The Rolling Store

We moved to Mississippi when I was seven years old. My family and I moved in with my grandparents on the old 120 acre farm they owned northeast of Carthage. This was a very rural area where the farms were far apart. The next nearest farm was my Great Uncle Charley Edwards and that was on down the road several miles.

When we moved into my grandparents house, they still had three of my father's siblings with them, the youngest was my dad's sister who was a year older than I was. The farms back then were supported by growing cotton, corn, watermelons, beans and any other crops we could sell or live on. They raised hogs, cattle, chickens and of course had horses and mules for pulling the plows and wagon. (my grandfather had a tractor but he did not like to use it, preferring mules and horses to pull the equipment). He also had a pickup, but preferred the wagon most of the time.

It was important to have a large enough central family to help to take care of the farm since, as one can imagine, there was a lot of work to do. One of the two brothers who were still at home was married and his family lived in the house as well. Everyone had chores and jobs to do and this included my Aunt Paulette, (my dad's youngest sister) and me.

We fetched eggs, fed the chickens, etc. The one really important job we had was to listen for when the men would call from the fields to take their one water break for the day. After milking and feeding the stock, the men took the mules to the fields and would plow the fields all day long with only the one break. Of course, what I mean by calling is exactly that, yelling loud enough so we could hear. There were no cell phones then. We usually knew approximately where they would be and when we heard them call we would each take two large bottles of ice water into the fields to find them for this midday break.

Anyway, for doing these chores, Paulette and I usually got a few pennys and a couple of nickles each week.

So our big event of the week was to watch for the Rolling Store to come by our farm. The Rolling Store was a local merchant who converted an old bus into a store on wheels, They would stock the bus with a variety of goods that the farmers may need and since markets were quite a ways from the farms and the families did not have the time to go to market because of the demands of the farms, these traveling stores were essential to the farmers.

They usually had all needed items including fruits and vegetables not grown on the farm and my grandmother would supplement her needs in this way. The bus was built with an aisle down the middle with shelves on either side. The aromas were always so nice. The smell of fruit and vegetables, coffees and other packaged goods. There would be sawdust spread in the aisle as well.

They usually had a really good supply of candies which is what Paulette and I were interested in. We could choose from the penny candies, gumdrops, bubble gums, or if we so desired, we could get a candy bar of which the Baby Ruth was my favorite. What a treat it was to stand on the side of the road in anticipation of the Rolling Store.