Mother was not a frequent joke teller, but there was a sense of humor present. She would tell us of the good lady who would fuss and worry, and who would get up Monday morning, wring her hands and say, "My, my. Today is Monday, tomorrow is Tuesday and the next day Wednesday; there's half the week gone and we haven't accomplished a thing." Then she liked to laugh at one of her neighbors who was so regimented in her activities that she would wash her clothes Monday, come sun or high water. Some comet was in the sky and predictions were that on a certain day the world was coming to an end. This day fell on a Monday and when this woman's clothes didn't appear on the line by ten a.m., the neighbors knew of course that she was sick. They rushed to her home only to find her sitting in a rocking chair on the porch, rocking contentedly. To the inquiries as to why, she replied, "If the world is coming to an end today, they're not going to catch me spending the day washing."

She could always amuse us by telling the story of the cook who had eaten one leg of the baked goose before serving it. When the master chided him he replied, "Geese only have one leg," and to prove his statement he took the diners out to the geese corral where, sure enough, the geese were standing on one leg--the other tucked neatly up into the feathers.

"See," he said, with the expression of having won his argument by great wisdom. The host was taken a-back but only for a moment, then he said, "Choo!" and of course the other leg of the geese went down. "Well," said the cook, "Why didn't you say 'Choo' to the goose on the table?"

Mother was easy to talk with. She would, as did others in the community, find time to visit. While I was still quite a young child, I often hooked the buggy horse to the one horse buggy and drove mother "out to the point", about a mile or so south of town to visit Sister Emma Robinson who lived there with her sons, or "up the lane" to "String Town" a mile or so east of town, to visit "Nettie" Larson. The Larsons' had been our neighbors across the street for as long as I can remember. They later built a new house on the north side of the same block and still later moved up the Lane about a mile or so east.

It is my recollection that Vanetta Larson was about the nearest to an intimate friend that mother had, although there were other close friends, particularly our Aunt Emily (mother's youngest sister), Emma Tippitts, and Sister Robinson, whom I have mentioned. I remember taking mother (going with mother would be a better term) several times to Three Mile where two large families of Dunns lived. Our Aunt Emma, wife of our Uncle Charles Rick Clark, stands out in my memory too, as a confidential friend. In the town of Paris, about twenty-two miles south lived our Aunt Emily Richards (after her husband moved from Georgetown), sister Rich (wife of President William Rich) , a sister Lake (or Laker) and two or three more whose names have left me.

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