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FROM INFIDELITY TO CHRISTIANITY
By Willis M. Brown
1903
INTRODUCTORY
I will herein try to give a sketch of my life. While I realize there will be some portions that will be too dark to put before the public, I will try to put enough that I trust will turn many from the ways of the world and from the power of Satan unto our God.
I have asked God for power and wisdom to enable me to give my life to the public in a way that will be an honor to him and instrumental in the salvation of souls, and make men husbands to their wives, fathers to their children, and servants to our God.
There will, no doubt, be many things in this sketch that many will criticize, and say, “I would have kept that to myself;” but if you are one of those critics, my dear reader, just stop and think it is not for you, but for that other person; then let your mind run back over the past, and see if you can think of any one it hits.
I know my mistakes and wrongs have been many, yet I realize that I am not the only man that ever made them. There are very few that have salvation enough to confess them to the public.
Possibly this book will mention some individuals in a way that will make them feel offended toward me; but I will say here, I will shun all as much as I can, to bring out my rusty deeds and have respect to all men and women that were implicated in any of them, and will refrain from giving any their full names. I could sketch my life without giving the names of men and women I associated with: but while I was misled by many that were older than myself and caused to do many a mean deed and thereby to be wonderfully abused when a little orphan boy having no mother, and father would believe anything any one would tell on me; and while many told falsehoods and I was punished for it; I will say to you that are yet living, the stripes have faded away, the gashes have healed up on my back, and God has healed the wounds in my heart, and I can say, God bless and forgive you. I know some of you are living yet, or were a short time ago, and I have met some of you since I have been preaching. It was not asked for, but I will say from the bottom of my heart I forgive all. December, 1903.
CHAPTER 1
EARLY RECOLLECTIONS
I WAS born two and one-half miles north of Cave in Rock, Hardin County, Illinois, on the 29th of September, 1856. My father, Anderson Brown, had moved from Virginia and was one of the first settlers in southern Illinois. My mother died when I was eighteen months old. My grandparents on my mothers side were from Belfast, Ireland. Their name was Radcliffe. My grandparents on my fathers side were from Scotland.
When I was very small I have a faint recollection of seeing my aunt moving to my fathers house after my mother’s death. My uncle had left her with three little children. The youngest was just nine months older than myself; her name was Sue B. Radcliffe. The other two children were by my aunts first husband, Joseph Hammonds. The oldest of the Hammond children, Sidney Ann, went to heaven in the year 1878. The other childs name was Sarah Jane (still living in Gallatin County, Illinois). My aunts second marriage was to my mothers brother. He left her about the year I was born, went to Missouri and married another woman; reared a large family of children, and died a few years ago; also his last wife died; but his first wife (my fathers sister) lives yet, and also their daughter is living, and they are at law over his estate with his son by his last wife. My cousin, now Sue B. Bonard, lives at Rockcreek, Hardin County, Illinois. Her mother lives with her, and is now in her 70th year, and has never married any more.
I received a letter from my cousin, Mrs. Bonard, just before penning these lines, saying her mother is getting very feeble, and says she loves me as her own child; and I love her, for she was the nearest mother I ever knew. You will see from this short history that we had many troubles. You can also see there remains a love, and it was there all the time. Aunt was not mother, but she did the best she could for me under the surrounding circumstances, which you will see as we go along. God bless my old aunt I love her still.
I was a bad boy and had bad company. I remember when very small I would fall down and cry until some one would come and pick me up. My father found out this kind of work was going on and he gave orders to let me lie. So I would fall down and look to see if some one was coming. Sometimes the ground would be frozen long that it would be muddy under me. Once I saw my half-sister, Mrs. Mary Moore, coming, and she did not go into the house until she came to see about me She lifted me up, the tears running down her cheeks, and looked down in pity on mothers little son. She was a near friend of mine, and you will see that she came to my relief often.
Little boys did not dress in those days like they do now, and the hair of a motherless boy was not cut off until in a sad plight and well filled with bugs. I will try and describe my first trousers. The waist and all were made in one piece, and buttoned up the back. They were made of home-made jeans and colored with white walnut bark.
Now for my first exploits. After my trousers had begun to get old and the worse for wear, I was playing with my pup and would carry him up the hill from the cabin door where we lived, set him down and run back to the house, about fifteen steps. The pup was pretty fat as well as the boy, and when I would throw him down sometimes he would light on his back and I would get the start of him and he would not catch up until I would fall down, then the pup would grab my clothes and would almost undress me; then my chum, cousin Sue, would come to my rescue and button up my clothes. But we would keep up the fun with the pup until the clothes got the worst of it, and my aunt noticed I did not have waist or trousers suitable to wear in company.
The next day there was a big speaking. Father said we would all go. He was informed I did not have any trousers to wear. He said that one of Sues dresses should be put on me and he would take that pup along and give it away. All was arranged. I kept behind the old clapboard door until my father called me out to go. We got into the old tar-bucket ox-wagon, and started to Cave in Rock to the speaking, taking the last trip with the pup.
We arrived at the appointed place, where a large crowd had already assembled, and I woke up to the fact that I was a great big boy with my cousins red calico dress on. After Father was called upon to assist I was pulled out of the wagon. My aunt took me by one hand and my cousin by the other, and I advanced toward the crowd. Such a sight now would be noticed like a street parade. After the speaking was over and I had been called a girl until I could scarcely look up, I was notified that father was taking my dog off. I looked up and saw him deposited into the care of another man. It is enough to say I felt as if I was broken up, and would have cried as loud as any boy would in those days, of the same age I was, but I knew if I did father would have, whipped, not the red dress, but the boy, right there before everybody. I crawled into the wagon, laid down in the fodder, and as soon as I could forget my trouble I was asleep. I did not know anything more about the conversation until I was wakened by screams; found the family, ox-wagon and all in the middle of a big pond of water; the wagon-bed was full of water and the oxen swimming. It was a very large pond and we were in the middle of it, the bed about to float off the wagon. The people that lived near the pond came to our relief. Their name was Rutledge. Some of the family are living yet— Mrs. A. Dutton, Hester, Illinois; Vol Rutledge, Eldorado, Illinois; Eps Rutledge, Portageville, Missouri, and others whose whereabouts I do not know. However, they could do nothing but stand and watch the results of going by a pond with a load of people drawn by a pair of oxen on a hot day. But we made a good landing, as it was a good bank. We were welcome visitors to the Rutledge family, as they were good people. They took us all into the house where a good dinner and dry clothing was provided for us all. After dinner my cousins red dress was dried the same as the other clothing; the oxen were rested, and I redressed and we returned home.
I had a great many acquaintances and playmates and a brother, but my double cousin Sue Radcliffe and I were near the same age and we always shared each others troubles. It seems strange to write of my boyhood exploits, which seem like they happened a few days ago. Now my son Anderson Brown, eleven years old, comes in with a letter from my cousin Sue, who states that she will leave her home in Hardin County, Illinois, seven miles back of Elizabeth-town, for my home in Hickman, Kentucky, to spend my 45th birthday with me and family, which will be the 29th of this month—next Sunday. Her letter reads :— Sept. 20, 1901.
W.M. Brown, Hickman, Kentucky.
Dear Cousin :—I received your letter yesterday and will leave here next Tuesday, if God is willing, and take the train at Paducah for Hickman. If there should be any delay I will wire you. It pleases me better to meet you at your own home, for there I can be with the whole family. I want to see every one. God bless and keep you until I come. We are all well. I will answer the rest in person. Yours, Mrs. S. B. Bonard.
So strange! Forty years but a week!
My father was a great man to talk. He would go to old uncle Johnnie Simmons, a good old man that lived at the top of the bluff that we lived at the foot of, and talk sometimes in the winter until after midnight. They were good people (old-time Carolinians), and brother George and I would often go up there with father, and stay until he would talk all the Simmons family to sleep. Then he would rouse us up and start for home, about half a mile down a rocky hill, buoyed up by promises from father that we might catch a possum, as we passed a grove of persimmon trees on the way, and so we did often; but all the promises did not keep me from falling down. After I was a great big boy, calling on the girls, father would tell that he raised me on my abdomen between our house and Mr. Simmons. Mr. Simmons and his good old companion, who was so much like a mother to me, have gone across the river of death, also their sons James and William and daughter Myron are gone. Jerry, I am told, is at the Soldiers Home in Illinois. Their daughter Jane, who is now the wife of Solomon Davis, lives near Cave in Rock, Illinois, near where she was born. Very few old patriarchs are yet living that lived there forty years ago, and but few of my schoolmates. As I pass through the country and see the ground cleared, distances that seemed so long when a child, seem but short distances now.
As you will see before we get through this sketch, my father was not much of a man to pet his children, but seemed to want to put an old mans head on a boys shoulders. I have before stated that he would take me to the neighbors with him, and I thought I ought to go all the time. I remember one day he was saddling his horse for a journey. I got ready to go. Father mounted his horse and rode away. I raised a row, and he went out of sight. I thought I had a good chance to take a cry, but to my great astonishment I heard a noise, and on looking up saw my father coming back. I was not certain whether he was coming after me or not, but was certain he had business with me, but whether it was for me to go with him or not I did not know. About the time he dismounted and I saw the dogwood limb in his hand I was satisfied there was trouble just ahead. I remember we had just had a fire that came near burning all the family up that were at home. I had lost one of my shoes and had on one of grandmothers old ones, and I felt that my only friend had turned against me, also knew how a dogwood limb felt applied by a mad father. This is just the beginning, as you will soon see. When he had completed the job and made me promise I would not cry after him any more, he mounted the horse and left a poor little motherless boy with a smarting back and a bleeding heart, afraid to see night come, afraid the house would catch on fire again and we would all be burned up.
My reasons for being afraid were that I had heard ghost, witch, and robber stories. Our house had just caught fire the night before and father was not at home. It was a miracle how God saved us. We children had carried a lot of sugar tree limbs and laid them in a corner of our old log-cabin, which was ceiled overhead with four-foot boards, riven out with a frow, and the cracks of the cabin were daubed with mud, and boards were nailed over them. The single-barreled shotgun was just over the kindling and a little trunk sat near it. The kindling caught fire, and soon the boards on the wall were flaming. The flames ran up and around the gun, burning the stock in two at the breech. The gun fell and fired, which woke my aunt. The sad sight was her mother in bed asleep, partially paralyzed, unable to help herself, and five sleeping children, all in the old log-cabin, and it on fire, with no one to do anything but my aunt. She looked at the trunk, saw it was on fire, and knowing there was a powder-horn inside with a quarter of a pound of powder in it, she ran and snatched the horn out from the burning books and papers, and threw it into a bucket of water; then began to get grandmother and the children out. She put all to carrying water that could, and she fought fire (certainly in the name of Jesus) and accomplished the most wonderful victory I have ever known in putting out a burning building. When the fire was out and the powder-horn examined, the wooden plug in the end of the horn was burned to a coal and fell out when handled. It was the mercies of God. If the gun had not fired in one minute longer the powder would have exploded and the whole family would have woke up in eternity.
Father came home the next morning. I was the first to meet him and told him in a whisper what had happened. Although aunt had told me it was caused by our carelessness, I could not help but believe some one had fired the house, trying to kill father for his money. I had been told his life was in danger.
CHAPTER 2
BOYHOOD DAYS.
I Do not want to worry your patience with my boyhood days, but you will see before you get through this book I am giving you the first steps to infidelity. As you read on you will see my father was a moral man. I never saw him drunk and never heard him use profane language. He never made any profession of salvation, but was a strict freemason. My aunt was a Baptist and had seasons of rejoicing, but at other times you would not have taken her to be a professor, and would have had to look on the church-book for her name, yet in that day aunt was considered a good Christian woman and a good neighbor; father a good man and a good citizen. But I see they both made mistakes in raising their children. They did enough whipping, as you will see, and you will no doubt think I exaggerate in some of my statements. My aunt lives yet at Rockcreek, Illinois, and I trust will live to read this book and state to the public whether true. Besides there are a few others that still live and are aequainted with me and my raising. It was fathers rule if aunt had to whip me when he was gone, he would whip me when he returned, except when I would gain the sympathy of aunt, and she would insist she had whipped me enough.
I would hear people talk about my mother and what a good woman she was. My half-sister Mary would put her arms around her mothers baby boy and give me the idea that if mother had lived I would have had a better time. These things made me want to see mother. One time after I had received what I termed cruel treatment, I went up into the woods under the bluff, just at dark, and got on my knees and asked God to send mother there so I could tell her how I had been whipped. I staid there until quite dark, and what was so peculiar about it, I was so afraid after dark. But I had seen my aunt on her knees, and my older cousin had told me she was praying to God and God would give her what she asked for. So I tried it and failed—lost confidence in prayer. God knew what was best for me, yet I was inclined to preach, and when other children came to play with us we would have meeting and I would be the preacher. At another time one of our neighbors, named Norris, had a big gang of sheep that bothered about our place. Brother George caught several of them one day after we had been to baptizing, and took them near a pool of water that was about waist deep. I preached, then my brother helped me and we would hold the sheep up on their hind feet and walk them in the water. I would say the ceremony that I heard the preacher say, and we would baptize them, lead them out and tie them up until we got them all baptized. Then we had a falling out like the rest of the preachers and church members. We tied them together by twos with bark and set our dog on them and started them through the woods to their home. Some of them hung up in the woods and staid there until Mrs. Norris found them. But this cruel treatment did not keep them away. Afterwards we turned them in a field of cockle-burs, and they staid there for weeks before they were found. When they were brought out you could not tell what they were by the color, and they could scarcely walk. Of course we denied putting them in the field, and people could not prove it, but the sheep never bothered any more.
In my boyhood days there were a great many deer in that country, and the Wilson brothers would come over from Kentucky and camp and make deer drives. Some would take the hounds and drive and others would stand with gun when the deer would pass, and shoot the deer as the hounds would run them through. My brother being two years older than myself knew more about deer hunting than I did. We had by this time got us another pup and trained him to take our track and hunt us up. Brother proposed to me that we would go out in the orchard in the weeds where the stock had made paths through and have a deer hunt. He had made a crossbow, a piece of a plank cut out in shape of a gun, which would shoot an arrow almost like a bullet. So he had me to be the deer and he stood on the crossing. So I started; he put the pup on my track and I ran through the weeds a while, and ran through the crossing where my brother was stationed, anxious to try his cross-bow. As I galloped through he pulled the trigger and down came the game. It was not a deer, but a boy. The arrow struck me in the temple and stuck in about an inch. I screamed; my brother ran up and pulled the arrow out of my head, and the blood flowed freely. It scared me nearly to death. He made me several promises, trying to get me to hush, but it looked too much like a dead boy for me to hush. He would raise me to my feet; I would fall and scream the louder. The alarm reached the house. Sister Mary had just come; she knew I was in trouble. She came running, but my brother was off in the weeds. She saw the blood and the hole in my head as large as her finger. She did not know how deep it was, and I didnt have sense enough to tell her what had happened, and my brother was not there to tell. I was carried to the house and my wound was dressed. I gave the state of affairs; my brother was convicted by the family and sentence was passed on him, which was worse than ten days in the work-shop, that was to tell father. He knew what was next. I knew I had to keep shy of him or he would make me tell father a lie when he came, or give me another round. So I was kept in. Father came and the case was laid before him. My brother was called and there was no further trial. His clothes were taken off and the penalty enforced, which covered his back with stripes and gashes. He did not whip the clothes, he whipped the boy.
In the course of two or three days I got off my guard. My head had got better and I had cried over brothers whipping as much as he had, for I didnt want him whipped for anything he would do to me. He had my sympathy and got me out to the barn. We were having a good time talking. I had forgotten the past, but he had not. As we stood under the shed by the log barn, he looked at me and said, “What made you tell on me and get me whipped?” He then grabbed me by the hair of the head and landed me against the barn. The bark was peeled off the logs and there was a little knot on the log, which stuck in my head opposite the other wound. I was scared. As before, he tried to make me hush, but I cried the louder. The alarm reached the house; my other wound was dressed; brother tried, and found guilty. When father came home he gave another punishment. The scar still shows on my head and looks as though I had been shot through the head. I knew the time would soon come that I would have to take more abuse, for he was mad at me for telling the truth about the trouble. He would hurt me very bad some times trying some project, and would threaten me and make me tell a story about it. I loved him better than myself. You will see before we get through that my father was very cruel and would give as severe a whipping for a little offense as a big one, and this caused me to tell many a story to shun my brother. When one got a whipping the other got it, too, if he were not hurt too bad.
I will give an account of my first stealing. I have said my father never got drunk to my certain knowledge, but he kept whisky for morning dram, and when I was small he got $1.00 worth of loaf sugar to sweeten his whisky. He kept it in an old trunk that was not locked. My brother had been taken to the field to work. My aunt was teaching my cousin to hand thread through the slay, putting a piece of cloth in the loom. I was lonesome and the old trunk was under the bed. I knew the sugar was there. I wanted it so bad I slipped a lump out and went out to the old wheat granary, some fifteen steps from the house, where a log chain hung. I commenced to rattle the chain and eat the sugar. I rattled the chain to keep them from hearing me in the house chew the sugar. Although fifteen steps away I thought they could hear me, for it sounded so loud to me. You see it was my conscience hurting me. When my cousin was at leisure I told her of my discovery and went and made another haul and got a lump for her. We went to the granary and I told her to help me rattle the chain or they would hear her eat the sugar. She was nine months older than I and had a little more sense, She got tickled at my foolish idea. It was a good joke and she could not keep it. So she played a trick on me and got me to get another lump, and while I rattled the chain to eat it she told the joke. To my great astonishment I looked and saw the whole family looking and laughing at me. I was asked by father what I was doing. I told him I was playing with the chain. “What else are you doing?” I saw she was in the gang and the rest of the work hands, as it was dinner time, and I was given away and caught in my first attempt to steal; but it was so funny and the work hands begged for me, so I was excused, and I promised to steal no more sugar. But the sugar did not last long, as there were four other children who had found out as well as myself that it was there and the trunk was not locked.
As I have told you, my brother was two years older than myself, and consequently had to go into the field before me; so my cousin Sue and I were left alone. My other two cousins were large enough that aunt had them helping her about her work. The wheat granary was a nice playhouse. It sat on the hillside by the path that led to the stable. Dinner time came on. It was very hot weather. Father, brother, and hired men came to dinner. The horses were very hot. Father would have them given fodder to eat until the men ate dinner. While they were eating my cousin and I were having a nice time playing in the wheat granary. Dinner was over and my father sent my brother out to feed the horses their corn. He was mad beause he had to work and we could play; so as be passed the old granary he caught under the edge of the upper side and upset it. Away went boy, girl, granary, dishes, and the whole business, rolling down the steep hill. Of course we didnt know what; happened. We had heard of the earthquakes which were very common in that time, and we had heard it said the world was coming to an end.
We didnt know which had happened, but had the least thought we would see another human face. When we got out George was gone.
Now the time soon rolled around that I had to be in the field and do what I could, or what they could make me do. One day father was gone and Randolph Edmonds was running an old-f ashioned cultivator. It was made in the shape of a harrow, and the teeth were little shovels about the size of a mans hand. After the corn was ploughed over they would run across the ridge or plough the other way with the cultivator. So Dolph ran the cultivator and George and I uncovered the corn after him. Dolph found a silver fifty-cent piece, which was quite a curiosity to us boys, as paper money was all the go then; at least silver was scarce. He gave the fifty-cent piece to my brother, who was very proud of it. A boy named Joe Griffin had passed by going to our house for milk, so brother wanted him to know he had the money and watched the road for the boy to pass back. He came along, my brother hailed him, and told him be would bet him fifty cents he could whip him. The boy told him he didnt have time to fight. My brother called him a coward and said he would give him fifty cents to whip him. He got over the fence and into the road before the boy, so he could not go on, and the boy concluded he had just as well fight. So they fell on a hillside with Joe Griffin on top of brother. I showed unfair play and turned him over with brother on top; but Joe turned him again and over and over they went down the hill till they rolled against the fence with Joe on top. So Joe gave him a good pounding, and after George said enough Joe got off.
George would not pay the money. Dolph had witnessed the fight and said, “George, be a man and give up the money;” but he would not do it. Joe had a stepmother, who was very cross to him, and she was calling him, as he had staid over his time. He knew it was a whipping for him. He picked up his milk and went on crying. When father came home Dolph gave him the case just as it was. Father gave George a whipping for not giving the boy the money as he had agreed to do, and sent him to take the money to Joe, and sent me along to see that he did so. So before we arrived at the house George said to me, “I do hate to give him this money; I am going to give it to Mrs. Griffin, and you tell father I gave it to Joe.” I tried to persuade him to do as father had told him, but he said no, and made me promise to tell a lie for him. So we got to the house and there was Joe carrying water. He did not have on any pants. His stepmother had given him a severe whipping for staying so long when he went after milk. George gave the fifty cents to Mrs. Griffin and told her there was some money. We went back home. Father asked the particulars, what Joe was doing, and if the money was given to him. We both told him it was. In a few days the old lady fell in company with my aunt and she told aunt what good coffee she got with the money George gave her. Father called me and I acknowledged we lied, and we were whipped; but it seemed to kindle the anger in Georges heart, and in place of getting better he grew worse, and we soon came to the conclusion that we were forsaken and had no friends and had as well see our fun.
Now hard times come. We have informed you that father was a widower. There were plenty of widows, and father was very popular with them; but it happened they were all poor and had to work for a living, and father would give them all work. I thought there were some of them that would like to be called Mrs. Brown. There was Mrs. C., Mrs. M., and Mrs. A., and there came a time when a feeling arose and aunt got disgusted. Mrs. A. and Mrs. H. were carrying knives for each other, and father had trouble giving them work in different fields, but Mrs. A. gained the day. She soon began to take cows to milk and the cows never came back any more. Aunt would talk before us boys. Mrs. H. would tell us how Mrs. A. ought to be killed. Finally provisions began to go and we had very common food to eat. We had biscuit on Sunday morning, or when some one came on a visit. Soon the time came that father and aunt did not get along well. Father would just raise a small crop of wheat for bread and take it to Wilsons mill to get it ground up; then he would secretly take it to Mr. James Dossets and store it away. When he would go to roll logs or plant corn and have hands, he would go or send and get a little flour, and would always have it weighed. I was sent one time and he told me to tell Mrs. Dosset to weigh me twenty-five pounds. She said she would not do it, that Mrs. A. got her flour there and did not weigh it; so she gave me what I could carry in a pillow-case. I told father before aunt, so that let out the secret and made more trouble.
Mrs. A. was very good to me. Father would send me on errands there and she would come to our house. She would buy me a knife when I would go with her to get her pension, and would give me some good things to eat. By these kind acts she won my love. Mrs. C. and Mrs. H. also treated me well, and Mrs. M. thought I was a great boy. That is the way they would cast lots for my love, and I guess wanted to show to father what a good stepmother they would make. But George was older than I and would see farther than I could, and he thought that our trouble was caused by the widows, while I knew some of them were innocent. Mrs. C., who yet lives, was a mother to me, and feels near yet. The rest are gone. I will show you on farther who were my enemies.
CHAPTER 3
AT SCHOOL.
Now I will give you a sketch of my school-days and a description of the house in which I got my education. It was a log house about eighteen by twenty with a stone chimney in one end, a door in one side, a window extending along two-thirds of the other side, and a long plank put up under the window on pins. This plank was our writing-desk. The seat was a half of a log with the flat side up, and as our feet did not reach the floor we could stick our toes in the cracks of the house. The name of the schoolhouse was Tyer and was on my fathers farm. My first recollection is that Mr. John Tyer was the first teacher that taught there. I think he is living at Cave in Rock, Illinois. Black was the name of my first teacher. He would lie down and go to sleep and we would go out and play. My brother George was influenced by Mrs.
L. to fill his whiskers with cockle-burs, which he did, and got a whipping, but I think the teacher staid awake better.
We had another teacher who carried an old-time navy pistol. George was persuaded to kill him when he went to whip him. George got an old butcher-knife. The wood was gone from the handle, and he made me turn the grindstone and ground it sharp. He got a strap to put around him for a belt and stuck the old knife down in the belt under his coat. He made a confidant of a boy; showed him his knife and told him his plans. When school was taken up this confidant took a seat by George and pretty soon got into a racket with him and managed to get the knife to fall; then we were in another scrape, which wound up in losing the knife and getting a severe whipping. There were a good many scenes similar to this.
Brother George and I were the pick until Porn Holloway came in from Indiana. They turned on him; I was as bad as the rest. Tom and I had some trouble one day and I offered to go out to a big sink-hole and go down into the hole to fight Tom with clubs and give him the first lick. He said he would go with me by myself and do that. We cut our clubs and went. He drew back to hit me, and as I looked into his eye I saw murder. I thought it was the best place to kill a person I ever saw and he had the best chance to kill ever I had met with. I said, “Hold on there; talk this over, I have nothing against you; let us not fight.” He said all right, he was willing to quit if I would let him alone, and I assured him I never would bother him again. We went back to the house good friends and have been from that day to this so far as I know, and the other boys let up on him, too; however, he would get into trouble the same as the rest of us.
We had a teacher that taught us how to play sleight of hand tricks, such as run a wire as long as our finger up our nose and put another in our hair in the back of our heads and make people think we put the wire through our heads. Tom Holloway was practicing with his slate pencil in time of school, as well as myself, to see how long a pencil we could run up our nose. Tom went to sneeze and sucked his pencil up his nose. He bounced around like a chicken with its head cut off and grabbed at his nose. As he stuttered he could not tell what was the matter. The teacher being a sort of doctor as well as showman ran to his assistance, but did not know how to diagnose his case. Tom succeeded in pulling the pencil out of his nose. The teacher had trouble in trying to make us quit playing the tricks he had taught us. One day after he had whipped several of us, he said he would whip anybody that laughed at the one that got a whipping. We commenced and kept him busy whipping until time to dismiss school. He had no recitations for a half day. After school we filed up in line along the road and informed him if he showed up next morning, we would cut the ice and put him in the pond. He did not show up any more to that schoolhouse to my knowledge.
We had another teacher by the name of Clay Mot. I thought I would try him. We had a good many blue and red thumb cards, and as we were all around the fire one morning, I commenced and painted my face, and then looked over my book and made faces, which caused the scholars to laugh. The teacher called me out and gave me water to wash my face and his handkerchief to dry it and then he gave me a whipping. By the time he was through with me one of the other boys had painted his face and the teacher settled with him the same as he did with me. We kept this up for quite a while, until he commenced to burn the cards. The larger boys took sides with us and he was barred out of the schoolhouse. The teacher went and brought his father with him, who made his way through with an ax. He then guarded the door until his son whipped every one. The school was closed with a lawsuit.
Now, reader, I do not want to worry you with my school-days, but I think it will be interesting to some who have not gone to a backwoods country school. I shall not give you all my experience in school life. While it was short it was wonderful. I quit school in my thirteenth year. I got too smart to go, or did not have sense enough; however, some of my schoolmates have made teachers, lawyers, doctors, some murderers and some infidels. I am the only preacher I know of in the whole outfit. I was not the only mean boy that went to school.
One day we decided to tear down the chimney, and, like anarchists, we put it on Marcellus Tyer. He made an excuse to go out after school had taken up. I could hear him prying around. Finally the chimney began to tumble and made quite a noise. Teacher and scholars ran out, but Cell had his rail fastened and failed to get it away, as we had planned. He ran some distance but was caught. Just a part of the chimney fell, but it was so near down that it had to be thrown down. I feel safe in saying that there was more hair pulled, blood shed, and whipping done in the short time I went to school than has been in the past twenty years at school. I will close my school-days, not that I have given half, but there are other points I want to put before you. Now I will say when I quit school I could not write my name, but it was not all my fault. I just wanted to give you a brief sketch of my boyhood days now and then.
CHAPTER 4
APPROACHING MANHOOD.
As I have told you, my mother was dead and my father was a cruel father. My cousin Sue said she thought he would lose his mind when he got mad. But what was strange to her, her mother and other good people did not take our part and put the law in force against him, but would tell him everything that was calculated to make him whip us. I have scars on me that were put there for lies that were told on me.
One time my father went off and left brother George and I to pick up corn in the field, which the horses had pulled off, and we were to carry it up to the hog-pen near E. C. Wingates and feed the hogs and carry two baskets to the barn to feed the horses. The first load we carried to the hogs. George proposed we would go in swimming. I said, No, father will whip us.” “Well,” he said, “we will get whipped anyway,” which I will say was about true. So into the pond he went. I staid out and tried to get him to come out and go to work. Finally my alarm reached the Wingate family. I saw Emma Wingate and her sister Mary coming. I told my brother. He came out and ran into the woods and hid behind a tree. They took his clothes and ran to the house. George started after them and Mr. Boyd and Mr. Wingate brought the clothes out and told him they would tell father. We were sitting on the hog-pen talking about the trouble that was just ahead. George jumped on a hog and it ran into the pond. He never stopped until he had rode eighteen head. He lost his hat and had his clothes on. I never was in the pond, but we staid there till dark, then started out into the field to do our half days work by: moonlight. We heard fathers voice and Emma Boyd with him. Emma had watched and stopped him as he passed her fathers and we heard her tell we were both riding the hogs with our clothes on. We carried our baskets to the pen and emptied them and were filling them to take to the barn. We heard father calling us. We went and he met us with a handful of hickories. George was in front. Father asked him where his hat was. He told him he lost it in the pond. He said he fell in trying to get his hat. Father then applied the hickories, which had several branches similar to a cat-o-nine-tails. I tell you that the blood ran when he got through with him Then he came after me. I told him I was not in the pond. He said I was telling him a lie. George said I was not in the pond, but he would not believe us. He had a fair chance at my body, which he cruelly cut in gashes for five minutes. Then he turned on George again and I stood and trembled until he came at me again and said, “Were you in the pond?” I said, “No, sir, I was not.” He gave me another round, and then my brother another, and then to me again. I said, “Father, please take your knife and cut my throat and do not punish me any longer trying to make me tell a lie.” He called me an impudent villain and gave me another round. We then went to the house and to bed without any supper. When we awoke next morning father was up and had his hickories ready. He informed us he was going to whip us every morning until we acknowledged I was in the pond. He kept his promise till one morning we arose while he was asleep and thought he would forget it that morning. He took us and started to work, as we thought, but he had not forgotten his promise. He took down some switches that he had hid and commenced. Aunt had had a private talk with us and asked if I was in the pond. We both told her I was not and told her how it was. So she went over to Mr. Wingates and told Mrs. W. that father was about to beat us to death trying to make us acknowledge I was in the pond, that her daughter Emma told him I was. She said I was not, and to tell father it was Emmas lie. But father thought it was aunt trying to clear us; so the whipping went on morning and night for a week. He was whipping us one morning in the orchard and aunt was on her knees under an apple tree about thirty yards away praying, when I heard Mrs. Wingate saying, “Anderson Brown, you old devil, I will prosecute you. Willis was not in the pond, and I am going to have you indicted for the way you have been whipping those boys.” He told us to put on our clothes and go to work, and he went, and we had a few days rest.
Now, reader, I expect you think this is exaggeration, but my aunt and Sue Bonard live at or near Rockcreek, illinois. I do not write this in any disrespect to my father, or any one else, but to show people what mistakes have been made in life and to warn parents not to whip their children for what everybody says. I did love my father, although this statement is true. When my brother would plan to run away to get out of punishment I would not go and would beg him out of the notion.
We had some bad companions, and they had a little of what we hail much of. Bill Lyons and my brother and I used to get together and lay our plans and then start to business. One day we killed twenty-one goslings for Mrs. Wingate and put them in a hollow tree. Another time we caught Wingates cow in Edwards field and tied her tail to a grapevine and tormented her till we got tired and then left her tied in the thicket. Father and Mr. Edwards came to see why we did not come to dinner and we all received a good whipping. The other boy ran away, but George and I stood it a few years longer.
George and I were quite fond of riding, and we would plan through the week for a ride on Sunday. Father was sick and the doctor said he had a close call for eternity. Sunday morning we had our feeding done by the time breakfast was ready. After we ate we were watching for a chance to get off. Father was very low, but he ordered us to get our books and study them and not leave the place. I sat in one door and George in the other, and when father went to sleep we put our books down and away we went and spent some time riding a calf. Two of our cousins were sent after us and told us there were a number of people there looking for father to die. When we got to the house father called George back to the bed and slapped his jaws, then said for me to come. He slapped me and sent us to feed the horses. We thought there was not much danger of him dying, as he slapped us about as hard as be ever did. This is true, and more, but I will not worry you. I could give enough of such scrapes as these to make a large book, but I will hasten on to where I rebelled against my punishment and left home.
It was fathers plan to get us one pair of boots a year, and in order that they should last through the winter he would not let us put them on till Christmas. We would wear any old shoes we could get till Christmas. One winter my toes were out on the ground and a big snow fell, and I begged father to let me put on my boots. He said I would fall down. I told him if I did I would pull them off. He let me put them on, but my feet were frost-bitten and I fell down. When I came in father asked me if I fell down. As I did not want to pull the boots off I told him a story. He went out and found the place where I fell. Then came more trouble as well as frozen feet. So you see how I was driven to tell a story. Parents, be careful how you teach your children.
We had a new suit of jeans once a year. We commenced to complain about our dress as we began to go in company, and our clothes were of such a style we were made fun of. I will give you a description of our clothes. Our pants were brown or blue jeans and made large enough for a man, with one pocket. Our suspenders were knit of white yarn, and shirts were homemade linsey in winter, and for summer coarse factory shirts. Never more than two at a time. Our coats were jeans, but they were made nice, They were always a good fit and the only nice clothing we had to wear.
One time my father sent me to the barn after some seed-corn. I was longer than father thought I ought to be. As I came back I saw he had a locust sprout in his hand about three feet long with thorns on it. I began to beg more than common, but he whipped me. Reader, I can not explain the feeling, and I fear you will doubt the statement, but I refer you to my aunt. That night when I pulled my clothing loose from the sores and went to bed with my father, I cried. My aunt came and asked the trouble. I told her and she took me out and put me in her bed.
Now the time fully came when we rebelled against our father. He offered to let us clear a piece of ground and said he would furnish the potatoes and give us all the potatoes we would raise on the ground. When we hauled our potatoes off, I found George had given a lien on them to the merchant and it took his half and $7.00 of mine to pay his store bill. I only had $30.00 for my winter and summer work. Father took me to town with him and I bought my first suit of clothes and one gallon of whisky. I had contracted the habit of drinking by stealing fathers whisky. Father tried to stop me, but I rebelled. George left home. I soon got unruly and father undertook to whip me and I fought him and he ordered me to leave. I left and he advertised us and forbade any person letting us come in their house. We went back home and father told us he would give us half the money we would make cutting and hauling cord-wood. He did not let us have the money. He said the wood was his and we were his too. This made some more trouble, and George left again. I did not leave for two reasons: first, I loved my father, and he was getting old and I wanted to help him make a living, and second, I did not know where to go. Father had advertised me and people were afraid to keep me. I worked ahead all summer and as soon as the crops were laid by we had trouble and I decided to leave. A great deal of the trouble was caused by the widow A. George and I had forbidden her coming on the place.
I went to Mr. Dossets. He and father had been the best of friends. Mr. Dosset had lost his first wife and had married a young wife. They lived on a farm adjoining my fathers. I told Mr. Dosset that father had driven me off. He took me in his arms and said he would keep me. His wife also welcomed me, and they got me some new clothes and fixed me up, and I was seeing the best times of my life; plenty to eat and a line horse to ride, and I was the only pet they had except a pup and a cat, and I was petted the most. But one day Bill Lyon and John S. came along riding some fine horses and told what a good time they had been having and said they had been sent down to hire hands and would give $18.00 a month. So Tom Leeper and I agreed to go. I went and told Mr. and Mrs. Dosset. They begged me not to go, but I went. When we reached the place it was not what I expected. We staid two nights and left for home. We came to Mr. Wingates. They lived a quarter of a mile from Mr. Dossets. They did not seem very glad to see us. We had not had any dinner and walked all day and had no supper. I tell you it was the saddest time in my life. I could hear my father and Mr. Dosset call the stock and hogs. I knew they had plenty and to spare. Their stock, and even the pup and cat, fared better than I did. I was afraid to go to either place. I did not sleep much and decided in the morning to go to Mr. Dossets, but I was afraid. I started and went part way and stood behind a tree for about thirty minutes, hoping Mr. Dosset would go to the barn for I wanted to meet Mrs. Dosset first. I started to the house, thinking what I would say, and afraid they would drive me off. I saw him look over his specks as I was in twenty steps of him. He said, “O Elizabeth! come here.” I came near falling. The next word was the life-giving word—”Here is our boy.” She came in a run and threw her arms around me and kissed me. He dropped his paper and held out his hands with tear sin his eyes and said, “Bring him here.” I was crying and could not speak. He took me on his lap and hugged and kissed me and said, “Bless my boy!” He was a very wicked man and she was a wicked woman. I had known him all my life and never had seen or heard of him being so stirred as when they learned that I staid so near them all night and had not eaten a bite in twenty-four hours and had not had a square meal since I left them and had walked all the way. They wept and said if they had known I was there they would have come after me. My breakfast was soon ready. They could not stay away from me or keep their hands off of me. It was a feast that I never had met. I had my old position as chief pet of the family; first the old folks, I came next, then the pup and cat.
Soon the time came to dig potatoes. My brother and I were digging for another man. After we were through there we came by fathers and learned that he was not at home. Father returned with Mrs. A. and her daughters and he informed us that Mrs. A. was now Mrs. Brown. George went wild over it and said he would kill her. I went over to Mr. Dossets and got a team and moved my aunt and her things. My stepmothers son and some of her relatives were there, so they tried to get George to say he would not kill her, but it made him the more determined. They went after an officer, but he did not come just then.
I staid at Mr. Dossets till spring and he paid me for the work I did. With my potato crop and the money Mr. Dosset paid me I was enabled to dress pretty well and have some spending money. I went to drinking and playing cards and going to frolicks. Finally a young fellow came and informed me of a widow he was going to see and her daughter thought something of me and I could go there with him. So I went and found a hearty welcome. We kept going there two or three nights out of the week for about three weeks, then my friend informed me if I would furnish the money he would go up the river and get me a position where we could make money and we would all move up there. It was a general agreement. I told Mr. Dosset I wanted my money. He could see farther than I could. He settled up with me and gave me good advice, but I was too smart to hear him. I went on and began to make arrangements for the move. The first thing I knew I had no place to stay, no money, and no friends, except the widow, her daughter and my chum, and be was just like me. I would go with him to his stepfathers for breakfast. I saw what my condition was going to be, so I went to choring for my chums stepfather. He was a great worker and gave me to understand he did not approve of his stepson coming there, so I staid with him. He and I worked as much as the weather would permit. He was a very early riser. He had a man to come to do a piece of work and he came before daylight.
I was sent in the kitchen to build a fire. I heard the man ask who I was, and some one said, “That is Willis Brown, he is loafing with B.” “I am going to put him to making rails to-day, he cant loaf around me.” The man sanctioned it. After breakfast he told me to go to making rails. I said, “No, I will leave here, I will not bother you any more.”
Now I was in more trouble. I hated to go back to Mr. Dossets, my clothes were all badly worn. I went in that direction, and as I came to where the roads forked, one went to my aunts, one to Mr. Dossets, and the other to my fathers. I didnt know which one to take, so I started to aunts, and soon met father in a wagon. He said he had been to aunts and informed me she was out of wood and if I would go home with him be would let me have the team to haul her some wood and go with me. I got in the wagon and it appeared to me father felt nearer to me than he ever did; but there was a dread about meeting my stepmother, but soon we arrived at fathers house and was a welcome visitor. They were all as kind as they could be, and my stepmother got a chance and told me she wanted me to stay at home, that father seemed to care a heap for me. Well I felt more at home than I had for a long time. I was given more privileges, went where I pleased and had free access to use the horses. I would ride them to dances, something father never did allow before. Soon father made me an offer to raise a crop, which I accepted and went to work, but kept going to see my girl, and would bring my chum home with me. It was not long until I cut my foot, cut a joint and it got bad. There was an old woman in the country that was a pretty good doctor. She came to see me and agreed to cure my foot in a certain time for $5.00 and would board me. My foot was getting along nicely till her son and I got into trouble and the old lady told me it was set back a week, but it soon got well.
The officers came and notified my father and stepmother that George was under arrest. Father and my stepmother were going down there. I told her that I had not had anything to do with her and Georges trouble, but if she went I would. She didnt go. I went and George was released, but that created enmity in her against me, and we began to have trouble. One day at dinner I took very sick. My cousin Bill Radcliffe, whom father had hired, said I was poisoned. The trouble grew worse, and on the Fourth of July my cousin and I went to a barbecue against my fathers will. On the way I took another sick spell, worse than the first. When I started my stepsister followed me out on the porch and looked very sad. She was a good girl. I came near dying. They had several doctors with me that day and took me back to Mr. Dossets that evening, where I learned my stepsister was very sick and had died. I went back when I got well and finished the crop except plowing a few potatoes. When I hauled off a few apples and sold them my stepmother raised a fuss that caused me to leave. I went to Mr. Dossets. I then went to see what father would give me for my crop. He said the crop was his and we got into trouble. I called George, and father agreed to give me much for my crop and I was to pay him for my board, which left me $20.00. I went to having a good time, as I called it, drinking and frolicking. I had forgotten about my doctor bill. I was aiming to take my girl to a pay-ball and passed the doctor. She called on me for her money and it took all I had. I borrowed money from the doctors son to take my girl to the ball.
I was staying at Mr. Atkins and had all the whisky I wanted and did some work for him, but did not get any money. One day Mr. Long shot several times at Mr. Stubs. Long married my cousin. He came by Mr. Atkins as he went up to the house to get more whisky and cartridges and asked me to go with him. I went with him, and he gave me a pistol and told me to shoot Stubs on sight. I tried to beg off, but he threatened to shoot me if I didnt go. We met him and Mr. Long had me to go on one side of the house and he went on the other. I motioned to Stubs and gave him to understand I would not hurt him, and he came by me and got in his house. This made Long mad at me and he demanded the pistol. Long was captured in a few minutes and I would have been if it had not been for some friends.
Father came to town soon and asked me to go out and tend to his stock as he was not able and had no one to attend to them. I went, and it was not long till father made me another offer to raise a crop. He would furnish me land and team and told me if I would marry a certain girl he would deed me a piece of land and give me a span of horses and wagon and fit me up for keeping house. I spoke to the girl and she was willing. She was older than I, but a good worker, and that was what father liked. I decided to marry and settle down. Father and my stepmother said it was the best thing I could do.
CHAPTER 5
DOWNWARD STEPS.
I KEPT up my drinking and had plenty of associates. There was one Bill L. We ran together and got into many scrapes. One time we had been on a spree that had lasted one day and two nights, and we went through great exposure in the snow. It was in March, and I came home between midnight and day on Monday morning. I woke up next morning with hot fever and headache. Father said I had the measles. He made me a hot stew and I broke out thick. I had the measles when I was small, but this was a true case of measles. As soon as I could ride my chum came after me for me to go with him to a working. We went, but I was not able to work. Late after dinner we went to get some whisky and came back pretty full. One of the managers took my chum around the house to tell him I had not worked and I could not dance. I followed them. Bill said, “Here he is, tell him.” I said, “What is it?” The manager told me in a boisterous way and I pulled the hammer of my revolver back as I drew it from my pocket. He ran and said I could dance. We soon were engaged. The girl I expected to marry was there. The dance went on all right, but after while I was persuaded to go into a side room to engage in a set. This was done to get me away from my chum. It was not long till I was tripped up and knocked through a quilt that hung over the outside door. When I got straight I discovered by moonlight my clothes were cut pretty bad. Next an old woman appeared before me with a big rock drawn and informed me I tried to shoot her son. The racket went pretty high. My girl would fight, too, and she soon called the old lady down. The fuss was stopped by an officer that was there. Bill and I were furnishing the officer whisky so he would keep still on us. We gave another fellow all the whisky he wanted and promised him a ride behind Bill if he would feed our horses out of a fodder shock and corn-crib close by. We would tell him it was feed time and he would feed. When we went to start just before daylight our horses were standing in the fodder and corn up to their knees. This was a common affair every week.
Court came on and Mr. M. D., who had sold me whisky, came to get me to run off. While we were parleying about the price we saw the officer coming after me. He said to me, “Run!” I said, “Will you give it?” He said, “Go! I will pay it.” I ran through the house, grabbed my hat and, as I thought, my coat. As I jumped the backyard fence I found my coat proved to be my stepmothers old black bonnet. The officer jumped off his horse and ran me a quarter of a mile through a field. He would say, “Stop, or I will shoot.” I would say, “Shoot.” He would say, “Run, you d—L” I would say, “I am running.” I struck the woods and the officer ran back. I went upon the hillside in the woods where I could see the house. I saw Mr. D. come around the farm and the officer, Mr. Jentry, get on his horse and leave. Mr. D. came to me and told me to go in the woods back of his field and he would meet me there. He agreed to keep me hid there and pay me so much. We went to dinner and there was an old woman there. Then he decided to give me $2.50, and if they didnt get me before the grand jury he would give me $5.00 more. So I went back of fathers field, where a man was making rails, and sent him to the house to get me a quilt, piece of bacon and some bread, and I scouted until Friday night. I knew father was tending court, and that he came home every night and sent a man who was working for him to feed a sow and some pigs that were at the back of the field. So I went to the hogs bed to wait for Wesley to come. But the hog had moved and I did not know whether he would come or not. It got pretty dusky and I heard Wes start his song; he was coming. I thought how afraid he was and what a good plan it was to scare a fellow. I crawled into the hogs bed and he came up pretty close. He said, “Pig,” and I groaned He said, “Piggie,” I groaned and shook the bushes. He threw the corn down and said, “Pig.” I ran out on all fours, making a fuss, and Wes ran hollowing, “Pig.” I took after him. He jumped the little cedars for seventy-five yards. When he came to the old rail fence on the hillside he struck it, ran through and knocked down about three pannels. I saw I was left and commenced to call him by name. He ran to the foot of the hill, one hundred yards, before he could stop. He said, “Is that Willis?” I said yes He said, “dont you tell your pap, and we will fix the fence.” He told me the grand jury had broke. We went to the house and I went to see Mr. D. that night to get my $5.00. He said they found a bill against him anyhow, but he soon decided to pay me.
It was not long till several of us got drunk and went to church. The boys asked me to lead in prayer. I did so, and my chum grabbed me by the arm and ran out of the house with me, struck my head against the door and knocked me senseless and drug me into the woods. The officer ran out after us, and when I came to myself he was trying to get me to eat parched coffee to sober me up. The people thought he was hunting me to arrest me. I had to leave the country. My friend Hughes was farming in an adjoining country. Brother George was working for him and he came next day to hire hands for Hughes. Bill and I went. It was in the bottoms four miles from Shawneetown, illinois. We learned something we never before knew. We must feed, curry and gear our team by lantern light and be in the field by sunrise and not stop until dinner; just an hour for dinner and then go until night. Bill quit, and Mr. Hughes made me an offer of $18.00 per month and horse to ride. I decided to stay. He let me have a horse to go and see my intended wife. She was still waiting for me. I bought her wedding-dress and went back to Mr. Hughes. It was but a few nights until he shot some horses that were bothering in the yard. My brother and I saw him shoot and we were wanted before the court. We left and came over to Mr. Lamberts to get our money. He hired us on trial for a week. The day the week was out, on Saturday, Mr. Lambert went away and left all of us a task. I finished my task and went to see how my brother and his partner were getting along. They were not done and were sitting down. I told my brother we would get turned off. He said he didnt care. We finished the job and came to the garden to handweed it, which was their job. Mrs. Lambert sat on the porch. The gnats were very bad in the garden and George hollowed and told her if she did not come and get her gnats he would hurt some of them. I knew that settled it. I laid awake that night waiting for Mr. Lambert to come home. He came, and I heard Mrs. Lambert tell her husband what George said and how I had done my work and then helped George and his partner do theirs. He said he would let him go in the morning, but would like to keep me. Morning came, and Mr. Lambert notified us he was done with us, but would have to go to his nephews to get change to pay us, if we did not have change for his bill. We did not, for we squandered our money as fast as we got it. Mr. Lambert was at the barn catching his horse. His daughter and his niece (the latter is my wife) were sweeping a porch in front of the house. My brother was singing and swinging the girls. I was trying to get him to quit. Mr. Lambert called me and told me he liked me and would give me a piece of advice, that was, not follow my brother any farther. He said, “Mr. Hughes wants you to come back, and said he would still give you what he offered you.” I told him I would not work for Mr. Hughes. He said, “I will give you the same, but I do not want that George.” I told him father was old and needed me to take care of him. I would go home and if father had got the trouble fixed which I had got into I would stay with father; if not I would come back. Father had it fixed and I bought a man out who was making a potato crop on fathers place, as it was just potato planting time and was so wet the man had lost faith in the crop. This was 1875.
My father got very sick and wanted to see George. I went and hunted him up. He was making a crop with my first chum that was going to see the widow. They had married and gone to farming. My girl was not married yet, and I would go with her once in a while, though I was engaged to Miss C. W. I found George and brought him home. He and my stepmother made up, which was a great help to father. In a day or so father made George an offer to come home and work and help me fix up the farm. I went with George over to my chums, whom I loved almost as well as I did my brother. They fell out and had a fight. My brother George cut him all to pieces. It was the worst sight I ever saw, for I loved them both. We went home and informed father what had happened. He called me to the bed and had ma to tell him the particulars. He told George not to leave, if that was the straight of it. So he staid. Next morning the officers came after him. This was the second man he had cut up, but he got off clear.
We both staid with father that winter. I didnt have a good chance to see my first girl, as my chum had fallen out with me. I was not mad at him and love him until this day, but he does not seem to have any love for me.
Well, by this time I was getting to be a popular fellow with the girls, but still aimed to marry Miss C. About the 1st of February,1876, Mrs. Cochran, who had moved to Arkansas some years before, came back. She went off with a large family and came back with a little four-year-old grandson. She had her stock and wagons within two days drive of our house and came on and rented a farm and had father let me take a team and go with her for her things. We were gone three days. When we got back I found father very low and he had lost his mind. They told me he had called for me continually since he got bad. I asked the doctor about his condition. The doctor said he would get up. Mrs. L. came in and said father would die before morning and she could draw the fever from his head so he could tell what he wanted to tell. She put mustard drafts on his ankles and wrists. By 10 o clock he was in his right mind, called for me, tried to tell about money he had buried, but was too weak to make me understand. He got to raving, so aunt told him we understood him. He had made me agree to take care of my stepmother and my half-brother, and for me to wind up his business. He died at 12 oclock the 12th of February, 1876.
My stepmother, some time after father was laid out, called me to help her look for his pocketbook, She opened a box that had a lock on it and I soon saw the pocketbook. She tumbled things around; at last she said, “Here it is.” She said, “I knew it was in here, but I do not know what is in it.” We opened the pocketbook, and there was $40.00. He had made a sale and sold off several hundred dollars worth of stock and the notes were due and father had been collecting them. I told her there was more than that on the place. She said she would look and if she found any more she would give it to me. I went and got his coffin and burying clothes, and came home. Her son had come and put mischief in her head. She told me to give her the pocketbook, she had found some more money. I handed her the pocketbook and asked her how much she had found. She said ten cents, and put the pocketbook in her pocket and walked off. When we came home from the grave she denied what she had promised father and wanted to administer the estate herself. George, my brother, and she had more trouble. My brother-in-law said if she was willing he would be administrator. I insisted she would choose him for he was a good man and sheriff of the county (G. W. Jackson), and she finally chose him.
We got into trouble. When it was found out that George and I could prove that father gave us the horses it was agreed that I could buy my horse and no one bid against me. I drew the suit the day of the sale and a Mr. Alex Fraser, a brother mason, bid against me for the horse that father gave me and made me pay $114.90 for the horse, I then bought other things that run my note to $165.00. I filled a note with the understanding that it was to come out of my part of the estate. The time came for the estate to be settled. Suit was brought against me, however, and I never got anything out of the estate. I had been told by Mrs. J. P. that my brother-in-law was going to fail and our land would be sold to pay a security debt that father stood good for, and was advised to sell my land, which I did; I paid $65.00 on the note and never would pay the rest.
Now I have told you how my stepmother denied the promise she made my father on his death-bed concerning my taking charge of his property and paying off the security debt that was against his estate. My brother George and my stepmother disagreed on all points and brother sued for division of the land, and it was granted by the court. I was there at that time riding as bailiff under the sheriff in Hardin County, Illinois, who was my brother-in-law, Mr. Jackson. I found out who the commissioners were to divide the land. I talked with James Mason, one of the parties, and told him how I wished the land divided and my request was granted. I was only nineteen years old, but the judge after questioning me gave me the privilege of taking charge of my land and cultivating it. As I had no guardian I had to leave my old home for good. I had no right to the old house, so I went to Mr. J. H. Possets to board and cultivate my own land. I made a part of a crop, the best I could, and keep up my sparking and drinking, as I had several girls to go to see, and my old girl, the one which I intended to marry, married another man. I did not grieve, as I had become acquainted with a good many others.
Now there is a part of my life right here I shall not give, as I can not without exposing others that I trust are living a better life now; however, my chum at this time was R. R. Lacky, who yet lives near Cave in Rock, Illinois, near the old schoolhouse where we kept our office and would meet on Sundays and idle times to write to our girls. He had the writing to do, for I could not write my name then. I will say we did keep company with some nice girls, but if they preferred to remain nice they did not keep company with us long, and very few that caught a lisp of our poisonous tongues ever escaped with their virtue and honor.
O girls, be careful! it is not the fellow that dresses the nicest and talks the slickest that is your friend. He will sow your path with presents and candies and accommodations for not only months, but for years, to catch you, and some time just after dancing all night, or some other engagement that has caused you to be handled in a careless way, the serpent will capture his victim.
I was warning a married lady friend once against a man that I knew was poison. Her husband was away a great deal and she was left at this mans opportunities. She was a good woman, but young, and I respected her too much as well as her husband to offer her an insult, and really felt interested in her welfare. As I told her of her danger she said to me, that she learned when she was a single girl not to let a man put his hands on her. She said she noticed that when a girl gave a man that privilege he next would get his arms around her, and then he had her at his will. I knew this was true. Keep your distance, girls. I have seen girls who seemed very shy in the beginning of a ball, and before day they did not think you showed respect if you did not catch them in your arms as you would swing them on the corner, and they would soon learn to hug by note. Girls, do not go to the ball. First to the ballroom, then to the ale-house, then to disgrace, then on to hell!
CHAPTER 6
DRUNKENNESS AND INFIDELITY.
THE time came that I was twenty-one years of age. I sold my land to Jerry Simmons. He held back $50.00 to secure the deed until the estate was settled up, and he holds it yet. The man that was a witness forgot all about it and the other witness died. I freely forgive all. If I had received it then it would have gone like the rest. If I had it now I would spend it to Gods glory. While my money lasted I was one of the foremost young men in the country. There could not be a picnic or dance without me, and if the money was hard to raise I would pay the bill. I bought fine dresses and shoes and used them to buy girls characters, bring disgrace on homes, and start souls to hell, and poor deluded mothers would encourage it, because they thought it was so nice for their daughters to get a present. Wake up, mothers! it would be better for your daughters to wear cotton dresses and live in honor than to dress in silk and die in disgrace. You had better watch that fellow who makes himself so familiar and helps wash the dishes and milk the cow and is so handy about going with the girls in the evening to do the chores. The old mother sits and smokes her pipe, glad there is some one to help daughter do her chores, and tells the old man how funny John is, and how he seems to like home folks. That scamp is right then hugging your daughter to a finish, poisoning her mind as the serpent did old Mother Eve. So you old folks will soon wake up to the fact that you have for a little fun and a few chores sold the character and happiness of a loving daughter and placed a crape on your door that will hang there as long as you or the family live. You may think this out of place, but I know what I am talking about and could give many an instance, but this is plain enough for any reasonable thinker. I never had a confidential talk with a poor fallen woman in a house of prostitution but what her fall had come about by having her confidence betrayed by one she thought was a friend.
As I have said, I had many girls I kept company with. I still kept company with the first one I ever went with. Now there was a girl visiting in our country, whose form and friendliness as well as lady-like ways had won my affections, and I learned that her father was a big land owner in Tennessee. I began to try to get her to notice me, and it was not long until she did, as she attended dances, and we became very familiar. I proposed marrying and she agreed to marry me after she went home and told her father. I was afraid of this plan, but she said if she didnt her father would disinherit her.
The people she was visiting were well acquainted with me and my ways of doing business, but they did not think I would marry the girl or intended to; but they were mistaken, for she had won my heart. She went home and told her arrangements. Her father was notified what kind of a fellow I was and he objected. I had about run through with all my money and was a terrible drunkard and got to be very daring.
I was at Cave in Rock and a steamboat by the name of James W. Gafe landed there. There was a bar on her and several of my chums and I went on board. As the boat had a good deal of freight to load, we began to shake dice for the drinks, and I got very drunk. The time came that we must go ashore, and as I walked out the gangplank a negro deck-hand nearly shoved me off the plank. I walked to the end of the plank, drew my pistol, and would not let them untie the boat. The captain asked my friends to take me away. After a while some one caught around me, others took my revolver, and the boat was loosed and left, while I charged and was held by my friends. I was very drunk and mad. They thought they would get me out of town; so they put me on my horse and put a boy by the name of Aaron Pell up behind me to take me home. We were passing in front of E. M. Pleasants store, saw it was crowded with people and I thought it would be nice to see them go over the counter. I turned my horse to the door and hollowed: “Look out, the J. W. Gafe is coming.” I put spurs to the horse; he charged into the building, and Pell fell off at the door. I went in. The people, men and women, went over behind the counter. Pleasant drew a double-barreled shotgun on me, but I paid no attention. I rode around the middle counter, came up on the confectionary side and called for some candy, which was quickly handed out. James Carr, an officer, who lives at Cave in Rock yet, led my horse out, he and my brother-in-law, W. C. Moore. I asked them if I was under arrest. Carr said yes. I dismounted, and as I had no revolver I went to throw my coat to fight them, and fell flat on my back. I got my knife out in the tussle, but they did not want to hurt me. I climbed up and got my horse. They put Pell behind me again and he caught around me and got my bridle and started home with me. I went a little piece and made Pell get down. I went to turn my horse, reeled over, and my spur struck the horse, and he thought it was a go, as he was a plug race-horse. He ran a short distance and bursted the saddle-girt, throwing me over his head. One foot struck me in the breast, the other in the stomach, and the horse went on and left me lifeless. George Carr, Sam Gustin, and others carried me to a stable. Charley Lackey followed my horse and brought him back.
I recovered from my fall and got drunk again. We all decided to go to a big meeting at Wesley Chapel, out two and a half miles from town. It was raining. We arrived at the church and there was a large crowd, but no preacher. The boys asked me to preach. It did not take much persuading. I pulled my overcoat and took the stand. The people all laughed. I told them they would find my text over in the back of the book in the thirty-second chapter of Dinderies: “Where the hen scratched, there lay the bug also.” Just about that time old Billy Winn, a man I always was afraid of, and the preacher, came in at the door. I started with my overcoat on one arm, hat in the other hand, my shirt hanging out over my pants behind about three inches longer than my coat. The people were in an uproar, but I was in trouble. I knew if I got out alive, Winn would have me arrested. We met in the isle at the stove and as I would turn Winn would turn. I gave a lunge, fell over and knocked over two benches, scrambled to the door, and Winn hollowed: “What is the matter with you, Willis?” I said, “I want out of here.”
I went home to my aunts about three-fourths of a mile away and informed her of my trouble. I had made arrangements to move my aunt to Kentucky to keep house for me until I married, then I intended to take care of her, as I had told my contemplated bride that I would do. I was not able to get up next morning. I had my aunt and cousin to watch for the officers. Finally they said they saw the sheriff coming with another man. I had no chance to run, for I was in bed. I soon decided I would play off on them, as the sheriff was my brother-in-law. So he came in, but wasnt after me, but my pocketbook, for the money for the note I made at fathers sale, and also informed me I would not get any of the estate, there was none left for me. The note had been sued on, and as I had made it before I was twenty-one, they could not make me pay it. I paid him one hundred dollars and told him when the estate was settled I would pay the rest, and not before. I started for Kentucky next morning and made my arrangements to move. I was in trouble— my money nearly all gone, and aiming to marry, and a part of what little money I did have left was in E. M. Pleasants safe, and I had to go and face the man whose store I had rode into. I came back to my aunts and went to Pleasants to get my money. He began to curse me and point at my horse tracks on the store floor. I asked, “How much is the damage? I have come to pay it.” He joked me for a while, then gave me my money and did not charge me anything. I moved my aunt to Kentucky, commenced to make a crop and kept looking for my intended bride. Finally I received a letter notifying me that her father would not let her come. I decided to go and steal her. I kept corresponding with her till the old man got to watching the office.
I finished my crop and had a hard spell of sickness. I had a vision of hell. I saw the devil. He came to my bed. His body and head were in the shape of a lion, a very large head, and mouth open. His breath came in my face. I could feel it blow in my face as he panted like a tired dog. His head was as large as a water-bucket and his body was about nine feet long. His back just came level with the bed where I lay. His tail was as long as his body and flat and stood out straight. I was not asleep; I was gasping for breath. He passed by my bed like a snake crawling. I was sure it was, the devil. Just as be passed out of sight I seemingly was raised from the bed by a small thread. I took it to be the thread of life. It fastened in my breast and extended to some unseen part above. I looked down and I was hanging over a big gulf. It was very deep; I could not see the bottom. The black smoke was rolling up as far down as I could see. There were people standing on cliffs, some way down and some near the top. The bottom was represented as the bottomless pit of hell. I discovered I was gradually turning around. I looked up at the thread and it was unwinding; the twist was coming out of it and I could see the fibers pull apart. I looked to see where I would fall and I was right over the center of the pit: I could look just as far as I could see down in the black smoke and could not see any bottom. Just about then there was a small tube, one end in my breast and the other end in my mouth, and I had to get my breath through that. It would stop up and I would almost die. The thread was still unwinding and I could not tell whether the breath would stop first or the thread break. I would try to stop turning around and try to suck the tube open.
This was a fair vision of the devil and hell and the bottomless pit. Tom Angliton, of Rockcreek, Illinois, was by my bedside; lived with me at that time. He now lives at Rockcreek post-office, Hardin County, Illinois, and will well remember that time when he hears this. We had some wonderful times together. I won his clothes one day playing cards and when he went to bed I hid them. I awoke him next morning and told him to get up. He jumped out of bed, went to get his clothes and they were gone. He went back to bed. My cousin Sue found his clothes for him and I never knew him to bet his clothes again. The time soon came after I got well that I had a chance: to go in with a man in a photograph boat, which I thought would be a good scheme to get my girl, who lived on the Mississippi river, in hake County, Pennsylvania. So we made a deal. I left everything in Tom Anglitons hands to take care of, but had L. B. Cain, of Weston, Kentucky, to look after Tom to see that he did not gamble my stock and crop away. I left on the boat with just one man, and his name was Henry Gipson; he was a bachelor. We got to Elizabethtown, illinois, and I received a letter from my first girl that there was trouble on hands and I had better come and see about it at once. I loved the girl, but I also loved the one I was going to steal then, and I had an eye to her fathers wealth. I was bothered. I could not decide to give up my arrangements to marry Miss A. P., and could not bear to leave Miss M. Q. without friends or character. As I was washing the supper dishes I reached over the fantail of the boat to dip up a kettle of water and the kettle slipped out of my hands, which made Gipson very mad and we came near having severe trouble. I got a chance and slipped the caps off of his pistol and got the drop on him and had the thing a little my way. But we dissolved partnership and I went back home.
I went to see my girl and made her some propositions. She said it was me she wanted, and me she would have. I had just about decided to marry her when a little darkey came up with a note, telling me her mother was going to bring suit against me next Monday morning in Marion, Kentucky, for her character. I talked with a friend, M. F. Clements. He told me it would ruin me. A youngster was laid in my lap and I was asked to name her. I called her Rosetta Brown. I thought I would marry the girl, but other people interfered and tried to force me. I was an Irishman and would not drive. I started to a dance with a young man that was living with my brother, His name was Tom Leeper. I notified him soon after we started that we would go to Elizabethtown, Illinois, and that the wooden valise he was carrying for me was not bottled whisky, as he supposed, but was my clothes and I was leaving the country. He took me to Elizabethtown and I took a boat for Carrsville, Kentucky, where I got off and walked out to M. E. Radcliffes, seven miles, and in a day or so started on a blind mare to Thomas Radcliffes, between the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers, and Staid there until I heard from my brother George. He told me to leave there, and I did, and made for the West. He also informed me that there was a $300.00 reward for me, and that scared me, until I was afraid of everybody.
I boarded my first train in life at St. Bernard, on the Tennessee river. I had not been on long until a young fellow got on by the name of Bill Allen. He said he was going West and we agreed to go together, though I gave him a different name from what my own was. He and I kept together till we struck a job in the swamps of the Missouri. We left the railroad and walked twenty-five miles through the swamps. We waded water, met wild hogs and some wild horses. This was in the year of 1880. We stopped with a man by the name of Haste Yates, who hired us to split rails until we could do better. He offered us seventy-five cents a hundred, or seventy-five cents a day. We worked by the day. It was my second rail making, but it was sassafras and pecan and coffeenut timber and it split fine.
I had not done a day a work for quite a while and the next morning after the first days work I could scarcely turn over. I was so sore the old man pulled me out of bed. I worked till dinner. Then we went to see an old man who was hiring hands for a widow woman. He was a blind lawyer. He asked my partner what he could do on a farm. He said he could do anything. He boasted a great deal. He was hired at $20.00 a month as boss of the farm. He said to me, “What can you do, young man?” I told him I could work on a farm if some one would go before. He said he would give me $10.00 the first month and if I suited him he would raise my wages. We were to work alone until the next month, then others were to come in. Bill said he would make a pet out of me and we would have a good time. We went to cutting logs on a forty-acre piece of land that we could very easily walk over on timber. Bill would get potatoes and eggs in the morning and take them to the field and we would roast them. We put in two weeks this way and did not do half as much as one could do. I saw this would not work. It would throw me out of a job.
There was a young lady who came to see the family the second week and Bill made arrangements with her to go to see her Saturday night. He said he would quit work early, so we went in. After he left the widow began to ask me questions about the work. I told her if she would have us to take axes I would cut as many logs as we both sawed, and if she wanted to know any more about it to slip out Monday morning and watch us. So she had us take axes Monday morning. Bill went to roasting eggs, as usual, and I went to chopping. The widow slipped out and watched us. When we came to dinner Bill was discharged and my wages were raised to twenty dollars and I was boss.
A crew of hands was hired. I was getting along nicely and thinking a good deal of marrying the widow when I took a severe case of pneumonia. The doctor tended on me for quite a while. The widow was interested in me for some time, and all at once she neglected me and I suffered for attention, as no one would be in my room from the time the hands would go to work in the morning till dinner time. I tell you, young men, you do not know how it will make a person think of home to be among strangers where no one knows who you are and your people do not know where you are, and there is no one to give you a drink or a word of comfort. There was one old man and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Yates, who would come in and sit up with me and bring me something to eat and slip it to me.
The widow came to my room one day and told me the doctor said I had consumption and would never get well. I might get so I could be up, but never could work any more. She said if I would still give instructions to the hands she would keep me until I died, which would not be long. When the doctor came that day I discharged him, told him I could die without his help. In two days I could walk across the room with a stick, and in three days I walked a quarter of a mile, in one-half day went to Mr. Yates, and in five days I got a young man to take me eight miles to the railroad. It was after all were in bed and asleep. I did not want to let them know where I went.
I went back to my brothers. They waited five days to see if I would die, and Bill Irbey and J. Bantey came after me. I went on conditions that they would not keep, me out after night and give the Kuklux a chance at me, and would give me a chance to compromise. I did compromise, and when released I owed the olficer $2.50. I did not have a cent and could not work. The girls grandmother drove her off. My brother and his wife took her to keep till I got well. I still thought I would marry her, though I had not told her so. I was not able to do anything. One day I was reading an almanac and saw German syrup advertised for lung trouble. I told my brother and he sent and got me a bottle. Before I had taken it all I could work a little evenings and mornings.
I went over to see a widow. I used to stay with her and her man. She seemed to think a great deal of me. She had a man and his wife living with her. She insisted I should stay there, and I did, and commenced to help the man with his work. One day the man left the gate open and the hogs came in the yard. I was just coming up. I had been to a picnic. The man was dogging the hogs. The widow and he had some words. She saw me and hollowed at me and said, “Why, you have come back! I heard you would run away with my horse.” So she came to the barn gate and told me a great deal the man had said about me. I saw her temper was raised and tried to get the trouble settled. The man said he was just teasing her. I told him it would not do; he would get into severe trouble. That evening she set separate tables and told them to cook and eat to themselves and she would do the same, They all had temper. Now both women hurried to get supper and it was ready on both tables at once, and I was invited to eat at both tables. I went to the widows table, for I knew there would be war right there if I did not. The next morning the same performance was gone through with breakfast. After breakfast I went to my brothers to get a team to help plant potatoes. This man went to get his team at a neighbors barn, as he was afraid to keep his team at her barn, as she and her stepchildren were having trouble because their father had deeded her the farm and given her all he had. However, I was about four hundred yards away, when I heard loud talking, then a report of a gun, then a man scream. My brother and I ran to the house and saw the man lying in the fence corner shot, and hollowing. His wife was going towards where some men were thrashing wheat and the widow was sweeping the porch. I ran to her and said, “My God! what have you done?” She fell on my bosom and said, “Are you going to forsake me? He went to whip me.” I went and helped carry the man into the house. As we brought him in at the front door she went out the back way. He hollowed at her. She told him to lie still; he had brought it on himself; she would not talk to him. My brother brought the doctor. I took the widow to Elizabethtown. She employed a lawyer, who told her to go back and wait until they did something. The officer came. She told him to go back, that she would come. We went to Elizabethtown, where she gave herself up to the judge and filed a bond. She offered to deed me her farm. I said no, and it was good for me I did not take it, for just then they were trying to get me into the trouble and some people think yet I was the instigator. But I say here before God and man, I tried to keep it down, and the man and his wife knew it, and they and I were good friends when they died. The widow compromised with them and they left and did not appear in court.
Now I have decided not to give my life in full from this time on to my conversion, as some parts are very dark and might not have the best effect. As I have already stated, my brother and wife were keeping my child and her mother, and I was studying about marrying her, but there was a meddler put in, and she left without my knowing it and went to Kentucky. I lived with the widow a while and went to gambling. A young man named Boyd and myself followed fairs and picnics. I do not know as it will do any good to tell the many dirty things we did. I will say it was a low down dirty life. We ofttimes risked our lives and came near taking lives. We did not rob, but I fear if we had staid together much longer we would have been robbers. We smuggled whisky, throwed foul dice, and did many dirty things. I had all confidence in Boyd until we were at Paducah, Kentucky at the fair and he claimed to get robbed. Afterwards I saw a bill of money that I knew. I asked the man where he got it and he said from Boyd. I knew it was a bill we had; so he and I separated and the widow married.
I went to New Orleans on a flatboat, which belonged to John Gregrey and his brother Bob. John Lackey was my chum on that trip. The whole crew got into a confusion, but Lackey and I staid together. We ran some narrow escapes. We outrun the police a square race in New Orleans one night and by making a long jump from the levee reached the boat. Gregrey was aboard that night and said we would get caught, but we escaped. Well, while in New Orleans I heard the widows man had left her and took her horse. John and I started for Cave in Rock, Illinois, and we came that thirteen hundred miles under many disadvantages, as John was sick. I came and found the widow a widow sure enough. I followed the man and found him at Catakin, Illinois, and took the horse, left the man and returned home. There are some dark things of my life which I think best should lie still at the present, as others are implicated in them.
Some boys and I went to farming. We kept batch and were rough. Before this I was in the blacksmith business with Mike Long. He would not do anything, and I did not know how to do much. I got dissatisfied and he said he would buy me out. I agreed to sell out. We invoiced the stock. He wrote a note due in ten days, signed his name to it, and handed it to me. I told him I could not do that, for that was all I had and I wanted the money. He was drunk and he had the drop on me, as we were in his own house. He promised faithfully he would pay me. I took the note, went to farming, and took some work for him to do. The ten days passed, the work was not done, nor did he pay me, but sent me a challenge to shoot a duel with him. I and my chum John Lackey went down. We charged our horses up to his shop door. I leaped off my horse in the shop door. He looked around and saw me. I never spoke, neither did he, but we looked each other in the eye. John hitched our horses and came in, spoke to him and asked him if he would shoe his horses. He said no. Lackey said, “Why, have you gone back on me?” “I never went ahead on you very much,” was the reply. Just then his wife came in and told him his breakfast was ready and he went out and we left. I decided to kill him.
I left the neighborhood and went about eleven miles back of Cave in Rock to Pots Hill and hired to Ewing Lanibert. He sent me to the Cave with a load of wheat to the mill, As I passed the shop Long halted me, and before either could shoot the woman jerked him backwards in the door. I came out to the Bachelors Hail, staid all night, and as I did not get my grinding Reece Lackey and I went back next morning. Long saw us go down town and he followed us. I saw him coming, and walked up the sidewalk, meeting him. He and I knocked elbows pretty hard. As I passed I whirled: he started to turn, saw my position, and walked on. He went on to where Reece was and asked where I was. Reece told him he had just passed me on the street. He said he was going to fix me. Reece told him if he did not let me alone I would fix him. I was more determined to kill him than ever, for I knew if he got a chance be would kill me. The widow lived at the Cave then.
I went down through town some days after, and found Longs arrangements was to gamble in the shop that night. I went back to the Bachelors Hall, left my horse, and went back to town, slipped into the widows house, staid till 2 oclock in the morning, went to Longs shop where he, Steve Boyd, Jim Liles and others were playing cards. Just as I was slipping up with my pistol in hand they fell out over, the game, and Boyd and Long were quarreling. There was a crack at Longs back about two inches wide. I thought I would shoot him and the gang would have the blame to bear, as no one knew I was there; but as it was with Jim Coplin when he went to kill his first man, a life-time scene flashed before me. I said, “I cant kill a man and stand behind him.” I lowered my pistol, slipped away, and sent him word that be or I must leave the country. He was about ready to leave, I suppose. I never have seen him since. I still have his note given in the year 1881. I never could kill a man from the back.
I worked for Ewing Lambert till the spring of 1882, when I took the rheumatism and was not able to do anything for six months. Mrs. Lambert and I did not just agree on a report that got out. She had been misinformed about the report. He was on another farm he owned near Shawneetown, Illinois. He came home one night after I had gone to bed, and when I got up next morning and found that he was there I tried to get out and see him before he left, as I loved him as a father. When I met him he was mad at me, and you can not imagine how I felt. The only friend I had on earth that would keep me, and I was not able to dress myself part of the time, and now he would hardly speak to me. I did not know what to do. He had told me he would keep me. I had spent all the money I had for medicine. Mr. Lambert had spent some money for me. He left and went back to the farm. I made some inquiry of Mrs. Lambert about what was the matter: she did not seem to know. I asked John Lambert, the old mans son. He told me it had been reported that I was trying to get the darkies on the bottom farm to strike for higher wages. I started to see Mr. Lambert. It was four miles. I made the trip in half a day and found him still mad. After dinner I went into his room, shut the door, fastened it, and told him I had come to see what was the matter with him. He said he understood I was trying to get the negroes to strike for higher wages. I told him the man, woman or child that had toad it told a lie and I would face them in it. He looked me right in the eye for a bit, and said, “Well, you had better stay over here with me;” so I did.
His niece that he had raised was staying with him and superintending the housework. Her name was George A. Martin. She and I were engaged to be married. Everything went off nicely till the last of June. Mr. L. came to the barn where I was lying in the horse trough and asked me whether if he would hitch the mules to the wagon and help me into the wagon, I could drive over to the home farm at Pots Hill and let the boys load the wagon with potatoes, and I to bring them back. I said I would try. I never had told him I could not do anything, and that was why he liked me, for I would try to do anything he asked me to do. He did not want a man to say no. As he proposed, he got the team ready, put me into the wagon and I started. I did not go far till the mules started to run away. I dropped one line, pulled on the other, run them in the fence and they stopped. I kept them there until they got over their scare and then went on. I had to cross Saline river. I thought I could ford it, but when I got to it I had to ferry on a little boat just big enough for a team and a wagon. The ferryman was green at the business, but we got over all right
The boys were at dinner. They put my mules up, and loaded my potatoes. There came a rain which made the hills slippery, and especially the river bank, and I was afraid I would have trouble at the river, as I had a young mule in the wagon. I tried to get John Lambert to go with me to the river, but he would not go. I arrived at the ferry. I decided to go aboard. The ferryman said, “Drive on.” I had a wheel locked, as the bank was very steep. The mules got on the boat, the wagon yet on the shore. One mule tried to back off; the other tried for a while to pull on. I tried to whip them on. I could not lift my hand above my head, I was so stiff and paralyzed. The water began to come up in the front end of the wagon. I said, “What is the matter? is the boat going outs” He said, “Yes, it is gone.” I climbed up on the potatoes, as it was a forty-bushel bed and the load was all behind, and it was well for me, for I would never have got out if it had not been that way. I fell over the hind end of the wagon and lit in the edge of the water. The ferry-man had hold of the rope and was holding to a bush. The mules were just hanging on the boat with their front feet. I caught hold of the man and pulled him all I could. He had to let loose of the rope and the mules both drowned. I fastened the wagon to the shore with a rope, went and told the old man the sad news, that I had left a three-hundred dollar span of mules in the river. He was out in the field standing in the turning row to turn the mules as the negroes would drive out, as the mules would get very hot and stubborn towards night. There was no stopping to rest. Sometimes they would fall dead in the plough, and one did a few days after this.
Mr. Lambert told me to go and get his saddle-horse up and feed him. I did. He came in at sundown and did not take time to eat. He went and got help and got the gears off the mules and got the wagon out. He came back next morning. I had been out in the field to start the negroes to work, and was just coming to the barn. He told me it was carelessness of me and old Givens, the ferryman, drowning those mules, and he wanted me to get away from there. He did not want any more to do with me. I said, “Well, I want to say to you it was not my fault and I would not have done it for anything. I was afraid to go the trip, but would not say no. I love you as a father, and if I ever get able will pay you for what you have done for me.” He said, “Shut your mouth, I will slap you down.” I said, “No, I will say what I have to say, if you do.” He walked off and left me.
That was one of the saddest scenes of my life, nowhere to go, and a girl looking out of the window. I had won her love and did not have a dollar, and was not able to work a bit. I went into the house, told my girl to bundle my clothes and send them over the creek to the home farm, and I would go and see if I could make arrangements to take her to my stepmothers until I could do better. I went to where some boys were keeping batch, and cooked for them a few days. I improved fast and soon was able to get about very well. I went to see my stepmother. She said I could bring my wife there. I went to A. Beabouts and pawned a coat for $3.00 to marry. I went back to Mr. Ls to tell Miss Martin my arrangements. She was well pleased, as she had been told I drowned the mules to have an excuse to leave. I was sifting on the porch when the old man came to dinner. I looked for him to order me off, but he spoke very friendly and passed by me. When dinner was ready, he said, “Come to dinner.” I did not go. He sent his son Jim to tell me to come. I still did not go. While they ate I talked to my girl and we made our plans. As the old man came out the girl was standing with her arm around my neck. He looked very sulky. He was at the pump washing collars as I started. He called me. I thought the trouble had come. I turned and walked over to him before I understood what he was talldng about. I had let a negro have some money one time when he was gone and he was asking me about it. I told him he could have it on what he had spent for me, and if I ever got able I would pay him. He said he did not charge me anything, and if I got so I could work and make a living, to keep it.
I went to town and got my license, came back by there and told my girl to be ready, I would be after her next morning, and for her to tell her uncle. I returned next day. She said she had told him and he said I was a good worker and if I got able I would make her a good living, but she might have married some one worth something. We went to old Squire Stierts and were married. This was the 12th of July, 1882. I staid at my stepmothers a few days and then made arrangements with my brother-in-law to live with him, that we would live together, as my sister had died and made me promise I would see after her children, as he was very wild. They had four girls, one grown, another fourteen and two smaller. I had nothing to keep house, and he did. We agreed to furnish equal parts of provision. He did not do anything. We moved on Jasper Blairs farm six miles northeast of Cave in Rock, Illinois. We just rented the house, and he agreed to give me work. He did, just enough to pay the rent. We got out of anything to eat. I went over to Mr. Lambert s and Mrs. Lambert gave me a sack of flour. I left there after dark, and as I passed some chickens on the fence I pulled two of their heads off and took them, too. So we had bread and chicken. That was the only time necessity ever caused me to steal, and my brother-in-law got me into that. I will say right here that was as near as we came suffering for anything to eat since we kept house.
I went and hired to my wifes cousin, Mr. Sie Lambert. He had the name of being so mean to hands they would not stay with him. I moved near there, went to work for fifty cents a day, and he boarded me when I was at work. I had to go before day and feed and had to feed at night. He gave my brother-in-law a job of cleaning ground. He had to grub the small trees and all the saplings. He worked one-half day and quit. I had to borrow $3.00 when I began work. It took just $3.00 a week to feed the family and I made just $3.00 a week, and I had to work rain or shine. I grubbed in the rain when I could not see three hundred yards for the water falling. It was work or poor orphan children do without bread, for their father had left and was not helping me take care of them, He had whipped the oldest girl with a board and she had left home, so that left three children and my wife to feed and I was the only man to work for it. The man I was working for was mad because I kept the children, and every Saturday night I had to borrow $3.00 to get food for the next week, and I would hate to ask him for it. He would curse and say I had better let Moore take care of his own children. I could not turn them out to starve. He said if I would not keep them Moore would take them. I would go off and sit down and study and cry and did not know what to do. I would think of the money I had run through with and I never had to humble to any man.
I finally got lame with two boils on my ankle. I could not walk when I would first get up. One day Albert Dutton, Mr. Lambert, and myself had been working a road through the field and came by the house. They went in to get a drink. I sat on the stile and held my foot up till they came out, and Mr. Lambert said, “Come, let us go.” I tried to walk and could not. I fell back on the stile and said, “Sie, I can not go; I will have to quit.” He said he could stand that on his tongue. I said, “You might; I can not stand it on my foot.” The very fires of hell flashed over my whole being and murder leaped in my heart, and I would as soon have killed a man as eat a good meal.
I hobbled home and the next day I sent for Albert Dutton. He was at work for Lambert. He came, I pawned him my gun for $3.00 and went and paid Mr. Lambert, and sent Mr. Moore word to come and get his children, so he did. I asked Mr. M. D. Price, who married my wifes cousin, to keep my wife till I could work and get some money to buy something to keep house on. He granted my request. I went and hired to Jerry Simmons on my fathers old farm to dig potatoes. He gave me one dollar a day I worked six days, had a pair of boots made which cost me $4.00. That left me $2.00. I thought I would just step over and go to work for another man, I walked two days. Everybody had all the hands they wanted, as a great many men came over from Kentucky. I did not know what to do. I just had $2.00, a new pair of boots, and a wife, and she had been boarding a week. I had found out that the majority of my wifes people thought I would leave her. So I thought I would go to where my wife was and tell her the trouble. When I got there she was sick. A doctor was passing, I called him in and he charged me a dollar, so that just left me with one dollar.
Mr. Price lived in the home with Alex Fraley and had his farm leased. Fraley killed a beef on Sunday morning. I helped him. He got rid of all but one quarter, and some fellow failed to take it as contracted and Fraley was mad at everybody. We went to eat dinner, and Fraley looked at me and remarked; “You had better take that quarter of beef and go to housekeeping and quit sponging on people.” That was my first blow like that. I could not eat another bite. I went out to the barn and sat there weeping and reaping what I had sown. Mr. Price came to me and said, “You need not pay any attention to Alex; he does not furnish the grub here, and you are just as welcome here as be is., I asked him if he would loan me $5.00 till Christmas. He said, “Yes, and more if you want it.” I told him $5.00 would do.
I went over to Mr. Sie Lamberts, the man I had quit. He had no help and was glad to see me. We soon made a trade, but better wages than before. I went back, told my wife, borrowed a horse, and went to Shawneetown and bought me a skillet and lid, a frying-pan, three plates, three knives and forks, a coffee pot, and twenty-five cents worth each of coffee, tea and sugar, and twenty-five pounds of flour, put them in a sack and brought them to the house where I had kept house with the children, as our clothes were there. My wife had a bed and sheet and one quilt. I went to Mr. Lamberts next day and dug potatoes until sundown. We sorted them as we dug them and left the seed in piles on the ground. We then picked up the seed. It was dark and the potatoes were to cover with dirt. I said to Mr. L. and to Mr. Elbert Kiligore, “cant you cover the potatoes and let me go and get my wife?” Lambert said, “You had as well finish your day.” Killgore said, “Go get your wife, I will finish your day if it takes me all night |
