Little Doc wasn’t really old enough to go to school, but they let him go just to get him out of the way. Homer was real quiet and interested in learning but Doc was real hyper and just a-fidgeting all the time. He’d slip up next to the other fella on the bench next to him in the one-room schoolhouse, and push him off the end of the bench. He was doing something like this all the time. So Ella (the teacher) made him sit on the floor and count his toes and fingers.
There was a big heater in the back of the church (which served as a school). When you took the lid off of it, it was like looking down in a barrel. Ella said, “Doc, I can’t do anything with you – I’m just gonna put you in the heater.” (It was in July.) She took him by the hand and led him back to the heater. He had great big black eyes and he began to shine them eyes. Ella took the top off the heater, picked up Doc and set him down inside it. He screamed for just about a minute. She raised the lid up and looked down at him and said, “Now are you going to be a better boy?” He promised he would, so she took him out of the heater. Doc joked about this from time to time later in his adult life.
Gerald D. Massey
Blanchard, Louisiana
Back in 1955 a call went out from the editors of the then Capper’s Weekly asking for readers to send in articles on true pioneers. Hundreds of letters came pouring in from early settlers and their children, many now in their 80s and 90s, and from grandchildren of settlers, all with tales to tell. So many articles were received that a decision was made to create a book, and in 1956, the first My Folks title – My Folks Came in a Covered Wagon – hit the shelves. Nine other books have since been published in the My Folks series, all filled to the brim with true tales from Capper’s readers, and we are proud to make those stories available to our growing online community.