Later we lived in Beech Springs, Louisiana, about six miles northeast of Jonesboro, in Jackson Parish. The road from Jonesboro was red clay dirt with deep ditches and very little gravel. Winters were fraught with slippery, muddy roads. Many times we got stuck as we drove to or from Jonesboro. The roadbeds had been worn away first by wagon wheels, then later by cars and pulpwood trucks chewing them up, then road graders smoothing them out until the roadsides were several feet higher than the roadbed itself. That same effect can be seen in old country lanes today, what few are left. A cutaway cross-section, in the shape of a U, would show the road bed at the bottom of the U; the banks would be the perpendicular sides of the U.
Driving to [southern Louisiana] from north Louisiana was not without its excitements. Cars or tires back then weren't very reliable. It was quite normal to have a flat tire and have to stop, get out the tire repair kit and hand pump to fix the flat. Filling stations were few and far between. As JW and I waited on the side of the road we found terrapins and large, scary tarantulas crossing the road a number of times. Restrooms were also few and far between, so a few hurried trips behind the bushes were always part of a trip. It was against Daddy's principles to buy a new car or, more likely, new ones cost too much. We always had a used car with lots of pitfalls and breakdowns.
Our large house, called a teacherage, was built across the road from the two-story white wooden schoolhouse where my father was the principal. Our family lived on one side of the house, with a very large front parlor room in the middle where parties and other entertainments were held. Single teachers lived in rooms on the opposite side of the house. The house boasted no amenities such as electricity, indoor plumbing, running water or telephones. Daddy later installed a Delco system of lighting that ran on rechargeable batteries which used some sort of generator. People of that time were very inventive and resourceful.
The house was never painted. Country people didn't paint their houses back then as I remember. A deep well on the back porch provided drinking, cooking and bathing water for the #3 washtub. Mother cooked on quite an elaborate wood stove, complete with a warm water reservoir on the side. The privy, some distance from the backdoor, included an outdated Sears catalog, "granddaddy" or daddy long legs spiders and dirt dauber nests. Cold, frosty winter mornings made the distance seem twice as long. If you can imagine, this house was one of the better ones in the area. Well, it was bigger, anyway. The house sat on a gradual slope of a hill, the north side flush to the ground, the south side four feet off the ground on brick pillars. A hickory nut tree grew on the north side of the house, supplying us all the hickory nuts we were patient enough to crack open. A really labor-intensive job for such a small amount of nutmeats. A hammer and hard surface such as a brick were needed.
My brother, James William Pepper, has been known all his life as JW. He and I spent countless hours under the south side of our house, under threat of our life from Mother should we wake her from her afternoon nap. The house was high enough for us to move around on our hands and knees playing "cars," using shiny, square four-inch-tall brown Garrett snuff bottles as our cars, pushing them around making smooth impressions on our built-up sandy roads. Rainy weather was no problem in our play. We simply used the run-off as rivers and creeks over which we built bridges for our cars to cross.
Under the house is where I learned to conjure up "doodle bugs," those little insects at the bottom of the neat cone-shaped holes found in sandy soil which we uncovered by blowing gently into the holes and exposing the bugs. Today I know the little bugs were ant lions hoping to catch unwary ants and other insects falling into their trap.
Miss Jean Brown's room was the site of my first sin of thievery at the ripe old age of five. She was a teacher at the school and lived at the teacherage. In visiting with Miss Brown in her room, I noticed her beautiful needlework, on which she used dozens of embroidery threads in jewel colors. The temptation was so great I took the chance, knowing she would be at school, to slip into her room and steal some of her embroidery thread. I sneaked the thread out of her room, my heart pounding wildly, and kept it for several hours. Even at that age my conscience was active and working, for, before Miss Brown returned from school, I slipped back into her room and put the thread back in her sewing basket. That thread was the most beautiful I'd ever seen.
Tela Davis was my best friend in Beech Springs. Her brother Billy was JW's best friend. We spent many hours playing in the log playhouse my father built. Tela and Billy were the niece and nephew of Jimmy Davis, once governor of Louisiana, who lived down the road a piece. He was over 101 years of age when he died in 2001. He and my father were in college together, although Jimmy was a couple of years ahead of Daddy. The song, "You Are My Sunshine," was written by Jimmy about that time.