Chapter 12 of Tales That I Can Remember by Elsie Swagerty Burton
At one time Cousin Frank came to stay at our house while he worked under Dad on the ranch. I was about thirteen or fourteen at the time. Cousin Frank must have been 7 or 8 years older. I remember curling up in his lap in the evenings. This is something I never got to do, curl up in someone’s lap at home. Over the years there had been to many babies for me to have had that privilege. I really enjoyed it while it lasted.
Cousin Wallace stayed with us most of one summer. He was a bit older than I. My brothers and I all looked up to him for he seemed to developed so many grown-up ways, yet was still one of us. It was routine after meals at our house to take turns cleaning the table and washing and drying the dishes. We all hated this task and spent hours trying to avoid it only, of course, to have spoiled whatever time we would have had for more pleasurable pursuits. While Wallace was not assigned any of the tasks he encourages us with his assistance to go at the task and get it to of the way so that we and he would do something we would rather do. This seemed profound to me. His wisdom was astounding! From then on I understood the principle and occasionally could act it wisely but my procrastinating nature often gets in the way.
There is one tale that was told repeatedly about tat summer. It involved the pears that grew in back of our house. They were a variety called “Hardy”, which ripened after the main crop of “Bartlets.” Pears do not ripen on the tree anyway. We all knew that, but it was new to Wallace. We knew it wasn’t wise to eat them right off the tree because they were sprayed with poisonous chemicals and we had probably been reminded of this. But one afternoon we did it anyway, and little Jackie got sick as a result. When it was determine what had caused him to be sick, Father promised punishment after dinner. Mother sent Darrell and me to bed early. Father took off his belt and proceeded to whip Clem then Floyd. Wallace stepped up for his turn but Father didn’t feel it within his authority to apply corporal punishment to one other than his own child. He admired Wallace for offering to take his punishment and often told the story.
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