In the last issue, Alan Cain had passed away while the family lived at Spadra Bottom. The following year Mary Lou Belle and the girls (Ada, Jessie and Bessie) moved to the countryside near Scranton (about 1¼ miles east of Scranton and just north of Arkansas Highway 197). She purchased a farm adjacent to her sister’s (Ella Garner Sharp), with insurance money received after Alan’s death. The Cain family lived on one hill and the Sharp family on the next.

Ada and Jessie attended two different schools, Prairie View and Scranton while living here so evidently they lived on this farm during at least two different school sessions (Bessie was not yet old enough to go to school). Walking was the mode of transportation to school as well as to Sunday morning services at Stony Point, approximately 1¼ miles away.

As Ada was the only child old enough to plow the cotton and corn, Johnny Sharp (Mary Lou Belle’s nephew) helped her plow. In return, Mary Lou Belle, Ada and Jessie hoed weeds from the crops on Ella and Sam’s farm.

Ada loved horses and was a natural at handling them. As you may recall from a previous issue, at the approximate age of 6 or 7, Ada was thrown off and knocked unconscious when the family lived at Ragan Hill. This incident in no way discouraged her from riding. While living near Scranton the family owned two horses: Joe and Maude. Joe was a skittish, hyper former show horse and was Ada’s favorite. She would play hide-and-seek at the barn with Joe. She would hide underneath the barn at different places and Joe would find her. To show that he had found her, he would stand adjacent to the barn where she was hiding underneath. Maude was a somewhat more gentle horse than Joe. Jessie, although not fond of horses, had ridden Maude when necessary, and once got raked off by Maude using a low-hanging cedar tree limb. Ada thought Joe was “it” and so badly wanted Jessie to ride him and love him like she did. One day, they went to the pasture to get Maude and Joe. Ada persuaded Jessie to ride Joe back to the barn while she rode Maude in the lead; both were riding bareback. Contrary to Ada’s prediction that Joe would follow behind her and Maude, he wanted to be in the lead. He nearly raked Jessie off as he passed by Maude; Jessie grabbed Joe’s mane which Ada had told her not to do, and he bucked Jessie off, breaking her back. Jessie was struggling to walk, and Ada helped her get to the house. Because Ada felt so bad about Jessie getting hurt, she tied Joe in the barn, got up in the loft, and whipped him over and over again with a buggy whip. Jessie was excused from picking cotton that year because she was badly injured, although not seen by a doctor. It was not known until she had a physical and x-ray at age 42, some 31 years later, that her back had actually been broken when Joe threw her. Consequently, she never has liked horses since and passed her feelings to at least one of her children, ME!

Jessie and Bessie contracted typhoid fever while living here. Jessie became so ill that Mary Lou Belle sent Ada to Scranton in the middle of the night to get the family doctor. Ada chose to ride Joe, but was only about 12 years old and was alone very frightened; she paced Joe, “saving” his top speed for going through the “cane break” which was a dark area where cane grew very thickly along either side of the road where it crossed Cane Creek at that time. Ada made it to Scranton and notified the doctor, but alas had to go back through the dreaded cane break again! However, the Lord was good to protect her again and also to see Jessie through the typhoid fever. (Note: The cane break is east of Scranton about ½ mile where AR 197 now crosses the creek on an elevated bridge. Just a few yards east of the current bridge, an Armco barrier can be seen on the north side of the road. Jessie believes this is where the old road started down into the cane break.)

There was an addition to the Cain family while living here. While Olon Manning went with Bennie Manning’s husband to seek employment, Ruth stayed with Mary Lou Belle and the girls. On 15 Nov 1919, Ruth and Olon’s firstborn arrived, Viola Mae Manning, also known as “Sissy” and “Jackie.”

Several years ago on a trip to Arkansas for “Decoration Day,” Ruth, Polly, May, Jessie and Linda went to the farm where they lived. We found flowers and pots and pans there where the old house had been.