On the Farm in Bell County Texas

[This is an excerpt from a transcript of interviews between Emmilou Collins Edmonds Adams and her father, Carlos C. Collins, recorded February 14, 1982. Passages in italics are his actual words, although portions may have been omitted for brevity. Portions in brackets [] were added for clarification.]
 
Carlos Collins –
I thought it would be a good idea to tell you some more experiences on the farm in Bell County before we made this journey to Fisher County. I recall that one day my dad [Albert Buell Collins, 1862-1942] was plowing with a turning plow. He was bedding up the land in rows preparing for planting later on. It was a walking plow. He had a team of horses and he walked behind guiding the plow and I was walking along behind him and once in a while he would let me hold the plow handle. Then he asked me if I thought I could plow. Well, I told him I thought I could. The next day, he brought another team and put me to plowing. I could hold the plow pretty well, but I had some trouble when I got to the end of the row and had to turn the plow and come back. So he would help me do that. So I did that kind of work for a day or two and I thought I was quite a farmer by that time. But that’s the first real work I remember being on the farm and I thought I was getting ready to retire I had done such a good job.
 
I might tell you about how us boys helped my mother, if you can call it helping her, to break an old hen from setting. Sometimes an old hen, if you don’t know it, used to lay an egg every day or so and she would get to the place where she ought to set them and hatch ‘em. But we, of course, would gather them up every day. But these old particular hens would sit on the nest and not do anything. My oldest brother, Arthur [Arthur Collins, 1887-1908], of course with our support, decided we would fix the old hen to break her from such a habit. So we would get a hold of the old hen and tie a shuck to her tail and pitch her out and kind of give her a shove and she’d get excited and just run herself to death nearly. Of course my mother, when she found out, put a stop to such ideas.