Bill Brett - There Aint No Such Animal and Other East Texas Tales

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title	:	There Ain't No Such Animal and Other East Texas Tales
author	:	Brett, Bill.
publisher	:	Texas A&M University Press
isbn10 | asin	:	0890960682
print isbn13	:	9780890960684
ebook isbn13	:	9780585165806
language	:	English
subject	Tales--Texas, Folklore--Texas, Texas--Social life and customs.
publication date	:	1979
lcc	:	PS3552.R397T47 1979eb
ddc	:	390/.09764
subject	:	Tales--Texas, Folklore--Texas, Texas--Social life and customs.

Page iii There Ain't No Such Animal And Other East Texas Tales By Bill Brett Illustrations by HARVEY L. JOHNSON Texas A&M University Press COLLEGE STATION AND LONDON

Page iv Copyright 1979 by Bill Brett All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Brett, Bill, 1922 There ain't no such animal and other East Texas tales. 1. Tales, AmericanTexas. 2. Folk-loreTexas. 3. TexasSocial life and customs. I. Title. GR110.T5B73 390'.09764'2 78-21777 ISBN 0-89096-069-2 Manufactured in the United States of America THIRD PRINTING

Page v To my wife, Anna Lou Palmer Brett, and my sons, Terry Le Normand and John Key Brett

Page vii Contents There Ain't No Such Animal 3 Old Fightin' Murphy 33 Uncle Jubal's Story about Mr. Stone's Trial 39 A Ghost Story 45 Justice 51 The Big Fight at Old Man Kyser's 57 A Twenty-Four-Hour, Seven-Days-a-Week Preacher 63 Horse Trading 71 The Killings 77 Just Talking 87 Courting 91 Death 97 A Three-Year-Old Unmarked Boar 103 The Education of Robert 107

Page 2

Page 3 There Ain't No Such Animal No, I never knowed a completely honest man. I've knowed men that thought they was honest, men that claimed they was honest, and men that tried to be honest, but one that was completely honest, no, there ain't no such animal. Lots of men won't steal or cheat or beat you in any way, shape, form, or fashion, but there ain't never been a mortal man that hasn't lied, given the right circumstances. I'll tell you how I learnt this. There used to be a man lived here, Old Man John Abbott, he's dead now, who was the most honest man I've ever knowed. Mr. John was one of these painfully honest men. If you and him was on a horse trade, he'd spend two hours telling you all his faults and then wake you up next morning to tell you something he'd forgot and offer to trade back if you weren't satisfied. Or maybe you'd buy a little corn from him and ever' basket had to be filled up, shook down, and run over, and then he'd put a extra one on your wagon, and even after that, apt as not, he'd say something about it being pretty weevily and maybe he'd better come down on the price a little. Now, you'd think a man like that would be took advantage of regular, but he wasn't. Some folks wouldn't, and public opinion kept others from beating him. The few that done it didn't have much standing in this country afterwards, and people was so few then that a man tried to keep the respect of his neighbors because he knowed sooner or later he'd need their help.

Page 4 Yes, sir, John Abbott was knowed as a honest man. When a man said another'n was "nearly as honest as John Abbott," he was praising him about as high as he could. I had knowed him and had heard folks talk about him for years, but it never struck me that there'd bound to be a reason for his ways till once't me and him was hog hunting. Nearly ever'body through this Big Thicket country had hogs in the woods them days. They was pretty nearly a necessity for meat and grease and soap and was something that could be tended to in the winter when a man wasn't tied up with his crop. I guess around here was as good a hog range as there was any place in the world, but over in the Trinity bottom was the best of it on account of the pecans and acorns. 'Course that was before the timber companies raped this country. Now a crow would have to carry rations to cross there. Well, anyway, over there is where most of our hogs was, and the week before this happened me and Papa and Mr. Abbott had camped over there four or five days at a hog camp folks had got together and built years before, and had pretty well marked and tended to all our pigs and shoats and had drove eighteen or twenty bar' hogs out to home to butcher.*

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