"Five Cords A Day" by Edward Clark - TRUE WEST

The Clark Brothers put great store in two things:

one was laughter; the other was Chips from

FIVE CORDS A DAY

By Edward A. Clark

Published in True West, September-October, 1967

THE SCENE opens on a frosty Christmas Eve morning in December, 1895 at McCauley’s

Saloon, Rockdale, Texas. This time and place is chosen, for it was there and only there

that you might catch Tex, Joe, Jim, Ed and Will Clark together - not exactly together,

but in the same crowd.

Today, and even then, workers and public speakers refer to the “strong, silent men of

the great open spaces”; these Clark brothers were of that tradition, silence was their

code. Take the silence between Joe and his father-in-law; it lasted for forty-five

years until Jim Rolston’s death. This also explains the brothers’ distant attitude

toward each other. Stubbornness was not involved; it was their code.

One description fits all the brothers. Tex, the oldest, stood 6 feet 4 inches down to

Will, the youngest, who was 6 feet, 2 inches. Gangling, stoop-shouldered, all had

reddish, leathery faces, untrimmed mustaches of the handlebar type, wide-brimmed

Stetson hats and clean baggy suits of jeans, hanging on them with clothesline effect.

They had driven their families into town in wagons drawn by mules. The hard-worked oxen

were left at home to rest. The wives and children were left at Scarbrough & Hicks.

Each wife had a long list of dry goods, groceries and other supplies and were buying

enough to last the coming twelve months. These wives grew very accurate on buying that

far in advance. Will’s wife, Lula, boasted that she had only a tablespoonful of baking

powder left over; Evie, Joe’s wife, said that she had run so close on soda that she

hadn’t had any in the bread for two weeks. Mollie, Tex’s wife, remarked that she was

ashamed of how she messed up her calculations.

“It worried me to death,” she said. “I’d bought everything for one baby but twins

showed up. Tex didn’t get mad. He just put his gallon jug in the wagon when he left

on the extra trip to town.”

On this particular Christmas Eve morning my father, Joe Clark, took me along to

McCauley’s Saloon. Mother couldn’t manage me and the buying, too; I was seven. We

entered the saloon half frozen. Jim and Ed, who were not married then, were already

there, seated near a huge red-hot stove. Joe rushed up to the bar, greeted McCauley,

then turned and with a sweep of his hand ordered all up for drinks. Jim and Ed finally

ambled over to the bar at different places in the line. While McCauley was ladling out

hot Tom and Jerries from a five-gallon crock, Tex and Will entered and found a place in

line. We have all five now with their feet on the rail.

These few hours spent at McCauley’s Saloon once a year was the extent of their vacation

away from hard work. They never drank in excess and who would wish to deny them this

small recreation? As they finished their drinks they would amble back to their chairs,

and none of them had paid much attention to the other. They spent the time in being

spoken to by new arrivals at the saloon; one or the other would leave for a while then

return.

Then when things began to lag, Tex would start to tell a yarn. This woke the folks up

like an electric shock. They would gang in close to Tex, some of them shaking hands.

Tex would finish with a great roar of laughter from all, even McCauley. The story was

of race horses and women (flavor--smutty).

Then for hours it was tale after tale; silence was turned to laughter, everything ended

with a joke.

At a time when the five brothers were about the only customers in the saloon, Jim said,

“Let’s slide over to the bar, boys. I believe we can stick old Mac for the drinks.” (I

think I saw him give Tex a sly wink.)

McCauley was wiping the polished bar in front of Jim. Jim said, “Mac, you old horse

thief, we want you in on this game; and the point is, if any of us ask a question and

someone can answer it, the man asking the question has to buy drinks for all. If nobody

can answer the question everyone has to buy the questioner a drink, provided he can

answer his own question.”

Tex spoke up and asked, “How is it that a prairie dog can dig a hole fifty feet and

leave no dirt on the outside?”

They all gave up, so it was up to Tex to answer his own question or buy the drinks.

“The prairie dog don’t leave any dirt on the outside,” Tex said, “because he starts at

the bottom and digs up.”

McCauley snorted. “How does the prairie dog get down there to start digging?”

“Ah!” said Tex, “that’s your question. Now you answer it.”

McCauley cheerfully set out the drinks, including my fourth bottle of lemon soda.

Shortly after this round of drinks, word was sent down by children that the coming

year’s supplies had been bought, paid for, and were ready to be loaded in the wagons.

This information cast a gloom over Tex, Joe and Will.

Tex left, but not alone. He had the big brown gallon jug in hand. Joe had his half-

gallon jug. And Will left with a half-pint bottle hid in each pocket. He said his wife

Lula didn’t like the smell of it but had no objections to a little ol’ half-pint.This

brought to an end the day at McCauley’s Saloon.

FOR OVER forty years I made an effort at various times to learn something of the family

history of the Clark brothers, something about their and my ancestors. For example, I

asked Joe, my father, what his mother’s maiden name was. He said it was Vaughn. A year

of so later I asked him the same question again. He then told me her maiden name was

Scott. I later asked Ed and he said his mother’s maiden name was Smith; a little

later, Jim told me it was Moore. Will said his mother’s name before her marriage was

Jones. I then braced my courage and asked Tex, thinking perhaps I would get somewhere.

He said her maiden name was Sparks.

I then asked him if Grandpa Clark, his father, was married five times? “Hell no,” he

said, and wanted to know why I asked such a question. I told him that Joe, Jim, Ed and

Will and himself had all given me different names.

“Well,” he said, “that ought to learn you a lesson – learn you not to be asking

questions.” He continued, saying that once out on the Pecos River, at Horsehead

Crossing, he saw a man in a cow-camp get shot dead just because he asked too many

questions. (Joe had told me no less than fifty times about this man being shot dead at

Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos for asking too many questions.)

I got to be more of less skeptical of my ancestors; however it was hard to picture the

forefathers of the Clark brothers as not being honest and upright in all respects,

otherwise Tex, Joe, Jim, Ed and Will could not have shown their high purpose in

life—couldn’t each of them cut five cords of wood in one day? What better record

would you want? Five cords was three days’ work for the average sort of man.

The hardest day’s work I have done to date was when I started out one time to cut five

cords of wood. I was seventeen years old and strong as a bull. I took off less than

ten minutes for lunch, which we had brought with us.

Joe had stacked his five cords of wood shortly before sundown. He walked over where I

was chopping and said, laughing, “Too many chips.” He helped me rick (stack) my wood,

and it measured a fourth shy of being one full cord.

While stacking up, he said “You’ve cut out enough chips here to make you full ten cords

of wood. I didn’t know if you was fighting fire over here or cutting wood. Too many

chips! Too many chips! You got to look where you hit and hit where you look. Make

every lick with the ax count; that’s why a cross-eyed man ain’t much at chopping wood.”

I replied, “Yes, and if there is a next time, I won’t start in on a blackjack tree,

either.”

“Well,” Joe advised, “if you cut wood every day like you have today, for five or six

years, you might learn to cut a couple of cords a day.” That’s what he thought of my

ability. And it can be added that this standard of perfection extended to all types of

woodworking, ship-building, cabinet and casket making, designings, etc. So it would

seem absurd to become skeptical of these upright, hard-working men.

THE WORD of each was his bond. None of them was a thief except Joe—he stole his wife.

He swiped Evie from her father, Jim Rolston, who was also the strong, silent type. The

fact, as already stated, that these two men did not speak to each other again in life

over a period of forty-five years was proof of their strength in that rugged tradition.

After some research, inquiry and investigation, I wish to disclose the outstanding fact

that James R. Rolston, the father-in-law, and Joseph S. Clark, the son-in-law, hold the

world’s record for father-in-law-son-in-law non-speaking. They are over twenty years

ahead and I doubt if their record will ever be equaled.

These two men worked so hard at not speaking, I have seen them on the street of

Thorndale, standing and talking to the same stranger for four hours, merely using the

stranger as a go-between to carry on their conversation. If the poor stranger became

restless and wanted to leave, one or the other would grab him by the arm and start

telling him a dirty joke. Hell and high water may come; hell and high water may go;

these two had their reputation for not speaking to maintain. They would not speak—for

to speak would be dishonest and disloyal to each other.

Jim Rolston, upon learning that Evie, his sixteen-year-old daughter, had eloped with

Joe, reached up over the fireplace and brought down a double barrel shotgun, loaded

with buckshot. He saddled Old Paint, and rode in pursuit.

How Evie kept Joe hid the next few months is easy to explain. Joe was a man who looked

ahead, He had built his house at the edge of a thirty-acre thicket of chaparral

bushes, and this thicket was matted and almost too thick to crawl through.

After his father-in-law had almost ridden up on him at the house, which caused him to

tear a path halfway through the thicket, he told Evie he had intended to clear the

thicket out anyway, so he would start to work out from the center of it and keep

clearing it in a circle until he got it ready for the plow. He also said that in order

to have it ready for planting that season, he would be forced to start work before

daybreak and work until sundown. He would be so rushed he would have to carry his

lunch to work mornings. And before leaving with his pick and ax next morning he

cautioned Evie, “Now, in case you have to come out there, you be blame shore nobody is

following you. I don’t want to get in any more blame traps. ‘Bout as soon get shot as

to have to run through that thicket again.”

In a few weeks Evie had established grapevine connections through her brothers, Tom and

Math, and sisters, Sallie and Bell. They kept her informed of the direction their

father had gone. They were just children, seven to fourteen years old. One day, one

of them came over and reported, “Paw left his gun home today. He came home last night

all excited. He said he saw Joe coming down the road about a quarter-mile off. He

slipped his horse in the brush at the side of the road and waited with his gun in the

forks of a tree to get good aim, with both hammers cocked.

”’Joe walked by,‘ Paw said, ‘and just as he got even with me twenty steps or so out in

the road and I was pulling the triggers, Great God Almighty, then I saw it was Jim.’

He said he just trembled all over to think that he nearly killed the best friend he had

in the world.”

Sally had spoken up then and said, “Paw, you used to feel the same about Joe.”

“’You are right, daughter. I guess I’m a fool. Anyway, I got a letter today your Uncle

John is down sick. Matthew, you and Tom start this morning. Get the bows and

wagonsheet on that wagon ‘cause we’re heading west Monday morning. You girls pack up

the bedding, groceries and things and be sure and get the gun in the wagon.’

“Now Evie,” Sally said, “you must go home with us and stay overnight until we leave.

It will make Paw feel better.”

Evie said she sure “felt sorry for Paw” when she told him goodbye that Monday morning.

But that ended the double barrel shotgun days to Joe’s life. However, he finished the

grubbing and clearing of the thicket on time and, with two yokes of oxen, the sod was

broken and a good crop was made on the thirty acres.

Joe told me that one time Jim sold a note or something, and it was necessary that he

sign the paper before a notary public. The nearest notary was at Cameron or Lexington,

both about the same distance away. Cameron was a little closer but crossing the San

Gabriel and Little River had to be considered and caused Jim to choose going to

Lexington.

Joe suggested he take a horse and ride, but Jim said Hell no, that it was only nineteen

miles straight through the woods, and forty miles by road, so he would walk. He arrived

in Lexington to find that the notary public lived seven miles farther on, so he walked

on out to the farm house as directed. Arriving there, he saw a man plowing in the

filed, but rather than walk over the plowed ground he yelled “Hello” in front of the

house. When a lady appeared at the door, he asked her if her husband was a notary

public?

She said, “No, he is a Democrat.”

Jim said this made him so damn mad that he wheeled and was going to head for Cameron,

but about that time an older lady came to the door and got his paper fixed up.

I was always struck by the fact the mother’s side of the family had over 5,000

relatives against the Clarks’ having 5 –great odds, you must admit. Take, for example,

my great-grandfather, Matthew McClanahan Cornwallis Rolston. He had over 4,000 acres of

land in the home ranch, roughly cornering at Nile, Gay Hill and Salty. He was a giant

in stature, 6 feet 6 inches tall, with shoulders wide as a door. He wore a Stetson hat

with a brim almost big enough to cover the 4,000 acres. He had nine fine sons and nine

fine daughters. The old man’s eyesight began to fail, and when the nine sons brought

in nine beautiful and flashy brides, hooped and bustle-skirted, Great Grandpa lost his

eyesight entirely.

He was born in Ireland, County Galway, at Cow Crossing, west fork of the River Shannon.

Some city police department lost a good man when they failed to get him on the force.

Tracing an ancestor back to Ireland is far enough. We can assume that he was a horse

thief, and let it go at that.

I was about ten when he passed on to his reward at the age of ninety-three. About half

of his many sons and daughters moved to and located around Long Mountain, fourteen

miles west of Mason, Texas and were scattered from there on west to Rocksprings.

Jim Rolston, Joe’s father-in-law, was his eldest son, and made annual visits to his

relatives in the West. He wore a long black beard, high boots and to see him on a horse

at breakneck speed after a cow, it was hard to tell if it was him, Buffalo Bill, Sam

Bass or Cole Younger. He always like to tell of his last Indian fight, which took place

on Packsaddle Mountain a few miles east of Llano in 1871. He and his family happened to

be passing on one of his annual trips west, just at a time when the Indians were making

one of their last stands.

He said when he arrived and took charge, only three white men were alive; the others

lay dead. He would always ignore my questions when I would ask how many wild Indians he

killed in that battle.

However, his wife, Elizabeth, had a little different version of the fight. She said

when they reached Burnet and learned of the Indian battle, they detoured thirty-two

miles around Packsaddle. She said he did make four killings though—three cottontails

and one squirrel.

Tex and Joe Clark often discussed their relatives, usually while sitting in a squatting

position out behind the barn. Being busy morning, noon and night, little time was had

for conversation. I listened in when I could. I heard Tex say to Joe, “Grandpaw told me

that Uncle John would always have to have his dollar, and they paid it out or the dead

revenue agent’s pocket.” This puzzled me.

Then some years later a grizzled ex-Texas Ranger told me this yarn that his grandfather

had told him, and that old overheard conversation made more sense. A revenue agent

called at a small house on the side of a mountain and only a boy about ten years of age

was home. The following conversation took place.

“Where is your father?”

“Paw’s at the still.”

“Where is your mother/”

“Maw’s at the still.”

“Where are your brothers and sisters?”

“They’re at the still.”

“I’ll give you a dollar to take me to the still.”

“Gimme the dollar.”

“I’ll give it to you when I get back.”

“Mister, you ain’t coming back.”

Now surely this couldn’t have happened in the Clark family; however, if I had to choose

between cutting wood or bootlegging, you can give me respectability or give me

disgrace, just so it’s not five cords a day.

Published in
TRUE WEST
Published by J. Marvin Hunter
September-October, 1967