Hunt Co., TX - Tall Tale (?) by  R. W. Williams, 1952
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Since my good friend, Joe Morrow, has become associated with the Celeste
paper, I feel an urge to write about my relations to the fine little city.

I was born in the Sulphur bottom at daybreak on a foggy spring morning in
1867. Sulphur was the dividing line between Celeste and Wolfe City, and I was
born on the Wolfe City side of the stream.

During my boyhood days, there was a gentleman’s agreement that boys went with
girls on their own side of the creek; so, I dint’ range toward Celeste—only on
special occasions. However, I do remember attending a protracted meeting at
Hogeye and one of my neighbor boys went along and fell hard for some of the
Hogeye girls.

One of the songs they sang at this meeting was the very beautiful, the title
of which was "O, For Grace to Trust Him More," but this boy paraphrased the
words and sang it "O, for Grace or Lila Moore." These girls were sisters and
lived just north of the Hogeye Church and as I remember they were tow of the
nest girls I had ever seen. If any reader of this paper knows their
whereabouts, I wish they might send them this copy and tell them to write me a
letter.

If any of the old-timers around Celeste remember about a bull wrecking one of
the primitive Kay trains and killing the engineer just south of Celeste about
1882, I should like to hear from them, too. I wasn’t born then, but about the
first thing I remember was my father telling about his incident. Gus
Scarborough, now living near Wolfe City, says he remembers the incident and
states the engine jumped the track and ran up the bank and killed the bull and
turned over. He says the tracks are still there. I don’t know if he means the
engine tracks or the bull tracks or whether he is just putting out bull about
the whole matter. I don’t know what size engines were used on the Katy or what
size bulls was raised in those days, but I think any bull would now have a
hard time wrecking a modern Katy engine.

Riley Green was a citizen of Celeste in an early day, but later moved to a
bigger town (Wolfe City). The boys used to tell a good story on J. Riley that
was said to have happened near the Katy track north of Celeste. A tale got out
that Riley had a bull that was so fast he could out run the Katy flyer and
when the bull heard the train coming, he would go to the side from which the
train was approaching and start pawing and getting ready for the race.

Some of Riley’s friend from Dallas came to witness a race. Arriving before the
schedule for the train, they went to Riley’s home and asked his Negro helper
if Mr. Green were at home. The Negro said, "No, sir, he just left on that fast
bull for a visit in Saint Louis."

I don’t know whether it was because Riley was reared at Celeste or lived so
long in Wolfe City that caused him to become nationally famous.

When I was a kid I visited the Celeste Picnic and while there sold Riley a
horse. He was running for county clerk and short of cash so he took one of his
large candidate cards and wrote me a note on the back. On the other side of
the card was a monkey with his tail drawn across a block and a guy with a
hatchet drawn back and under the picture appeared these words, "To make a long
story short, J. Riley Green want to be your next County Clerk." I took the
card home and handed it to my dad and told him I wanted to sell him this note.
He first saw the picture and said, "What kind of monkey business are you
trying to pull on me?" After an explanation, he wrote me a check for the note.
This was my first real money; so, I immediately took a trip to Mineral Wells
where with some other boys, we really had a fine time chasing wild goats on
the high mountains just east of town where many fine homes now stand.

Yes, those were really lively times, but the biggest thrill I ever got was
thirty-five years ago, when I bought my first Ford from Bill Taylor who was
then working in the bank at Celeste.

At that time, I had never felt the feel of a Ford, but Bill showed me a few
tricks about driving so I took off north via Hickory Creek and soon overtook a
farmer in his wagon near the Jim Stanley farm. For an instant, I had forgotten
how to stop the thing; so, I tried to pass him and made a wide sweep through
the blood weeds and the mules started running away, but I finally passed them
and barely made a swing back into the road.

I hadn’t seen Bill Taylor from that day, until recently I ran up on him and
told him the Ford hadn’t given satisfaction and tried to get him to agree to
take it back.

By R. W. Williams, Wolfe City, Texas (February 1, 1952, The Celeste Courier)