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Here many years ago Luther Stovall began excavating a curious cave or rock shelter in a bluff on his farm. The remains showed it to predate any Spanish influence. Hundreds of stone artifacts belonging to the Neolithic stone age were found. The camp refuse had accumulated to several feet in depth. On many stones were carved symbols that could not be deciphered. Below the cave, in the field, was an extensive midden that yielded hundreds of stone age artifacts. In this field was found a piece of jade, also several pieces of obsidian. There is no known source of supply for obsidian within 800 or 900 miles of this place and no man can tell the source of the jade. From Stovalls farm it is but a few miles into the hills north of Owl Creek where strange things have happened. Some prospectors began to notice carvings on stone, many of them, and hundreds of yards apart. Spears, tomahawks and other symbols. Upon close study of these it was found that they had a common focal indication. After months of exploring a few large stones were removed from a point overlooking a valley, and behold, an ancient mining shaft. large enough for a man to go down into. In time this was penetrated to a depth of about thirty feet; here a tunnel was found, striking down at about a 45 degree angle. This extended about 40 feet. Here in direct contrast with the solid limestone was a hard, red sandstone dike. A large part of the sandstone had been broken off and removed from the tunnel. The finders of this strange place believed they had found an abandoned mine that had been worked by ancient Indians or Mexicans. Rack on the surface, a hammered copper spear-head and a knife of the same material was found. An Indian interpreter was brought to the scene. The Indian declared that three bows with drawn arrows found carved on neighboring rock, indicated that three great battles had been fought there by ancient Indians who were contending for possession of the place. Other symbols indicated that this had been a place of great importance to the ancient people who dwelt here. Whatever the importance to the ancient people this place might have had, it is no less important to a few modern men and women. It has furnished a legend, a dream of wealth, and filled weary prospectors with high hope. There are no less than three companies of men and women -- 90 -- trying to solve the mystery of this place. Some of them are professional men and women who dream of removing a vast fortune, in the form of gold bullion, from this place, or its environs. A man and woman from Waco penetrated this shaft during a cold, rainy winter night. Their divining rod "cut all kinds of capers" while in and around this shaft. One of the caves on this strange line of signs and symbols has a distinctly modern tinge, in so far as its contents are concerned. In this cave, 500 feet, or was it yards (?) back from the entrance, W. A. Mathney found a Wells Fargo strong box. This cave is big enough to lead a horse into, for Mathney states that he hitched a horse to the handle of the strong box to try to dislodge it from its resting place in a crevice of the rock. He was able only to pull the handle off it, as it was wedged so tightly in the crevice. CHAPTER XIX The Play Party
Thus we sang with unrestrained gusto at the play parties that used to be the chief entertainment of the young people of many a rural district. At that time the country was emerging from the dark reconstruction days that followed the Civil War, and the breaking up of outlawry. A great change in the social institutions was taking place. People had begun a great religious revival. The old square dance, with its whiskey and fights had suffered seriously at the onslaughts of religious reforms. Religious ideologies had tabooed the dance. In seeking an outlet for the gaiety and fun pent up in youthful hearts, the young people turned to the play party. -- 91 -- Here they found a mode of entertainment and social enjoyment that the religious did not seriously object to, and for a generation the play party was the chief place of entertainment for the rural people whose cultural restrictions had forbidden what was then deemed the higher manner of entertainment. The means of transportation of that time, limited the range of communication of the secluded settlements to almost their immediate neighborhood. Most of the people were of that hardy stock who came to build homes with very little to build them with, so that cultural influences were very meager. The young folks sought the best means at hand for social contacts where there could he an enjoyment not so rigidly constricted and the play party furnished that place. When the play party used to be popular there were just a few who could dress elegantly. A young man who could afford an especially tailored suit, or a young lady who could dress in silk were really well-to-do people, and were the envy of the whole community. Most girls dressed in calico; most boys dressed in hickory shirts and jeans trousers. Wagons, buggies on horse-back and afoot were the means of getting to the parties. In order to bring the young folks together Allen�s girls would announce a party for next Wednesday night. All right. Two or three boys in the community would mount their good steeds and invite all the people in a radius that was convenient for attendance by the young folks, and the old as well. On the night of the party at Allen�s two or three boys would go there early to help set the house in order. The house was usually of the old pioneer type; two main rooms with a lean-to across the back, and a long porch across the front. Sometimes it was a simple box house of one main room and a lean-to. All the boxes and chairs available were requisitioned and placed around the walls. Then, all the loose plank about the place were placed on chairs and boxes in order to increase the sitting room. Upon this, the quilts of the household were placed and the room was ready. At dusk the wagons begun to arrive, then those on foot, and on horse-back. Sometimes a throng of more than a hundred people would be gathered at the party. The old folks resorted to the fireplace room where they talked the hours away. -- 92 -- As the children fell asleep they were put to bed back in the shed room, to remain until the party was over. In the other room; the timid young people were beginning to spar for places of favor. To wear off their timidity a game of snap, cross questions and crooked answers, or thimble, was started. After a round of this play games, and songs were started. The most rollicking good times young folks ever had were put on.
And...
The crude tunes from such songs as these echoed up and down the little creeks, or across the fields, and pastures, from many a pioneer farm house of Central Texas, as this, the greatest, and most enjoyed festive gathering of young people was being held. The songs were not the composition of literary artists, but the work of unlettered farm boys, and girls, whose poetic gifts had not the polish of schools, but found a spontaneous outburst of poetic expression in the rhymes of the play songs. Many of the play songs were variants of the old ballads, of folk origin, that had come across the seas with the earliest settlers of America and were reconstructed to meet a social need. Most any wording that could be sung into a song without breaking the dance time, was apt to become a part of any song, or a part of many songs. The wording, and the tunes, if we could present them here, would show the songs to be the music pent up in the unlettered minds finding a spontaneous outburst in the festive gathering. In so far as we know no one individual is responsible for the origin of any of the songs. Many of them are variants of some old folk ballad generations old. Someone furnished a crude stanza; someone hummed a tune. They wee sung together, and thus a song was started. -- 93 -- |
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