Susan Summers
Susan Larkins lived with her family in or near Donaldsonville, Georgia. She met and married Jacob Summers shortly after the Civil War and they moved to Alachua County, Florida at a small place noonsville.
During early childhood, Susan and her father suffered a severe attack of pneumonia. Her father died and they had to go to town for a coffin. They lived so far from town that a trip was very difficult, and so certain were they that Susan was dying, too, that they sent for a coffin for her at the same time they sent for one for her father, in order that they might save a trip.
Her family moved to Liberty County, Florida, but her father did not like it here and went back to East Florida. Jake and Susan stayed. The Summers family took over a track of land—the Johnson Swamp. After the war, the Summers gave their slaves some land. I’ve heard mention of the Ephau Summers trust of land in Bristol.
Jake and Susan lived for several years at Alligator on Kennedy Creek. Later when they moved to Bristol, they sold their place to the Hathcocks.
They moved to Bristol and lived out on what is now hoecake—where Burtus Eubank later built a house. Jake still hunted and carried on a similar life to that of Alligator.
I remember hearing Susan tell of building a chimney to their house from sticks and mud (clay). She built a stall for the cows, too. The children helped but she was at the head of the work. She was always too efficient. Jake knew she could and would take care of the situations.
Later they bought a place and there the lived until old age. Bill and Bouche built their home nearby and Maude and Mag married and lived about a mile away. John finally moved to Orange. Seab to Lake Mystic. Penny died at Old Turner Place. Lou died at Glen St…
Maude Summers
Maude Summers was born May 18, 1880 at Alligator, a scattered settlement on Kennedy Creek in the southern part of Liberty County, Florida. There she lived the fist few years of her life with her parents, Jake and Susan Summers, and her four brothers and three sisters.
Jake and Susan had eight children who lived to be grown. Lou was the oldest then came Bill, John, Penny, Seab, Mag, Maude, and Bauche.
There were three or four families living at Alligator; namely, Uncle Seab Larkin, (Uncle Seab was Susan’s brother), Ralph Gregory’s family, and the Hentz family. For a livelihood, these people raised sheep, cattle, hogs, dogs for hunting, and did a little farming and logging. It was a custom for each family to help the other with the work.
The Summers boys were large and strong enough to help with work, and they grew up to be very active in hunting, logging, and stock raising. But Maude and Bauche were too small to take too much responsibility so they enjoyed the care-free backwoods life that was theirs in the Kennedy Creek swamps.
At first they lived in a one pen log house, but later, as the family grew, they built a larger house and used the old house (with its large chimney) for the kitchen. The new house was made of logs—a double pen with a hall in the middle and a prch in front. There was a chimney at both ends. The windows were made of boards and hung on hinges.
In the kitchen there was a stove but the fireplace was usd to cook bread and sausage. Long strings of pepper and socks of sage hung from the rafters. The dining table was about ten feet long with long benches, made from split logs with pegs for legs, on each side. At the end of the table were stools made from pieces of logs with peg legs. Ma sat at one end of the table and poured the coffee and Pa sat at the other end.
When Maude grew up, married, and had a family she enjoyed nothing more than getting her children, later her grandchildren, and any other small children who chanced to be around and telling them the little stories about her and Bauche’s childhood days down at Alligator. I shall tell a few of them as she told them to me.
“We were so happy when we lived down at Alligator. All eight of us ‘youngins’ had work to do, but we live free happy. I remember at nights we’d gather around the huge fireplaces and work and play. The men and boys would melt lead and mold shots for the next day’s hunt. Each had his pouch made from the skin of buck (deer) with either a stopper made for it it or a string to draw it up. Into this pouch went their shots, and it was an unpardonable sin for anyone to touch that which belonged to the other. They used tin snuff boxes for cups.
We looked forward to Sunday. It was big dinner day and we had a full day Saturday getting ready. The old wooden waterbuckets were scrubbed with soap and sand till the rim shined. The steel knives and forks were rubbed up and down in the sand until they had the new shiny look. Some of us churned. If it was summer time, Ma put the old stone churn and dasher under the shade of a Chinatree and let one of us smaller ones work that dasher up and down in that churn till butter came. Some of the others gathered vegetables from the garden but Ma went to work on the Paumpus Head or chicken and dressing.
Ma’s Paumpus Head became well known. It was named for Bub Shuler’s old mule, Paumpie. Everybody said it looked like old Paumpie’s head. It was made by taking a dried deer ham, removing the first joint, and boiling the larger part. When it was cooked, she took the bone out and made a stuffing of the extra meat onions, bread crumbs, and oysters and stuffed this into the ham. She cut a pices of meat the shape of ears and stuck them on the ham with orange ___. When it was served, it was sliced—a ring of ham with a circle of stuffing in the middle. That was good eating!
But she didn’t have Pumpus Head every Sunday. How well I remember having chicken for one Sunday dinner. Lou, my oldest sister, was getting to be a young lady and Taudy Freeman was coming just a little too often to suit us youngens. Mitch Larkins was there, too. He put me up to tell Tandy that Ma said she wished he’d go home ‘cause we were having chicken for dinner. At first he paid little attention to me, but every time sister’s back was turned I repeated it. Finally he could endure it no longer and got on his old horse and rode away. When Ma found out what I had done, Mitch got a good lecture and my pants got a good paddling.
The Hentz’s lives across the creek about half a mile, but the Hentz’ boys and the Summers’ boys never got along together. They were always fighting. The Hentzes were very conservative and they always shoveled and scooped up the cow manure around the place and kept it for the field and garden. The Summers’ boys wanted to goad them about it so they told that the Hentz’ boys tied sacks under each cow’s tail to catch the manure so they wouldn’t have to pick it up. This rumor caused a big fight and they never quite forgave one another.
At our home you could find hogs, cows, sheep, chickens, geese. Bauche and I loved these animals, especially lambs, and often sat astride the old rail fence calling ‘Coe, Nammie Black sheep, have you any wood’ and throwing shelled corn on the ground for the sheep to eat, while we climbed down and got among the little lambs. Every child should have a little lamb sometime during childhood. Once an old ram had butted Bouhe down and almost knocked the life out of him, and I was afraid they would do it again so I was very careful. But Pa soon turned out the old sheep leaving the lambs in a pen. By so doing, the lambs were protected from varmints. In the lot, there was an old fallen down shelter and we loved sitting on this old shed and holding all the lambs we could get in our laps. The others learned to settle down as near us as they could while I sand to them in a very low hum-drum voice, ‘Sleep little lambs, don’t you cry, your mama will be back bye and bye.’
One night Pa and the boys came in with a ‘batch’ of alligator eggs. We put them in the sand out in the field and waited and watched them every day. Then one morning there they were! All the crawling, little critters about six inches long, going in every direction. Naturally, we children thought we wanted to keep them but Pa made us kill them. He said he couldn’t put up with them.
One of my first real sorrows came when my pet sparrow, Jerry, failed to come home one night. H always slept at the food of my bed. ‘Where’s Jerry?’ I asked Ma.
‘You go on to bed, Maude. He’s just late coming home. He’ll be home in the morning,’ Ma assured me.
I cried and ran all around the house calling, ‘Jerry, Jerry’, but Jerry never came. I finally went to sleep. When morning came I began looking and calling again, but I never saw Jerry again. I cried and refused to eat, but no good ever comes from it. But I still remember him almost as if he had been a member of our family.
The next disappointment I had was when my adopted pig was killed. We had two big black bears, which were no friends of mine, in the first place. I was not afraid of them; they just didn’t appeal to me. Then on day I was under the wash shed chewing cane. Jumbo, my pig, came up and wanted some cane juice too. So I got an old tin cup and began chewing the cane for awhile and then squeezing it into the cup for him. Those two repulsive bears were standing nearby. The squeezing process proved to be too slow for Jumbo, so I thought of a better plan. I’d got to the house and get the hammer and beat the cane. When I got back, those bears were pounding the life out of my pig. I screamed and ran at the bears with my hammer, but they just raised up and fixing to strike me when Pa, who was digging fertilizer out of the cow stall, saw us and came after the bears with his pitchfork. But poor Jumbo was lying dead. Poor little Jumbo! Pa got a chain and fastened the bears to a tree and kept them till he got a chance to sell them. He got $5 a piece for the bears. Pa said they were vicious and could not run loose any longer. They had even learned to open the milk house, get down a pan of milk, and drink it without spilling a drop.
Although we lived in this remote part of the world, the religious aspect of our lives was taken care of however inadequate it might sound. I remember one night we were going to preaching. We had to start early for we had to drive five miles in a wagon pulled by old Dick, our horse; he was already too tired. Pa told us youngens to get cleaned up and he would hitch up and sweep out the wagon body and put down a quilt for us to sit on. All eight of us began dressing, some were taking baths in the wooden tubs out at the well, some pulling dresses over our heads, some looking for their shoes, and some of the older ones doing new and impossible things to their hair. But it was always my hair that held up everything. It was curly, and it tangled easily. Not being combed too often made it almost impossible. In fact, it even had cockle burrs in it. My oldest sister was the one who bore this hardship. She had the combing to do and before she could start she had to chase me around the house, catch me, and then hold me. Of course, I cried. As quickly as she finished, I ran and climbed into the back of the wagon.
We set out for preaching, dark came before we reached the meeting house which was also the school. We children knew that there was a panther behind every tree and, no doubt, there was; but the noise we made would frighten away the average panther. We finally got there, greeted the neighbors (all the women kissed), and the youngens just looked silly at each other. Then we settled down for the service. They sang some songs in what they called long meter and some in short meter. After the singing was over, we smaller children went to sleep on pallets on the floor to be awakened about two hours later by the singing of a song that always made the hair raise up on your arms. I was very solemnly tortured by that song, ‘I will arise and go to Jesus; He will embrace me in His arms. In the arms of my dear Savior.’ Oh, how I felt! I could see Ma in the embrace of Jesus. I could see her ascending into heaven leaving me all alone here on earth and I became so miserable. But it seemed to mean so much to Ma. She looked so pleased and happy, I was always afraid to mention it to her.
But I soon forgot the spell the service cast upon me. We were back in the old wagon body, pushing and shoving one another trying to manage a place to lie down and sleep, look up at the stars and even try to count them. Ma had taught the older ones to count all the way to a hundred. Finally we made it home, unloaded, and got off to bed. The men folk were anxious to get to sleep because they were off for a big hunt in the morning.
Early in the morning, I was awakened by the blowing of Pa’s old horn. He was calling up the dogs for the hunting trip. Just as they were getting off, some of the neighbor men rode up on horses, and I could hear them telling about how the bears were eating their hogs, so off they all rode across the creek to chase the bear.
By and by, we heard old Hound, our old black and white dog, trailing with the yelp of the other dogs following. We listened. We could tell by the sound that they were trailing or chasing. Finally, we heard the firing of shots. We knew there was a lively bear hunt in progress. Then the noise ceased; they had the bear. In a short time, the dogs started again. This time they came so close to the crossing of the creek that we children ran down hoping to catch a glimpse of them and we did. The big black bear was coming on the float log we used for crossing the creek, with half a dozen angry yapping dogs at his heels. Men on horseback came splashing through the water, waving and hollering to us youngens to get out of the way. We backed up a few steps but were to eager to see it all to hurry. Luckily the bear turned and led off down the creek. The men following and again the shots began. We knew they had another bear. It wasn’t long before the boys came in with the wagon carrying three big fat bears. (They had killed three.)
Skinning the bears was the next job then cutting up meat and drying it out for lard. There was enough lard for all the hunters to take a goodly share. They divided the meat, some to be eaten fresh and some to be hung up in the smoke house to cure and smoke just as we did our hog meat. By middle afternoon, all the bear meat had been taken care of, the neighbor hunters had gone home, and we had settled down to routine work—all except Pa.
Pa went down to the creek to get a mess of fish for supper. He had enough bear for one day. He took his gun along—the gun went almost every place he did. While he was fishing, two alligators came by and he shot them. He came to the house and sent the boys back after the gators. They salted down the hides and cooked the tails in the iron sugar kettle for the dogs to eat. There was always plenty of meat of all kinds at our house but you’d never have known it if you had seen how we youngens ate that gator meant, a hunk of bread, and an onion. In my fancy, I can se flaky gator-tail meat, and I wish I could taste it again.
The food was always good at our old home and there was always a variety of it. We had a small farm where we raised good gardens. We’d plant it in the cow pen unless Pa outtalked Ma and seed it for potatoes to be fed to the hogs, mostly. We always had a patch of corn and a rice patch on the dampest spot of our land. Our homemade rice tastes so much better than store-bought rice.
Pa made a thing called a mortar which was a piece of log burned out at one end in the shape of a bowl. He put wet clay around the edge of the mortar and burned center. This mortar was just high enough for the big boys to use. Then he took a piece of timber and made a pressed shaped off at both ends to fit into the mortar with a long handle between to hold to and beat down into the mortar full of rice. The rice was beaten till most of the husk was off of it. Then it was formed and picked before cooking. It was easy enough to get a mess of rice ready to cook while Ma got the stone heated and the other food on.
Our smoke house was always full of deer, turkey, squirrels, bear, and the best sausage made from pork and venison. We caught birds in traps and kept them in a cracker box to have on special days or Sundays. Sunday—the big days.
It wasn’t unusual for Pa to come in and say, ‘____ Woman, put the big pot in the little one for Sunday; we’re having a big crowd for dinner. I never heard her complain. She just gave each one a task and saw that we did our share of the work.
Ma saw to our learning as much as possible at home and at school. The larger one went to the three months school, but Bouche and I never were large enough to go down at Alligator. I learned my ABC’s and how to spell the words that were printed on my meal-sack nightgown, by the time I was five years old.
I definitely got a lesson in obedience about this time. We had a covered sheep pen across Kennedy Creek for the sheep that ‘used’ on that side of the stream. We would cross the creek and shut them up at night and go back to turn them out in the morning. When it rained hard the creek came up fast and became a river, with ugly dark water rushing down it. On this occasion it had rained all night and the creek was a ‘corker’. Ma told the big boys to go across the creek and turn out the sheep but she told Bauche and me to stay at the house that the creek was full and mean today. I decided I wanted to go, so I went. They had to wade to get to the log. They turned around, saw me, and told me to go back, but I went on into the water. I came near washing away before I reached the log, but I finally crawled up on the log and started across. The older ones had crossed and were looking back at me when they began screaming. I looked down and there was the biggest red-eyed gator swimming under me in circles. I was frightened within an inch of my life. I crunched down and straightened myself on the log, reaching my arms around it as far as possible, and clasping with all my strength. I expected to be slapped off the log and carried off in that vicious things’ mouth any minute. It flashed through my mind that I was being punished for not doing what my Ma said. As cold chills ran up and down my back, I thought about praying—Ma had taught us to pray. I pleaded with the Lord so furiously there for a while that it must have frightened the gator and caused him to swim under me instead of slapping me off. The other children were making no less noise from the banks. Ma was there as quickly as she could make it from the kitchen. On to the log she bounded, rushed to me, snatched me up, and hurried me to the house. The gator sank out of sight in my memory. That day I sat quietly in a chair and heard all there was to hear about how the whale swallowed up Jonah for disobedience. I’ve never forgotten that for disobedience there is a dreadful punishment awaiting you just around the corner or probably under a log.
Sheep shearing was another interesting episode at our house. The sheep were so quiet, they lay there with their eyes rolled back and never said a word, while Pa and the hogs made them look like skinned calves. I cried and begged for the sheep, but they convinced me that it was necessary for the sheep to have their wool off before summer time. I went way and left them alone. There was a new litter of puppies for me to get acquainted with.
Old Jeb, our fiercest dog, stole away under the house and had seven little puppies. When anyone stooped to look under there at them, Jeb showed the ugliest face and made her most uninviting snarl. She was saying, ‘Leave them alone. This means you!’ But I didn’t do it that way. I set out to win favor with her and wind my way to the puppies. I sat down at the edge of the house and began to coax her. I gave her some bread and every time I gave her food I crawled a few steps closer, saying to her, ‘Jet’s puppies. Bless your souls.’ I repeated this and eased toward them till I finally reached them and she let me rub them with my hand. From then on, Jet shared her family with me and I practically lived with them.
Several years later.
This fickle weather we have in Florida stands out in my memory. One Friday in winter, the weather was too warm and the sky was cloudy. Saturday was regular hunting day. So Friday night was spend in preparation for the hunt.
Pa, Bill and Bache got out their old guns. I remember there was quite a fuss about finding the ram-rod and the gun grease which was bear oil and some strong clean rags to clean their guns. They were leaving at four o’clock in the morning. I was told to get to bed so I could get up at three o’clock and get their breakfast. I rushed off to bed and Saturday morning by three-thirty they had hot biscuits, fried sausage, fried ham, syrup, butter and coffee. Ma got up and drank a cup of coffee with them and checked to see if they had everything.
‘Jake, you be particular and Bouche, you get your shoes.’ But Bouche didn’t get his shoes. They were walking and Bauche didn’t want to be bothered with dragging his heavy shoes all day.
Pa gave several toots on his old cow horn and dogs came running. He threw them some bread and a few hunks of left over meats and they were off for the day.
I didn’t try to go back to sleep. I set about doing the day’s work—making heads washing dishes, skimming milk, feeding up the chicken and barn animals—I also fed up when they went hunting. When daylight came I had the general work finished. I noticed the weather, the clouds looked strange. I called to Ma, Look out and tell me what this weather is going to do. She came and looked around.
‘We’d better get in a supply of wood. I have my own ideas about this weather. Wish Bouche had taken his shoes,’ Ma answered in a preoccupied manner.
I rushed out to the wood pile, grabbed the ax, and began breaking wood as fast as I could. By the time I had finished, it was raining. It began getting cold and the more it rained the colder it became. In a few hours, icicles began to form on the eaves of the house, later they hung heavily from the limbs of the trees that the limbs began to break out.
Ma was miserable. She cried and prayed for the men in the wood. ‘My poor baby will freeze to death,’ she cried. ‘Maude, put on a big fire s they can throw out and dry themselves as soon as they get here; that is, if they ever get here.’
I’ll venture to say Ma walked a hundred miles that day. She went from one window to another looking out. Snow began to fall and bank up at the north doors and windows. I could have enjoyed the scene had it not been for our overwhelming anxiety for Pa and the boys. Snow was something we saw little of in North Florida. We went about cooking dinner and making hot coffee saying very little. I kept everything hot all afternoon but they never came. I was time to feed up again. I put on as many heavy clothes as I could possibly work with and set out to the crib. I took the ax and knocked down the pig pen so the pigs could get out and go under the crib. I worked furiously, crying and praying all the time I could visualize them in the woods trapped under some fallen limbs, bound around by snow, freezing to death.
I finished outside, staggered to the house and into the back door. Dark was coming on and no sign of the men yet he didn’t know anything to do but wait and pray. There we sat tense with listening and dumb with fear.
At last we heard the clear ringing sound of Pa’s horn. Ma dropped her knitting and sighed, ‘Praise the Lord. Some of them are alive.’
I pitched on more wood, pushed the food to the warmer part of the stove, hung the lantern where it could send out the most light for the hunters to see their way in. We waited and listened. Finally, Bill came in, ‘There is a deer in the back hall.’ He walked on into the room where there was a good fire, reached into his shot bosom and said, ‘Here, take this.’ And he turned and walked out.
Oh, what a blessed little spotted baby deer! I could tell it was only a few hours old. I hurried and warmed some mild and was trying to get some of the mild into its mouth when Bauche bounded into the house, laughing and shivering from cold.
Ma and I helped get him out of his wet clothes and into dry ones. Ma telling him all the time how he should have listened to her and worn his shoes. Then we heard Bill’s feet pounding into the house. Ma called out, ‘Bill, where’s your Pa?’
‘He’s coming, get out of the way!’ Bill growled back in his not to be dreaded gruff voice.
Pa came in slowly. Pa was getting older and the day had been hard on him. He began undressing all the time vowing it wasn’t cold and we wouldn’t think so if we’d drug the load he had all day.
It seemed now like a story—the one about three bears—but Bill had brough in a big deer and the small one in his bosom, Pa had a half of one, and Bauche had the other half. When Bill brought in his he went back to meet Bouche and bring in his load and then he went back and helped Pa in with his.
The men were thawed out as quickly as possible. They were glad to put on the woolen socks Ma had persisted in knitting, even Bouche allowed a pair on his feet. Then we gave the hot supper and sat down and ate with them. I don’t think we had eaten all day.
When the meal was finished, they skinned the deer and I went to make friends with the little deer. He was so hungry but just couldn’t eat from a saucer. I thought of the little end of a fishing pole. I got the small end I could find and wrapped it with cloth and stuck it into the end of a bottle of milk. He could drink from this. As quickly as he finished his milk, I made him a bed in the closet in my room beside a chimney that went up through the closet. Soon he was quiet and fast asleep.
I knew he would get hungry before day so I took a bottle of milk to bed with me to keep it warm. And sure enough, before day he gave a little bleat. I jumped up, lit the old kerosene lamp, put my home made nipple in the bottle and went to the closet to attend my baby fawn. I thought I’d freeze before I fed him.
The next morning, everything was beautiful. Something like Whittier’s Snowbound I imagine. Snow was everywhere, in the fence jams, snow was piled up almost to the top rail. But Bauche got on the horse, after breakfast, and went to town to get some nipples for me to use to feed my fawn. They proved to be just the thing. He just loved sucking his bottle and switching his little tail. From then on, he lit you know when he was hungry.
During that same freeze we had two large grape arbors that got so heavy with snow that they fell through in places. The places that held up made good landing fields for the cold birds. Bouche and I put out feed for them. We made triggers and set traps, using old boxes, even shoe boxes. We spent the day catching birds, picking them, and packing them away to be eaten later. Our hands were frozen. We’d go to the fire and warm them every few minutes and they hurt so bad that we’d rub turpentine on them. But we finally filled a bushel box full of eatable birds; and we had made a snowman on the side. What a day for me to remember! The next day we could see little smokes coming up out of the snow. There was a rabbit and down through the snow we started digging. Ma had lots of eggs in the kitchen that froze and burst. We had lots of eating to do to utilize all the food.
Back to my little fawn. He grew fast and was a beauty. He was covered with white spots, and we called him snowflake in memory of the day we found him. He kept the spots until he became grown.
After I started feeding, he learned quickly where his milk came from and when he got hungry at night he came up to my bed, nudged at the bed covering, and gave his little bleat. I’d just hand him his bottle from under the cover. Then he went back to his bed and was quiet until we got up in the morning. Then he followed every step I took.
He followed me to the cow pen and before long he had learned that milk came from the cow, so he tried to suck the cows. The cows didn’t like him and tried to hook him, but I was on the watch and kept him protected.
He grew and when I started to school he started too. All the children were happy to see him but he was selfish and refused to let them catch him. He would chase around for a while and then start for home and his bed in the closet. Before long, he learned to come to meet me when I came home in the afternoon. I would let him into my lunch bucket and he enjoyed my leftovers. Then he walked along beside me the rest of the way home, nudging at my arms and hands begging for attention and he usually got it.
The older he grew the more mischievous he became. He’d go up to the table and grab an apple and be off before you could say scat. We kept a large box of crackers and he knew where it was and helped himself. You could have a dinner cooked and try as hard as you’d like to protect it, but if you turned to get anything else he stole the food while your back was turned. He could eat a plate of biscuits before you could beat him away from them. When he ran from you, he was so quick you could never get a lick at him, and then he’d get some place you couldn’t get to.
One day I was raking yards. There were piles of leaves that had fallen from the trees. The deer was feeling good and putting on one of his best shows. I’d try to hit him but I failed. I decided to play a trick on him so I got a handful of sugar and coaxed him to me. When he learned I was going to catch him, he ripped my dress, with the skin in several places, from the waist down.
Pa put us children out to thinning corn one day. The deer went with us and followed us down the row pulling up every stalk of corn we left. We tried chasing him away and finally Pa set the dogs on him. Across the field and over the fence he went. He thought that one of his best games, because he usually whipped the dogs if they interfered with him. We listened. We heard the dogs chasing through the swamp, but we knew he’d be back when he got enough of his game, but he never came. Night came and he didn’t come.
The next morning, we went to look for him and found him lying by the fence. He was shot and lay dying. We got him over the fence, carried him home, and tried to do something for him; but during the night he died. Every member of the family died.
Later we learned that he went to the creek, the dogs following barking just as though he were a wild deer. Some men heard and ran after them with guns, waited until he cleared the thicket on the other side and shot him not knowing he was our pet deer. He made his way to the field fence and could get no farther. The men saw that he was ours and left him alone. They dreaded for us to learn that they had killed him.
