The first memories I have of my grandparents' farm at Mountain Grove, Arkansas, are memories from the night of the great fire.  I am standing at the screen door looking out the north side of the breezeway between the main house and the back bedroom.  The northwest sky is glowing in the distance a beautiful yellow, red, and orange,  There is no feeling of fear.  I am just looking out the screen door observing all the activity in the yard.  I must have been awakened by the commotion of people coming up to the house to draw water from the well which was just outside the north end of the breeze- way.  The well was under a roof supported by four cedar posts that rested on a concrete pad. The opening was smaller than a dinner plate and just big enough for the tube-like bucket that was lowered and raised using a rope and pulley.  There was a squeaky sound as the bucket went up and down. The well was a very good well and had never run dry, even in the hottest of summers.  That night it was being used to fill buckets with water for fighting the fire.  Blankets had been cut into four pieces and socked in water-filled buckets.  These wet blanket pieces were used to beat out the fire.  The entire community was engaged in the operation as the fire was rapidly spreading.

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I think I must have been looking for my mother.  I remember the color of the fire lit sky and the sooty faces of the people at the well.  My mother came to the door wearing a pair of my grandfather's overalls rolled up at the bottom. She was covered with soot and smelled of smoke.  I don't remember her saying anything, but I remember she smiled at me. Then my grandmother was standing beside me.  She took my hand and led me away through the kitchen into the living room.  She sat down in her rocker and pulled me up into her well-cushioned lap.  I remember my face resting against her ample bosom, the smell of her talcum powder, and the gentle motion of the rocking chair.  Then sleep found me.  The next morning I saw the overalls my mother had been wearing crumpled on the porch by the well along with the blackened blanket my mother had used to fight the big fire.  A heavy stench of smoke still lingered in the air.

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Fire was a real danger in those days.  We did not have the rural fire departments we have today.  Dry summers and prolonged days without rain created a perfect opportunity for fire to ravage the crisp, brown pastures. The big fire of 1951 came after a particularly long drought and started in the northwest corner of Kersey and Eula Benefield's pasture.  The Benefield's owned the forty acre farm just north of my grandparents' forty acres.   A fire on a neighbor's property meant possible danger to all.

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