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Last Updated 06/29/07
Email: joy@our-town.com
A Little Red Tricycle
by Joyce Whitis
Earlier this month I made a trip back to Hardeman County; back to the little line of hills known locally as Medicine Mounds, where Quanah Parker and his tribe used to come and gather plants and herbs to make medicine. Folks from mountainous county would laugh at the idea that locals call them mountains but on that flat, treeless terrain, the mounds rise up, bringing relief to the landscape. I was born just a few miles from those mounds, and the little town that sat at the foot of them. My dad referred to the little town simply as “the Mounds” where he banked and did other business. The general store where he bought groceries is now a museum and on my recent visit, I read the sign on the door with dismay. “Open on Saturday mornings or by appointment” it read and I couldn’t get anybody on the phone. I just had to be content to stare through the glass part of the front door and walk around outside.
The building and another beside it are constructed of rocks that are round, something I’ve never seen anywhere else, but then Hicks and Cobb was a store like I’ve never seen anywhere else either. My memories of the wonderful place are treasures. Today my thoughts go back to a time when I was about four years old and Daddy was going to drive over to the Mounds for groceries. Did I want to come along? Well, of course. At that age I always wanted to go with him anywhere: to the field to plow, to the barn to milk the cow, to the lot to harness the team, to a hog-killin’ at the neighbor’s, to wherever his day took him. And I don’t remember that he ever left me at home until as a teen-ager, I began to take an interest in other males those not related to me.
On this day, we were about a mile from home when Dad turned a sharp corner, the car door on my side flew open, he reached one long arm across, grabbed me by the seat of my stripped coveralls and hauled me back in, reached over and shut the door and never took his foot off the gas peddle. That happened seventy-three years ago, but I remember the whole thing and can show you that corner today. I thought he was a very clever man.
When we got to the Mounds, Daddy parked in front of Hicks and Cobb and we went inside to fill Mama’s order. She had made a list and Mr. Cobb took it, began to walk around the plank flooring, taking items from the shelves and bringing them to the counter. The list wasn’t long, we didn’t buy a lot of food items, mainly sugar, flour, matches, stuff that we didn’t raise on the farm. While Mr. Cobb was completing the order, I looked up and saw this wonderful red tricycle hanging by the handlebars from a rope knotted and tied to a ceiling rafter. I was fascinated. I don’t think that I really knew what a tricycle was at that moment but I remember how it felt to stand there and stare at something that I wanted really bad. I don’t remember asking for the tricycle. I do remember staring fascinated at it. And then I heard Daddy telling Mr. Cobb to cut the tricycle down and he handed it to me. That was a moment of euphoria for a four-year old. How excited I was on the ride back home and how fast I ran to the kitchen to tell Mama to come and see what Daddy got me.
I rode that tricycle hundreds of miles around our yard and down to the barn and around the windmill and off to the orchard until the deep sand stopped me in my tracks. When my brother caught the school bus with his lunch wrapped in a newspaper, I picked up the lunch Mama had made for me, got on my tricycle and rode around the yard until I decided it was time to eat. Beaver, our greyhound, ran along beside me as I played that I was off on a trip to town and went with me down the dirt road to meet the mail carrier at our mailbox. I peddled as fast as I could but Beaver could always run faster.
A few years later, when the FFA boys were picking up used toys and re-doing them to give to poor children at Christmas, Austin took designs on my tricycle. The Great Depression was holding families in an iron grip and toys did not have a very high priority at the time, and he explained to me that many little children would not get any toys if we didn’t help Santa out. Actually I had outgrown the tricycle and hardly ever rode it anymore but still I held onto the handle bars. I’d had lots of good times riding it and that part of me hated to part with it but still I saw that it could bring happiness to some other little girl or boy so I told him alright, take it.
Sometime later my parents bought a bicycle for me and thoughts of that little red tricycle faded away. Still, when I look back over my life and consider some of my happiest moments, hearing my Daddy tell Mr. Cobb to take down that tricycle is close to the top. It doesn’t take a lot to make a four-year old smile.