“The Teague Chronicle” newspaper - Thursday, Jul 15, 1965 edition

OFF THE BEATEN TRAIL 
By ED SYERS

The farmer bought some flour and tobacco and his towhead’s red soda pop and
somebody dominoed on the vine-shaded porch outside, and I contemplated the
fine, solid point of view from an old-fashioned nail keg in a county general
store.  

Particularly this one, by the high-backed rockers just inside the shaded door
of Stewards Mill Store.  It’s tucked where the south breeze stirs the big oaks,
back from the Corsicana road, out of Fairfield.  And that chunky keg!  It takes
a kind of fitting grip on you, to sit fore-square in a friendly argument, or
tilt easy—visiting, as they have nearly a century here.  

I swiveled for a look around – in to the cool dimness, past the old spool case,
the sausage-stuffer across, down the hand-milled counters with bins behind and
the nowadays stock up the high shelves, past the old signs and calendars
about…back where the horsecollars and hames, hang like they always did.  

Outside, it’s a barn pitched roof, weathered, heavy siding round to hand-made
brick chimney, with porch rockers and a bench noted by long ago whittlers, and
the big grove—from the little white church across to where the old mill stood
on Springsbranch.  

…Stewards Mill---now just the store and church and rolling stock farms
about—came a decade after San Jacinto, when Dorothy Bragg’s great grand-daddy,
George Washington Steward, came over from Mississippi.  Up went the best grist
mill between today’s Houston and Dallas, and presently, church, cotton gin, saw
mill, brick kiln and a store where you traded, shook hands on a deal and
swapped news.   

Civil War’s backlash burned it, even the cornfields, well after the formal
shooting was over.  From the pit of Reconstruction, this building rose and
added—even down to the County’s first telephone exchange; that wall-box yonder.
It never stopped being where the neighbors gathered.   

…The store grew, too.  An extraordinary inventory shows in 12 thick ledgers,
scrupulous in detail and a Spencerian hand to match an engraver’s.  Day-to-day,
perhaps a quarter-million entries.   

…Because the Frank Braggs are as proud of Stewards Mill Store’s service records
as its Confederate founder’s…..they keep a virtual museum of fragments from
those early days.  Brown’s Mule plug-cutter….a  sadle and mould for lead shot,
apothecary bottles still full…brass-toed “Starter” boots, a mustache cup,
Peabody’s Coffee Tin.   

“I couldn’t begin to show it all.”  Mrs. Bragg pointed to a brown snuff jar.
“Was it black gum brush they used?” she tried to remember.   

“Elm’s better,” came from the domino game on the porch.  By the door, I asked
about whittling these days.  They don’t ship in good pine boxes anymore.  Nor
can you pitch silver dollars out front; and horseshoes aren’t as handy.  But
the easy visiting and tempo—a tranquil, friendly one – stays the same. 

Perhaps the most remarkable in all about Stewards Mill Store’s inventory is
that of its struggle to survive—as always in farmland, against the elements.
Down the board front under the shed porch roof is penciled, year-by-year, an
almanac of that struggle.   

“Grandfather began it,” said Mrs. Bragg.  “Droughts…floods…cold.”  Scores of
laconic entries, fading now.  Of course, she knows them by memory from when
they stood fresher against the pine planks.   

“July 31, 1893,”  I read, “hit 109.”.  Below, several topping 110.
“Frost—a.m.—Nov 2, 1897”.  A later ice on an October 9.  That ’89 cold took 500
steers to 100 by Spring.  One faded year read:  “12 hours rain, Sept. 13, First
since June 2”.   

“You’ve got to preserve these records.”  I scanned over five feet of
plank-by-plank, head- to-belt-height penciling, “Where’s one of the roughest
times of all?”  

One of the domino players cashed a double-five for 20 and read, without
looking:  “September 3:  Creeks all dry.  Fenced to mouth of Caney for cattle
to water,”.  He looked up, pointing and read the next entry slowly:  “September
4:  All damn cows drowned.  Water over top of fence.  20 inch rain.”  “All of
them?”  “Aw, he saved a few”.  He pushed his hat forward and dominoed.  “He was
mad…stretched it a little.”