Biggie and the Devil Diet - By Nancy Bell Page 0,1

himself with slabs of salt bacon to draw the poison out, but, still, they bothered him quite a lot. Once one boil would heal up, two more would appear on another part of his body. Still, James Royce forged on, determined to reach the center of Texas." She stuck her fingers down to the bottom of her now-empty tea glass and pulled out a piece of ice. She plopped it into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully before continuing. "And he would have, too, except for the fact that somewhere around Fort Smith, Arkansas, a big red boil popped up on his, um, his rear end, doncha know."

I nodded.

"Well, seeing as how Grandpa James Royce was traveling on horseback and leading a supply wagon pulled by two oxen, he was becoming more than a little uncomfortable on the trail."

"I bet!" I said.

"He decided to cross over into Indian Territory, which is now Oklahoma, and enter Texas by crossing the Red River."

"I bet he was attacked by Indians."

"Nope. He never saw any. But his boil was getting worse. When he came to the Red River, he found a ferryman to take him across into Texas. He camped there for the night and then set out again traveling due south. About sundown, he came to Wooten Creek— of course, it wasn't called that then. Weary and burning with fever from the boils, he decided to make camp there for the night. That evening along about twilight, as he was resting beside his campfire looking around at the tall trees, listening to the sound of the running creek, and thinking about the nice bass he had just fried up for his supper, what should he see but a family of white-tailed deer come out of the woods to stand in the clearing not fifty feet from where he sat. The deer stared at Grandpa just as bold as you please, and Grandpa stared back. Thoughtfully, he dug his bare toe into the fine black loamy soil. It felt rich and cool against his bare skin. It reminded him of his home back in Tennessee. 'Ample game, good soil, and a creek full of fish,' Grandpa thought, 'a feller could live right well in these parts.' Then he thought about how he'd heard central Texas was full of scrub oak and limestone boulders the size of a cow. He pondered how much he hated the thought of getting back on his horse what with his boil paining him so terribly." Biggie frowned like she had the boil herself.

"So that's when he decided to stay here?"

"Not quite," Biggie said. "First, he decided to have a little swim in the creek before bedding down for the night. He swam back and forth across the creek. Once he rolled over on his back and just floated there, watching the moon up in the sky."

"I've done that before."

"You bet you have. Well, when Grandpa got out of the creek and was getting back into his clothes, he noticed a funny thing. His boils were all gone— vanished without even a trace of a scar! 'It's a miracle!' he shouted. 'Praise the Lord!'"

"Was it a real miracle?"

"You betcha. Well, right then and there, Grandpa Wooten made up his mind. He wasn't riding another mile. He'd just homestead right here on the banks of Wooten Creek— and here he stayed. The very next day, Grandpa set about building himself a cabin in a grove of pines right near the creek. I guess you know what happened next."

"More people came, and pretty soon they had a town," I said.

"That's about it," Biggie said. "It took awhile, of course. In due course, Grandpa James Royce took a bride, one Eleanor Ann Muckleroy, the prettiest girl in town, which wasn't saying much because at that time there were only three females. One was already married, and the other was sixty-seven years old. James Royce never left Kemp County again except the time he had to go down to San Jacinto and help Gen. Sam Houston beat the tar out of old Santa Ana. After Texas won its independence from Mexico, he built Eleanor Ann a fine house on the hill, where the family graveyard sits now, and they had themselves eight fine strapping boys."

"That's a good story, Biggie. Makes me proud to be a Wooten."

"Me, too," Biggie said, "but a person can't rest on the laurels of those who came before him. We must all make our own mark in the world. Always remember