Mrs. M.F. Cannon grew up on an Eastland County, Texas,

stock /arm. She was seventy-three years old when Federal

Writer Woody Phipps interviewed her at the Masonic Home

/or the Aged near Fort Worth.

I was raised in West Texas when it was considered the sure enough

wild and woolly West. If I could remember all the things that hap-

pened to me, you'd be able to write a big book on it all. As it is though,

my memory sort of fails me right when I want it to work, but I'll tell you

all I can recall.

I was born on July 3o, 1864, in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Just as soon's

I was able to be carried good and my ma was able to take a long trip, my

dad set out for Texas on September 15, 1864. Dad's name was Eldridge

Nix and he settled on what was known as the Nix Place. It was just out-

side Jewell, Texas, in Eastland County, and had about x6o acres in it.

I suppose you'd call the place a stock farm because he farmed on a small

scale, but he really worked cattle.

Now, the reason I didn't pay attention to anything in the way of

business was because I was pretty spoilt when I was a kid. My mother

died right after we got to Jewell, and my two sisters had the raising of

me and all the household work too. They'd let me run loose after I got

big enough to get away from the leash. You see, while I was too small to

be depended on not to run off, they'd make a sort of harness that went

around my shoulders and kept me tied to a wooden stake while they were

in the dugout working. When we first came to that country, there were

no houses and everybody lived in dugouts that were made by digging a

square hole about ten feet by ten feet, then about seven feet deep, and

running a long pole across the middle, about two feet higher than the

ground level, then slanting the tarpaulin down so to let the water run off

when it rained.