Johnny and the Jayhawkers

By Carolyn Hackett Tobey

This book is about a young boy during the Civil

War who is living in the Ozark Mountains of

Arkansas. He saves his family from jayhawkers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463400699

Carolyn Hackett Tobey

I am a retired school teacher of twenty-eight years. I am a graduate of Shirley High School in Shirley, AR, a graduate of the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, AR with a Bachelors in Education and a Masters as a Reading Specialist (K-12). I have always loved history and especially the oral history of the Ozark Mountains.

Book preview

Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my father, Glen Hackett (1916-2003) who taught me to love education, writing, and history, to my mother, Mildred Murray Hackett (1924-1973) who taught me to love God, music, and family, and to my husband, Kenneth Tobey (1944-___) who taught me to believe in laughter, endurance, and new beginnings.

Foreword

This story is a work of fiction based on true events that occurred during and shortly after the Civil War in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. The people in the story were either members of my family or their neighbors. They lived along the banks of the Middle Fork of Little Red River.

There was a boy who lived on Little Red River who killed a jayhawker with a gun from the chimney corner on a fall day when they were killing hogs and he was the only man there to defend his family. I learned later that he was older than he is in the story but still too young to be the head of the household then or now.

There was a Teague man shot by jayhawkers in front of his children. The little girl who caught five chickens was my great-great grandmother.

There was a Sally who cut off the dead man’s finger and took back her ring. She helped the boy carry the man and the secret. She lived on what is now called Sally Flat.

My father, an educator and historian, collected these stories from the participants or their descendants and I used them as an elementary teacher in my fourth grade Arkansas History Unit. Several students begged me to retell them and some said they had rather hear my stories than any book I ever read to them. When I retired after my twenty-eight years in the classroom I started several projects. This book was one of them.

Chapter 1

Johnny woke up to the sound of the rooster crowing. He snuggled deeper under the covers, enjoying for a few still moments the softness and warmth of the worn quilts on the bed. Even though he was accustomed to rising early to build a fire in Mama’s cook stove for cooking breakfast, and to build up the fire in the fireplace when the weather was cold, he still enjoyed these few quiet moments between the crow of the rooster and the sound of his mother’s footsteps. He could smell the faint odor of the apples that they had gathered from their orchard and stored in the back closet. The smell made his stomach growl. He must get up soon, but the bare floor would be cold, for it was late fall in the Ozark Mountains.

The cabin was large and the logs well-chinked, but still after the humid Arkansas summer, it took a body awhile to adjust