joe Law is a 2nd cousin to Cicero Law, Uncle Joe Law lived where Mrs. Teel’s house is now, where that old cotton wood trees are. I do not know just what the name of the Bayou, but Uncle Joe Law owned a piece of land that they had to cross over some water, there was a big cypress log at the porter crossing. Uncle Joe took his boys, and they walked this log and cleared this new ground and planted it. While they were working over there, Aunt Baxfer Pyle Law would cook their dinner, put it in a big basket, take it on her arm and walk to the Bayou, to the end of the log and call to Uncle Joe and the boys and they would come and eat their dinner. One day she came to the end of the log and at the other end of the log stood a Catty Mount, standing there wagging his tail, she just stood real still, waiting and hoping that her husband and sons would come in time. She heard them coming, she did not move, just kept starring at the cat, then when they saw her and the cat, they stopped, one of the older boys found a seasoned cypress limb and slipped up behind the cat, hitting it in the back, breaking its back and beat it to death with the limb. Sammy and Clydie Law Dupree wanted their parents to tell some of the tales they would tell them when they were children that were real scarry to them. Mrs. a Addle Law, their mother told of a mirror in a bed room, where you could sit and it looked like a mouse running around on the mirror, you would just know that it was a real mouse but when you got up close to the mirror, there was no mouse.

Bill Law married. Wilma Skinner, Sammy Law married Linda Dumas Noah Clyde Marie Law married Garland E. Dupree