Moving to Wellington

About the year of 1919 or 1920, Grandpa Peterson sold his ranch at Sunnyside, horses, cows, everything to a man by the name of John McMahan. John later became a close friend and he helped us boys in many ways. Then in the early spring of 1921, perhaps March, our father, who never did like working in a coal mine, made a decision to get out of the mine. So dad went to Wellington where he leased a nice big farm from a Mrs. Maggie Powell north of Wellington on the old Price road. On the farm was a one room grainery. Dad moved his family, for a short period of time, into this grainery until he had time to look around, then he bought a very nice home in town. It was a new house and had a big orchard of new trees.

Dad used two teams of horses, plus two wagons moving our furniture. Dad drove one wagon, Dell and Andy drove the other wagon. The horses on the wagon Dell and Andy drove were real gentle, their names were Ted and Nig. I can imagine this was a real thrill to Dell and Andy to drive Ted and Nig behind dad’s wagon, a distance of about twenty five miles. The roads in those days were dirt, lots of chuck holes, part of the road was graveled.

This wasn’t the first time Dell and Andy had driven a team of horses. They had done this a number of times on Grandpa Peterson’s farm clearing off sage brush, hauling hay, breaking up new land, but to drive a team along a road this distance was a new experience. There would always be jack rabbits, cotton tails, now and then a coyote would cross the road and they and I would watch the coyote as he ran through the brush, then too, almost always, a hawk would be a soaring in the sky high up in the air, blue jays, black birds, many kinds of birds. Always something to catch the eye.

On the farm was a big experience to all of us boys, still real young and wet behind the ears. Dad planted ten, twelve acres of potatoes. Maggie Powell had a big spud cellar. In those days, all the potato seed had to be cut by hand, one eye on each part of the potato. Anyway, dad had a couple men working for him sorting and cutting potato eyes. It must have been the first part of May because I do remember these men helping dad get ready to plant spuds and you do this in May.

Anyway, dad may have kept us boys out of school for a few days, at any rate these men who were helping dad used to tell Dell, Andy and I, “These kids in Wellington are real tough and you Peterson boys better walk real easy around them because they’re mean. And if you don’t be careful, these Wellington kids will beat the socks off you.” I remember dad would listen to this kinda gab with a smile on his face. He wasn’t worried. He knew at Sunnyside, a much bigger school, many different kinds of nationalities; almost every day, we would get into a scrap or two.

In addition, dad had a cousin who was a professional boxer. His name was Art Olsen. He stayed with us for some time at Sunnyside. Uncle Art saw to it that us boys boxed. He made us put the gloves on a lot. He also gave us a pair of boxing gloves that he wore and killed a man while boxing in the ring at Vernal or Roosevelt, Utah. They were boxing on cement. The man’s name was Babcock. Uncle Art knocked him down, his head hit the cement, and the cement killed the man. Anyway, Art gave the gloves to us kids, then he and dad saw to it that we boxed.

Dad used to tell us boys, “I never want to see or hear of you picking a fight and on the same principle, I never want to hear or see you run away from one either.” In Sunnyside, if mama wanted something from the store, always she would send two or three of us to the store, never one alone. Kids at Sunnyside also had gangs, and if you were alone and in the other kid’s territory, two, maybe three or four kids would catch you and beat you up. Sometimes the kids, upper town or lower town or middle town, gangs would send word they were coming up, or upper town would send word, “Were coming down.” Then maybe fifteen or twenty kids would march to the other’s territory and, what I mean, there would be some real gang scraps. Often clubs, rocks were involved and often a kid would be hurt quite bad. This happened with different age groups. We boys each had our gang. Generally, if we were in our part of town, we were ok, but let us get into another part of town, and there was hell to pay.

Well, dad knew all about these kid gangs, plus dad knew we had to learn how to take care of ourselves. If we didn’t, we would be in hot water at school and everywhere else at Sunnyside, so far this reason, we were taught to defend ourselves. To make a long story short, I believe my dad, and I have had a lot of other men tell me the same thing, that dad could whip any man himself. He taught Dell, Andy, myself to fight, but at the same time, we were never, never to start or pick a fight.

So, when these men, Bill Jones and Billy Tidwell, who were helping dad in the potato cellar, would tease and try to scare us boys by telling us to be careful and to step light when we started to school because Wellington kids were real tough, our dad would just grin from ear to ear. He figured we could take care of ourselves. Mr. Jones and Mr. Tidwell were just having a little fun with us kids. Dad figured, after getting along in Sunnyside, we wouldn’t have any trouble swatting these Wellington flies.

On our first day at school, dad said, “Try the biggest kid in school, then the rest will leave you alone.” I don’t remember about Dell, but Andy got into a tussell, not a fist fight but a wrestle, with the very biggest kid in school, Twisty Rich. Twist was at least six inches taller than Andy, and I do believe, Twist could whip any kid in school, but in a wrestle? The first time Andy took Twisty down, he said he tripped because of a peg hole, a marble hole, so they got up and Andy took Twisty down again. All the older boys, Boyd Pierce, Boyd Blackburn, Albin Hall, many others, began to tease Twisty. Twisty didn’t like it! Twisty said, “Let’s see one of you guys take Andy.” They all backed down. Andy had it made. They left him alone.

There was a kid, Brig Bently. Brig had a bird egg and was showing it to me. Chancy Draper broke the egg in my hand with a stick. I had my palm open, looking at the egg, when he hit it with a stick, kinda messy. I didn’t mind the mess so much, as I did all the kids a laughing because of the smart trick pulled on the new kid on his first morning to school. I wiped the egg off my hand on the ground, all the kids still laughing and having a good time at my expense. I felt so uneasy because being a stranger. I stood up from wiping my hand, then I hit Chancy right in the jaw. I kept laying rights and lefts into him. He was also swinging at me for all he was worth, but he was losing ground. I had him backing up and I could see I was hurting him. Just then, the bell rang and we had to quit. I think this may have been my first recess or perhaps I hadn’t been in school, as yet, to enroll. I said, “I’ll finish you at noon.” When noon came, no Chancy! I got along fine after that.

Quick as school was over, we had to go to the potato cellar to cut potato eyes for seed. Mr. Tidwell said, “Let me see, did you get a black eye today. Let me look you over.” I said, “No, but I gave one away.” We told all that happened. Dad just sat and continued to cut potato eyes. He had a grin on his face from ear to ear.

The kids at Wellington weren’t too much on the scrapping, fist fight side of the fence. Oh, we had several fights all right, but in comparison to Sunnyside, Wellington was easy so far as fist fighting. But, they were real mean in other ways. I remember in the fifth or sixth grade, the older boys caught a blow snake, three and a half for four feet long. I don’t remember the teacher’s name, so I’ll call her Miss Draper. They put the blow snake in Miss Draper’s middle desk drawer. All the kids filed into the classroom, class studies began, the boys who put the snake in the drawer pretending to study. However, their eyes and ears were glued and tuned on Miss Draper to see what was going to happen.

Now, Miss Draper was loved by all her students. She was a very kind person. Very nice looking, a very good sport. She had been out playing ball with her class. I don’t remember if it was noon or recess. I think noon. She was very pleasant and showed concern for everyone, no matter who it was. She kept her desk real tidy and neat. She knew where everything was in each desk drawer without looking.

Miss Draper opened the desk drawer that the blow snake was in! Boy howdy, she put her hand in the drawer, thinking to pick up a particular object, and placed her hand directly on top of that big, fat, four foot long, cold, slimy, scaley snake. Miss Draper froze for a second, horrified and then terrified, she screamed one long piercing scream. She and her chair keeled completely over backwards. She had fainted dead away. Her dress was up exposing her legs, one slipper off. Almost immediately, her whole class was at her side.

Someone ran and got the principal, Mr. Snow. In just a few seconds, every teacher in the building was at Miss Draper’s side giving her what they knew about first aid, making everyone stand back so she could get air. It was sometime before Miss Draper came around, and when she did, they took her home and she didn’t return to school for a couple of days.

In the meantime, the old blow snake crawled out of the drawer, onto the top of the desk. He was madder than a green hornet that had just caught his stinger in the rump of a polecat skunk. The blow snake had his head up and throwed back, mouth wide open and a hissing and a blowing for all he was worth. Then, he crawled over and down the side of the desk and started across the floor. When one of the boys went to pick it up by the tail, he immediately hunched up and began to blow again. Then, Boyd Blackburn pinned his head down with a ruler. Boyd, Dell, Albin Hall, others took the blow snake out of the school house and, I think, they turned him loose.

Mr. Snow, the principal, spent the next few days going from room to room, class to class, lecturing and telling what he was going to do when he found out who put the snake in Miss Draper’s desk. He interviewed a lot of kids, offered rewards, trying in every way to find the scoundrels who done this. To my knowledge, he never did, and if he did, it’s possible Mr. Snow thought it best to let it die.
I may be wrong, but I always thought Dell, Boyd, Dick Smith, Twisty Rich, one of them and maybe all of them, put the snake in Miss Draper’s desk.

After Dad died, Dell, it seems to me, done about what he wanted to do. No strong arm to keep the lid on top of the kettle, so to speak. One day the principal started to walk down off the top of the hill where Wellington’s old school building was located. He lived not too far from the school, and on his way home to get his dinner, Dell Peterson, Twisty Rich, Boyd Blackburn, Richard Smith, and Albin Hall, I am quite sure all of these boys, I could be wrong on some of the names, but I don’t believe so. Anyway, Principal Snow was going home, when suddenly, this group of kids riding horses coming on a dead run, caught Mr. Snow and using their quirts, they horse whipped Principal Snow all the way home, striking him about the head and face and body. They had no compassion and abused him terribly. These kids, as I remembered it, were sixth grade kids. Unbelievable! Mr. Snow was a good man, liked by all the kids. He hadn’t done a thing to any of these short horns except correct them in a mild way when they got too far out of line.

Sometimes, people, and this is what happened to these bunch of kids, they got bogged down in evil thinking, spinning the wheel in the wrong direction. They thought it would be a great honor to whip the principal, the head man. But Principal Snow was loved by all who knew him, and not one boy or girl or teacher, not one person in the entire town of Wellington, praised, they all condemned. And I have heard Dell say, many times, how sorry he always felt and wished so much he hadn’t participated in the affair.

The town citizens held a meeting. Each boy’s parents was visited. Each boy was made to apologize to Mr. Snow, and told they would be expelled if any conduct of any bad experience happened again. Old Satan sure opened the gate, when they horse whipped Principal Snow.