Walter Carlisle
Farmington, Arkansas
April 12, 1951
Collected by Irene Carlisle
Reel 109 Item 3
THE Let's see; that was the year—'39? (Son suggested
'31, since he had said it was in Hoover's administration).
(Family said it was about 50 years ago, actually).
Well, in 1931, I was firing out at the mill at Farm-ington,
for Frank Rieff. And that 'as called "rabbit year"!
that was under Hoover's administration. Ever'body'd hunt
rabbits and they'd salt 'em down for the winter. Seemed
like it 'as awful hard times, that--
well, one day I happened to look up over the hill--
they wasn't no highways then—graveled road—and I seen
a wagon a-coming; down the hill; and I looked at it twice
before l'd believe it. And they 'as a man on one side,
holdin' up the neck-yoke, and a horse on the other one,
and a woman drivin'. So they went on down, and camped at
the Illinois River. And that night, from some cause or
other, she took the axe ana cut his head off.
(What happened then?)
Well, I don't know what they ever done about it; but
anyhow, I guess he balked, and wouldn't pull good.
(Didn't do anything with her, did they?)
And they never done anything with her. They bought her
a new horse!
(This story is widely current in Farmington locality.
Many older people say they recall it well, and all agree
that it was nobody's business but the woman's. He was
her husband.)
That same year, why, they 'as a feller come down—
he 'as a-movin' some place, down in Oklahoma. So he
'as a-movin', and he had all of his belongin's into a
baby- buggy!"