Favorite Stories From My Father, Ballard Hicks, 1887--1971

I tend to believe that I am a pretty good story teller and I know I came by it honestly.  My father, Ballard Hicks, was a wonderful story teller and could talk about any subject, any time, anywhere.  He had been born in the holler of Bruce at Mousie in Knott County Kentucky in 1887 and died in 1971 at the age of 84.  When he was born, Grover Cleveland was president and by the time he died the country was suffering through the Viet Nam War and the crimes of Richard Nixon.  When my father was born, Knott County Kentucky was a toddler of three years old.  Most of the prescription medicines we used even by the time I was born in 1951 were unknown in his time.  Anything as common as a broken bone or appendicitis could kill you.

Ballard Hicks, Photo by Roger D. Hicks

  My father helped hunt wild hogs for winter meat as a teenager with his father, Charlie Hicks, and his brothers, William, Isom, Fair, Elder, and Tim.  They kept mountain cur dogs which were trained to hunt any and all edible animals.  My grandfather kept more than fifty stands of bees most of his life and was said to talk about "his honey, his money, and his old woman".  I suspect he was a story teller too.  My father's family raised, made, hunted, fished, or bartered for 99% of everything they ate, wore, and used in daily life until well into their own adult lives.  Life in the late 19th century was not easy in Knott County Kentucky but I never heard my father or any of his siblings complain about how they grew up and I personally knew six of his nine siblings.  I sincerely wish that I had recorded every story I heard from them and many others I knew from their era instead of assuming I would remember those stories.  But I do remember many of my father's favorite stories and I heard most of them many times until his death when I was twenty.  

Sometime when I was about 8 or 9 years old, Daddy decided it was time for me to learn to swim and took me to Beaver Creek near our house to try to teach me even though he was past 70 at the time.  During this experience, he told me the story of how he learned to swim.  He said that his mother, Elizabeth "Betty" Carpenter Hicks, sent him somewhere on Ball Branch around Mousie where someone operated a grist mill to get a turn of corn ground into meal.  He said the miller had a few other turns of corn to grind before his and he went outside the mill to walk around the mill pond.  During this walk or play session, he said he fell off the mill dam into the pond which was well over his head and he could not swim.  He said he went under the first time and came to the surface without being able to swim.  He went down a second time and when he came up he still was not able to swim.  He said just as he was about to sink for the third time he managed to begin kicking and paddling in a successful manner and made it to the bank alive.  He always said that he could always swim after that incident. I am sure that near drowning incident played a role in his decision to teach me to swim. 

Charley and Betty Hicks and Their Children And Two Grandchildren, Photo by Roger D. Hicks

He also told a couple of other stories about his childhood including one about going fishing with one of his brothers, either Fair or Elder, and they weren't catching anything when the brother noticed some kind of unusual action coming from under the bank and said, "I think there's a big catfish or turtle under there." 

Ballard Hicks, Photo by Roger D. Hicks

Daddy said the brother took off his clothes and dove into the water and a great thrashing and boiling ensued in the creek.  Eventually, his brother came up with his hand in the mouth of a large catfish which Daddy always described as having "made a dish pan full of meat".  He also always said that the catfish had "skunt up my brothers hand and arm way above his wrist". Another of his favorite stories was about a time his father took him and another of the brothers to Jackson with him which would have been a full day's trip through the woods from Bruce.  He said this brother was about 8 or 9 years old and had never been out of the Mousie area.  When they got to Jackson, it had a few blocks of concrete sidewalks and Daddy always said his brother walked along for a while looking at the sidewalks and finally said, "I sure wish I knowed where they got them big flat rocks.  Pa could use some of them to set his bee gums on."  Both my father and I always thought that was a hilarious story.

My Grandparents, Elizabeth "Betty" Carpenter Hicks and Charley Hicks, Photo by Roger D. Hicks

But my personal favorite of all his stories from his childhood was connected to his decision to quit school and go to work as a brakeman on a log wagon when he was only ten years old.  The drivers on log wagons had to give full attention to their team of horses or mules and employers often hired young boys to operate the wagon brake on downhills and to hook and unhook the teams from the wagons and other assorted chores.  His employer in this logging job also owned a country store and all his employees were required to take their pay in "a store order" which required them to accept merchandise instead of money and operated much the same as scrip in coal mining jobs.  When my father got his first "store order", he said he took it home and gave it to his mother to spend on the household.  To his surprise, Grandma Betty took the store order and bought one of his brothers a new mackinaw coat.  Daddy said he made up his mind that "if I'm old enough to work, I'm old enough to spend my own store order".  When he got the "store order" the next week, he took it on Saturday to the store and bought himself a brand new blue serge suit, the first store bought clothes of his life.  Then he went to a local square dance, barn dance, corn shucking or some such event.  As he told the story, he "set on a nail keg all night with a little girl on my lap".   On his way home after the event ended, he realized that he had caught crabs from the little girl.  He said he knew better than to carry crabs into his mother's house and stopped in the yard to holler when he got home, "Hey Ma!  Hey Ma!"  Grandma Betty stepped out on the porch to ask him what he wanted and he said he told her, "Ma, I've caught the body lice."  She told him to fill her wash kettle with water, build a fire under it, and call her again when it was boiling and to stay out of the house.  When the water boiled, Grandma Betty told him to go in the wash house or cellar, take all his clothes off, and throw them out the door to her.  She threw the new blue serge suit in the boiling water and boiled it about an hour to kill the crabs.  Daddy said when the suit got dry it had changed drastically and one leg was about a foot longer than the other and both arms of the suit coat were shrunk horribly.  He would tell that story and laugh and say, "I worked two weeks to wear a blue serge suit one night."  Both of us loved that story and so have most others who have heard it.

My Aunt & Uncle, Ida and Tim Hicks, Photo by Roger D. Hicks

As I said earlier in this post, Daddy and his father and brothers always killed hogs for winter meat at a time when there were no livestock laws and most people's hogs ran wild in the woods.  They would wait for good hog killing weather after a hard freeze came and the crops were in and take two or three of those mountain cur dogs and a rifle and hunt until they had killed enough meat to last through the winter.  He always talked about one of those dogs in particular which he said was the best dog they ever had.  During one of these hog hunts, the dogs cornered a large boar under a rock cliff before they got within shooting range of it.  Before they could kill the hog, it had managed to get a tusk into that good dog whose name I do not remember.  The dog was not killed instantly but was severely wounded in the abdomen.  Daddy said they killed the hog and carried the dog home where my grandmother, who worked as a midwife in the area, attempted to sew up the dog's belly.  But the dog died and was always remembered fondly by my father.

Daddy always said that during his childhood, his father owned a wonderful muzzle loading rifle which could not be beaten for accuracy.  At that time in the mountains, it was common on weekends to hold shooting matches and someone would put out word that there was a match at their farm and men from all over the area would walk in with their guns and compete.  Usually, there was a small entry fee, since money was scarce, and the person in charge would put up a hog, sheep, or cow, as prizes.  The animal would be parceled out over five matches in four quarters plus the hide and tallow.  If more than one person won a quarter, the animal had to be slaughtered on the spot and divided between the winning parties. Sometimes, one of the winners might be able to buy the lesser portions from the others and manage to just lead or drive the animal home. Daddy said he and his brothers could almost always win most matches with the muzzle loader and at one particular match several miles from their home they won all four quarters of a large beef animal but lost the match for the hide and tallow.  He said they tried to buy that portion from the winner who was angry at having lost the majority of the matches and refused to sell his portion.  According to Daddy, they had to slaughter the animal on the spot, give the man the hide and tallow and take turns carrying the four quarters of a large beef home for several miles.

Curtis Hicks, Ballard Hicks, & Hewie Hicks, Photo by Roger D. Hicks

Eventually, he said other men in the area would not shoot against the muzzle loader and it was banned from some matches. So the brothers altered the rifle by sawing part of the stock off and even painting the stock and forearm blue for awhile.  He never said what eventually happened with that muzzle loader; but if I could find it I would give anything to own it.

He always told one story about hunting in the Mousie area with an unnamed friend as an illustration of how tough times were during his younger years.  He said he went rabbit hunting once when he was a young adult with some friend whom he knew had little on which to live.  He said it was a snowy morning and as they were cresting a small rise a red fox trotted over the rise into sight and his friend shot it.  The man immediately turned to my father and said, "Build us a fire, Ballard, while I skin this fox."  Daddy said he thought his friend just wanted to warm up while they were waiting to retrieve the fox hide which he could sell.  But after the man started skinning the fox, he cut out the hind quarters and asked, "Do you want to eat these front quarters, Ballard?  I'm going to brile these hind quarters."  Daddy said he declined to eat any of the fox and waited while his friend broiled and ate the majority of the animal.  He also always told one other story about people in poverty eating unusual animals.  He said he knew a woman in the area who had three or four children and no husband at home.  He said he went to visit there once and the woman had a large kettle of something boiling merrily on the stove.  Daddy asked, "What are you cooking?" and the woman just replied somewhat evasively, "I'm just cooking supper for me and the young'uns."  Eventually, he said he was able to get her to admit what she was cooking.  She had gotten out in the area around her house and caught and cleaned three or four terrapins or box turtles  and was cooking them to eat.  He never ate any of those either.

Another of his favorite stories was about two couples he claimed to have known in his childhood who lived on small, hillside farms not far apart.  Apparently, neither of these couples could get along.  So the story went, the two men eventually agreed to trade wives, farms, and families.  He always swore that the two men simply packed up their personal belongings and walked from house to house on the same day, probably passing in the road, and seemed to live quite amicably for the rest of their lives with the other woman and each other.  I realize that this story is somewhat unsavory in today's world and tends to seriously devalue both women and children.  But my father swore it was true although he never named the people involved if it was true.

My other absolute favorite story from my father was about an incident shortly after he bought a country store near Wayland, Kentucky, quit the coal mines, and became a storekeeper due to the failing health of his first wife, Ora Wicker Hicks,

Ora Wicker Hicks, Ballard Hicks, Earl Wicker, Pearl Wicker, & Orville James Hicks--Photo by Roger D. Hicks

who had been diagnosed with an untreatable neurological condition which her obituary described as "paralysis". Some time shortly after he bought the store and during the time before World War II rationing ended, he bought a truck load of black market lard from a fly by night person who had the fifty pound cans of lard hidden under a covering of square baled hay.  He said the lard sold like wildfire because nobody had ration stamps and the price was reasonable.  But about a week after the lard started selling, Daddy had to pay the devil his due.  When the local cooks got about three or four inches down in each bucket of lard, it turned out that the majority was only beef tallow covered up with nice, creamy pork lard.  He always said that load of lard nearly broke him in the store business but he could still laugh about it.  

My Parents, Ballard and Mellie Hicks, Photo by Roger D. Hicks