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Among The Hills
By Oscar Taylor
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This page last updated 12/15/01
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Printed in the Viliant Times Thurs Apr.20,1967
Sometime in the Nineties my father bought an interest in the mills at Wideman. They ground meal, sawed lumber and planed it and hauled their logs with two yokes of oxen. One day the driver of the oxen came in and the weather was warm and humid. The oxen were hot and one of them fell at his post in the mill yards. We lived close in and overlooking the road to Oxford.
One day my dad had business in Melbourne. Jerry South and other men of the army were there and they put on a parade it was said. My father loved the looks of the armyand said if he could sell out his mill interest, he would join up. The company offered to buy him out and they had an appointment to come to see my dad on a certain day and they were there. I can see them gathered around the table, discussing the value and other things. The men and he agreed on a price and they told him and her that if she would agree for them to buy, the trade was made. She refused to give her consent and the deal was off.
About this time numerous pictures of action in the Cuba and Spain war were given to my dad and I can, today visualize the spouting big guns as they tore into some hard,rough place and tried to tear it apart.
During the months the Cuba and Spain war lasted, no provision, so far as I know of, was ever made for the poor man who must go and fight for his Country. If he left a family at home, and he was short a supply of anything they needed they must hustle and make it. The salaries paid to the soldiers was way down low according to my memory. Insufficient for a family to use which would leave the soldier nothing. But the war was soon over and the United States was at peace once more.
Today, smart men of this country, have discoved many, many new, I will not say inventions,for it is the discovery of the things the Great Creator put in his plans for mankind, in the beginning. The brain to discover all the great things discoved before and after the ab*** war, had incorpated with it the many members of the body carry out the works of the brain or others helps. Today, they are using them to some extent. But some things have been omitted to some extent. One of them is the use of the brain and other component parts which have not yet been united. I am referring to an economy that can unit the entire world into a peace and understandung. When that day arrives, and I pray for it, together with all peoples, races and tongues, I shall be happy. For everyone able to work will have what he needs to engage in whatever work he desires to accomplish his purpose in life. When this is so, mens hearts will be right and love and God shall rule.
*** part of the page was missing could not read
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Printed in the Melbourne Times Thurs Apr. 27, 1967
A blue and gray reunion was scheduled around 1895 for Oxford. I think this was the first or second that was held before it was moved to Mammoth Springs. I think it lasted three days. It was held by the cemetery and we were there. A large shed was built on the west side of the grounds and a large opening was left at the top to let the somke from the campfires excape.
At that time I was around 6 to 8 years old. But I enjoyed every minute of it. And the ex-soldiers of the Civil war closed thirty years before, organized and fought a sham battle between two hills that were just east of the cementery. I wanted to go to and see the battle fought, but my parents wouldn't let me go. But that was alright anyway for I could stay at the picnic and enjoy the candy and lemonade.
At night the soldiers would return to their big shed and build themselves two long campfires. One each for the gray and the blue. They would sit around the fire and swap stories to each other. A lot of big battles would be fought out around the campfires.
One Southerner was telling of getting shot at Corinth. He had crawled down in a ditch that laid between him and the enemy. He kept seeing a Federal up the ditch aways and he would try to hide where he was at. He could see the other moving around. It developed that both were hiding from each other. They had never talked to each other about it, but learned that both were neighbors near Oxford, and they shared their story with each other.
, Two negros were living at or close to Oxford. Sam Mason and his companion. And then there was a negro lady who lived with a family near town and her daughter. Everybody liked the two families.
The following utilities were on the picnic grounds. Swings, refreshment stands, fortune devices, musical instruments and I guess ball games. Everyone was alive and working. One swing became disabled and had to be repaired. I do not remember the Oxford band at that time but it may have been there.
Nearly everyone availed themselves of the opportunity to see what was going on. Anything not on the grounds, like baseball, was visited by enthused spectators. The guns in the sham battles shot blanks. The baseball players played their best and they had some very good players then, too.
The earth had been created and every good thing was made to grow. Men were to learn what to grow and how to grow it. Most everyone grew nearly everything he thought he wanted and stored it away to live on. Even the farmers had only crude tools with which to work. The needs of the household were few and people lived with it. Today many do little and live on their pensions. They had very few then. And now they have to watch every move. The farms are bigger now. Then they farmed with little. Now, it costs much.
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Printed in the Melbourne Times Thurs May 4, 1967
The citizens of the hills wanted a meeting place where they could have a meeting. They decided on a place near Bexar close to a nice spring. They built an arbor and got a woman from Joplin to hold them a meeting as I remember it. Several meetings passed and I was there one Sunday about 1909. The previous semon made me feel bad and the load was too much for me. When the hurting was so much, I threw everything down and made my way to the alter.
I bowed there but could not shed a tear. I studied what little I had read from the Bible and finally thought of this in a rough way. The Lord had promised everyone if they would come to Him, He would accept them. I tried it and arose to my feet. No sooner than I was up than it seemed like the whole world changed for me. Both father and mother came to me and put their arms about me. One of them said and I quote: "This is my precious boy!" They were both crying by this time. And I was crying and laughing. The extra smiles seemed to open up the tear ducts and the flowed and the joy of it all brought the smiles to my face. Like water and sunshine is the best I can do to explain mself. I then began to wonder what a Christian should do.
Later my aunt Laura Taylor gave me a little testament. I read it daily and let lots of it sink deep into my soul. But in spite of this reading, I was still a boy. I am sure I did many things that was against Gods law, but I practiced prayer to the Father for forgiveness and tried not to do that one thing anymore. But I have a memory that those same things came upon me again and again. But each time I again engaged in prayer which I do believe in and asked the Lord to forgive me.
Please let me clear one thing in your minds. I knew I was only a young man with a yough mans thoughts. I knew I had a hard fight ahead for I hated to see any person make themselves one of the best. I knew I was human. So one day I sought out the Lord in prayer and told him, secretely, that I wanted to live right. I then joined myself to a local church at Crossroads northeast of Oxford and was baptized the day I was twenty years old. But my work was much like my neighbors. For a long time I thought ill of those who believed in a different way. Then I buried all this and I love all people, regardless of a true belief in religion and accept them as brothers, through a llittle difference in our private beliefs. Read the 12th Chapter of First Corinthians. It is on the operation if the Holy Ghost. Read it once, twice or a dozen times, slowly. That is what I must do. Then come back again. I think you will learn them all and love them. Paul is the writer and we all read Him. Read with understanding and I think ALL may feel like BROTHERS and SISTERS.
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