| them. I had a tin can to put money
in. I would collect for my singing. They would give me money to sing
for them. I kept about two or three dollars all the time in my can. My
Ma would sometimes borrow money from me when the peddler came. It made
me feel pretty important to loan my Ma some money!
THE EARTH OPENED UP In 1904, I started going to dances. I was very fond of this. We boys would dance all night and go home with our girls in the morning. I had a girl that had one leg shorter than the other one. It was just short enough so that she was not a very good dancer. We went to a dance one evening. To get there we had to follow a trail through a cotton field. When we got there we started dancing! About eleven o'clock I missed my buddies, Sam Sturkie, George Creel and George Knight. I asked everyone there if they had seen them, but no one had. I was getting tired of dancing every set. Those boys were not to be found. I found out later that they had gone to get some long handled shovels, and got out in the path through the cotton field and dug a large hole, so that when we came along this path we would fall in. Well, we were coming along all hugged up, never a though of those mean boys leaving the dance to play a prank like this. Before we knew it, we were in this hole up to our heads. It scared me plenty, for I though the earth was opening up to swallow us up! Oh, how those boys loved to play pranks on me because they knew how much it always scared me! DON'T BELIEVE A DRUNK In 1904, while still living with my older sister, my cousin, who lived out in the hills about five miles came to see me one Saturday and brought along a lot of whiskey. We went out and got pretty well lit up. He began to talk. He said if I would leave my sis and live with him, he would do a good part by me. Well, my sis was furnishing me a good horse and 29 |