Drake Kentucky was a small community, but now has a population equal to Brandenburg. When I knew it, it was a tiny place located on a north/south line, 18 miles south/west of Franklin, KY and 20 miles Northeast of Bowling Green, Ky. I was born in 1945, but this true story took place in 1933 give or take a year or two. It involved several members of the Arthur Bryant family, William, Tina, (pronounced Tyna), Aunt Valaria (pronounced Valeria), my Aunt Annie, Grandfather Arthur Bryant and a man known as George Clark and sometimes George Rogers Clark. Besides these folks, it involved a bad dog, and an unnamed boy with a pony-cart to sell.

Papa Bryant as all his children and grand-children called him, had settled in Drake several years before. Quitting his work on the railroad as a United States Railroad Mail Service guard, where he toted a gun; and was so well thought of more than 50 of his fellow Mail Service co-workers, presented him with a letter and smoking-stand, memorializing their remembrance.

On the underside of their gift, 52 of the Presenters affixed their names with the following note:
“When the setting sun is sinking and your mind from care is free, while you think of others, will you sometimes think of we.”

Papa owned a farm of about 50 acres where he grew corn, wheat, tobacco, and kept a small orchard of apple and peach trees. He put in a large garden, had a few chickens, hogs, and kept two or three cows as well as ponies and a few horses for sale. During the depression he bought ponies destined for the soap-works at $2.00 per-head healed them-up, and broke them to ride and pull a wagon. He sold them for $12.00 per head. Things were hard back then and Papa would not let his children buy or sell anything of their own, without his permission. He wanted to make sure they were not taken advantage of by unscrupulous shysters.

After Papa and Mamaw Bryant settled in Drake, Mamaw’s sister, my Aunt Annie Bryant Richard, lived across the road with her husband Pierce. A quarter mile down the road in the direction of Drake General Store and White Chapel Church, stood the house occupied by a reputed outlaw who it was said, once rode with Frank and Jesse Jame’s gang. Mamaw Bryant wanted another sister who was at the time without a husband, to move to Drake where Tina, Annie and Valaria could be reunited and able to visit and take care of each other. She frequently asked Papa to help get her sister relocated to Drake.

My mother told me once when I was a little boy, that she had walked down the road a piece to visit a girlfriend from school, and passed by George Clark’s house where he was in the front yard chopping and splitting wood for his stoves. It was early fall, hot, and Clark had his shirt off. Mom told me she saw a number of little round scars about the size of dimes on his torso and arm. Later Papa told her they were bullet wounds collected by Clark when he was an outlaw.

The Pony-Cart

One day Uncle William told Papa he wanted to buy a pony-cart from a schoolmate. Papa asked why the boy wanted to sell it, and William explained the boy’s father could not afford to buy a pony, and the family could use the money due to the depression. William owned a pony that Papa broke to pull a wagon, and thus the reason for the sale made sense, but Papa told William to bring the cart to the farm so he could see if William was getting taken.

A few days later William rode his horse to the boy’s farm and hitched it to the wagon which they drove to Papa’s farm. Papa looked the cart over and declared William could buy it. The boys exchanged money and the cart, shook hands and William took the boy back home. This was William’s first purchase and he had worked hard for his money.

The two Bryant girls, were my mother Virginia and her sister, my Aunt Helen, who worked with Mamaw Bryant, and the girls got paid for churning the butter, helping with the chicks and eggs as well as the washing, cooking and other household duties like beating the rugs, airing out the featherbeds, and treating the aired mattresses with kerosene to keep them free from bed bugs.

William and Woodrow were each given an acre apiece to farm. They had to plow and disc their acre, plant, weed and harvest. They did not get an allowance, but rather could earn as much as their crop provided them. That was their allowance, and they still had to help Papa with his chores. After all, the farm fed, clothed, and sheltered them all. Their acre taught them how to convert their energy into money. The harder they worked their acre the more they made. The cart William bought came from working his acre of land. And, he loved the cart and when time allowed, he asked Papa if he could take the cart to Uncle Pierce to show him. Papa said do it after your chores. And he did.

One day not long after the purchase of the pony-cart, William drove the cart up the driveway to Uncle Pierce’s house but they had gone to Bowling Green. So, he took this opportunity to drive toward Drake, about three miles away. To get there he must pass George Clark’s house. But Mamaw and Papa didn’t know of his decision, and when he wasn’t back in time, and they were ready to go looking for William, the pony came down the drive way pulling the wrecked and ruined pony-cart, with no sign of William.

Just as Papa went up the driveway, to the Drake Road, he saw Uncle William staggering from one side of the old dirt road to the other, aimlessly moving, with blood running from his scalp down his face and his clothing torn and dirty. Papa got him to the house where William could be treated. They took laid him on a bed, washed his wounds and Mamaw treated some of them with alcohol and some plants from her garden. Finally, William came to himself and was asked what happened.

He told them that Uncle Pierce and Aunt Annie had left and he could not show Uncle Pierce his cart. He thought he would take the opportunity to ride up the road aways and then return home. When he passed George Clark’s property, Clark had turned his dog loose on him, and it frightened the pony which reared up and dumped over the cart, which then carried William halfway down the road and into a roadside ditch. At that point William bumped his head and lost consciousness. He couldn’t say what happened until he came to himself in the bed. Papa was furious as he headed up the road in order to confront the outlaw. Mamaw yelled Arthur you may need your gun. Papa yelled back he didn’t need a gun to do what’s right! About an hour later Papa returned quiet seemingly within himself, and deep in thought. At breakfast the next day, a Sunday they all went to Drake, and White Chapel Church, where he was a lay Preacher and sat on the “Amen Bench,” when not so engaged. Papa used to preach sometime carrying me as a baby, in his arms at the pulpit.

When they passed George Clark’s place, he was not to be seen. Papa didn’t comment. The next week went by slowly, Mamaw was worried about what Papa would do and what would be the result of his anger. At church the news had already spread and the entire congregation was upset and sympathetic. Papa told everyone he would take care of the business and to just let it lay.

I asked my mother what George Clark looked like, and she surprised me. She said she had seen him twice once with his shirt off working, and another time when he was dressed to go out on a Saturday night. She said he was handsome, he had long black hair gathered in the back, a drooping black moustache, dressed in a black suit with a white ruffled shirt and black string tie. He wore a black Stetson hat and rode a big dark horse. Every Saturday night he would go to Drake, turn east and travel to a house where there was gambling, drinking and women of questionable morals. Sometime in the early morning he would ride home and sleep until Monday.

Several Sundays after William’s mistreatment, my grandmother Bryant stated that in the wee hours of the following two or three Saturdays, when Papa was back to normal, he got out of bed and grabbed his pistol, to see what was causing the stock to be nervous. Mamaw got used to this and went back to sleep. Papa came in sometime unknown, and went back to bed. He was tired when they all got ready for church. As they drove up the road, a crowd had gathered in front of Clark’s place. The sheriff had just drove him away to the hospital in Bowling Green. Uncle Pierce said someone had taken a knife, and cut Clark from gizzard to gonads, and he might not live. Papa said something about the wages of sin being hard, and they all left and went to church.

No one said anything about the event, no inquiries were made, and all of them were glad, Clark was gone. No one knew if he lived or died, nor did anyone in Drake care, excepting Mamaw Bryant and Aunt Annie. Between them they convinced Aunt Valaria to move to Drake, and made arrangements for her to live in George Clark’s house. The three sisters visited and took care of each other and lived happily ever after. I knew the place as Aunt Valaria’s house. Hallelujah

Gerry Fischer