Early in the year 1865 it had became apparent to many persons who were conversant with the trend of military activities that the cessation of the war would occur in the near future. Already the Southern Confederacy was regarded by them as a "lost cause" and the belief was prevalent that "it was on its last legs." Discerning men closely watching the trend of events were anticipating the termination of hostilities and were beginning to make preparations for a change from military to civil life. Sharing this optimistic belief and prognostic view anent future probabilities, Father, who had accumulated some means since our return to Missouri in the fall of 1863, went to Dallas County early in the spring of 1865 and purchased an 80 acre farm of Mr. Jason Lemons near Buffalo.

When she had learned that Father had bought a home near Buffalo, Mother began to get ready for our removal which occurred about the middle of March 1865. Colonel Phelps' regiments, of which Father had been surgeon for more than a year, was discharged before this time, I think, and Father was at liberty again to attend to his private affairs and he desired to resume the practice of his profession, and for the third time he located in Dallas County, Missouri, rather than at our Webster County home. We all regretted to leave Grandfather Rountree, who was still in rather feeble health, owing to old age and the effects of the wound he had received the previous fall. Mother had cared for him during his illness and convalescence, as long as we remained at his house, and she was loath to leave him, but of course realized that her duty to her own family made it necessary for her to do so. She felt too that Grandfather would have good attention. Aunt Almarinda Massey lived in Springfield and Aunts Elizabeth and Rebecca Rountree lived near at their farm home and all of them and their husbands and other relatives would visit him often and attend to his wants and his old colored servant "Sookey" who had been his housekeeper for many years would give "Old Marstah", as she always called him, the best care and attention. Finally we were ready to move and bidding Grandfather, Willie Jones and the faithful old Negroes, Sookey and Steve, goodbye, we departed for our new home. After we had been there a day or two, Brother Bud, whose term of service in the Enrolled Missouri Militia had expired, came home and Father and I want back to Grandfather’s and brought another load of our household goods which we had left there. Then we gladly began life again in our own home.

Father had always preferred living on a farm, and thought work on a farm was good for a boy. Besides the proceeds of a farm, if it was well tilled and properly managed, was a very big item toward the support of the family. Although it was early spring the peach trees were beginning to bloom, the grass was getting green and although our farm dwelling was old and unpainted, it was a fairly comfortable house; and we appreciated being once more at home. Brother Bud and I cultivated the farm that year and we raised a good crop of corn and oats. There were several acres of meadow on the farm and we mowed a fine lot of grass, which when cured, made good hay. We had an apple, peach and cherry orchard and had an abundance of fruit and we raised a quantity of vegetables. We killed several fat hogs in the fall, so we had plenty of good things to eat that year.

The experience I had gained in farming at Grandfather’s the previous year was a great benefit to me during my first year’s work on our farm. Old Shady and Bones the horses I had worked in learning to plow, were well broken and excellent work horses. They were the only horses Grandfather ad owned after the Confederate Army got possession of the county in August 1861 and confiscated all the stock he had. I think that from that time until the Federals were again in control of the country and he bought Shady and Bones, he had cultivated his crop with a horse kindly loaned to him by a neighbor who was a Confederate sympathizer and had been permitted to keep his horses by the Confederates.

As soon as the people of Buffalo and vicinity learned that Father had again located there, he was frequently called to visit the sick professionally, and before many months elapsed he was doing a fairly good practice. He did not have an office or occupy a special building in Buffalo, but had his headquarters at Mr. Willam L. Morrows’ store, where it soon became known that he could be found when in town during the day; and of course at night he was at home, unless called away to visit a patient. Many of his old patrons before the war were still there or had returned home since the war ended and they aided him materially with their patronage in building up a good practice again.

We had been back to Dallas County only about two weeks when a messenger came for Father to go to the bedside of Brother Joe, who was very ill at his home in Webster County. The disease with which he was affected was said to be erysipelas. Father left at once for Brother Joe’s home, hoping that he could stop the progress of the dangerous malady, which he had learned was in one of Brother Joe’s arms, but Father knew he said, as soon as he saw Joe and examined his arm that there was no hope of his recovery. He was delirious and very weak from the effect of the disease which was in a very malignant form, the arm being badly infected. The disease rapidly spread to his body and he died the next day after Father arrived there. In his death we sustained another great sorrow, grievous to us all, but more especially to Father and Mother. We had been separated from Brother Joe most of the time during the cruel war and just when hostilities had ceased and peace had come to our beloved country, he was taken away from us. He had served his country valiantly enduring many privations and much exposure coming through it all unscathed, but when relief from the terrible strain of war had come, he fell a victim to disease and made the great sacrifice, yielding up his dear life to the grim monster death. He was a kind husband and father, a dutiful and loving son, and a dearly loved brother and we all mourned his loss deeply. His remains were laid to rest in the cemetery at St. Luke. He left a wife and two children, a boy four years old and a little girl baby. Father brought the boy, whose name was Almus, home with him and his widow, and the little girl, Mollie, went to live with Sarah’s father and mother at Marshfield. A few years later Sarah married a Mr. Dillard and they lived in Springfield awhile, and later they moved to Izzard County in the state of Arkansas.

Not very long before the close of the Civil War, my sister accompanied her mother-in-law, Mrs. Hollis, and her two young daughters, Jane and Margaret, to Shelby County, Illinois. I think Mrs. Hollis had some relatives living in that county and she went there to be with them and also to get the benefit of better school facilities and to find a safer home. Sister had been with them all the time during the war, sharing the political views of her deceased husband, Col. Jesse Hollis. She was an ardent supporter of the Confederate cause and was always glad to hear of any victories by the Confederate Army.

After the corn was gathered, the apples picked and other work on the farm completed, I attended school for three or four months taught by Mr. George Forrester. The school was in an old wooden building in Buffalo which had sometime previously been used as a store. Mr. Forrester was a very good teacher for primary pupils, but his education was limited and some of his pupils were equally as good, if not better scholars in many branches of study, particularly in arithmetic than he was.

Early in the year 1866 Brother Dolph and his family returned from Indiana to Missouri. They then had three children, their second daughter Isophene, always called Tenie, having been born in Portland Mills, Indiana December 24th, 1864. Soon after their arrival in Dallas County they moved to Father’s Webster County home. Brother Bud accompanied them and resided with them and assisted in the cultivation of the farm which Father and Mother had given by warranty deed to him and Dolph. I think Dolph practiced medicine some in addition to helping Bud with the farm work during that year.

As I no longer had Bud’s assistance, I did most of the work of tilling our home farm that year. Father employed a man to assist me in breaking the ground and putting in the crop, but I did the plowing and hoeing of the corn. I had assistance in harvesting the oats, mowing the grass, and gathering and cribbing the corn. In mowing the grass I had not had much experience. The previous year Brother Bud did the principal part of the mowing while I finished the plowing and other work. This year, he helped me some on days he was at home. He was an excellent mower and taught me how to properly use a scythe. Mr. Samuel Owens, whom Father hired to assist in mowing the grass, understood mowing well and was also a great help to me in learning to use a scythe correctly. Father not only helped me in mowing the grass that year, but he often gave me very much needed advice about difficult farm work problems and assisted me in other work. He was raised on a farm under the instruction of Grandfather Slavens who was an excellent and experienced farmer, and had taught Father to do all kinds of farm work when he was a boy.

One day during that summer I had an exciting experience, which might have been serious if not a fatal one to me. I had been to Buffalo attending Sunday School and Church and was returning home afoot and on the road about halfway between town and our house, in passing along a path covered with weeds and grass at the sides of the road, suddenly I heard a rattling noise and felt something strike my leg below the knee. Looking in the direction from which the rattling noise came, I perceived a large rattlesnake, coiled and ready to strike again. I was near a fence and I hastily seized a part of a broken rail to kill the reptile if possible. Just then a man came along and I asked his assistance, which he readily gave, seizing a bludgeon from the fence and we approached the snake which was still coiled and soon killed it. It had nine rattles and a button and was about four and a half feet long. I was wearing long top boots and on examination found that the snake fangs had struck and slightly cut my boot top about halfway between my ankle and knee. This prevented the snake fangs from penetrating my leg and possibly saved my life. I was unhurt but a badly scared boy. The young man who assisted me in killing the snake was Caswell Walker, the son of our neighbor with whom I was not acquainted previous to the snake episode, but who lived in our school district and afterward attended school with him at the White Schoolhouse. He was a few years older than I and during the Civil War was in the Federal Army. He had a younger brother name Rezia.

When we returned to Dallas County in 1865, there was no church house in Buffalo and for two or three years church services were held in one room of a large frame building on the west side of the public square, which since the burning of the old brick courthouse during the Civil War had been used for a courthouse and in which public meetings of various kinds were held. This building too was burned a few years later, and then a small schoolhouse which was built since the war was used for circuit and county court proceedings, church services and other meetings. During the time the old frame building on the west side of the public square was in use for the purposes stated, the regular meetings of the Good Templars, a secret temperance organization, were held in a room in the second story of the house. Together with a number of other boys and a goodly number of girls, men and women of Buffalo and vicinity, I belonged to the order. It did a great deal of good in teaching the members the evils of intemperance and a number of boys and men, who had acquired intemperate habits, after joining the Good Templars became strictly sober and made good citizens.

During the years of my childhood and early boyhood days previous to the Civil War I knew but little about Father’s activities as local Methodist preacher. All of the time we lived in Webster County I was a small boy. My mother was in poor health and rarely ever left home, and as the only church building was two miles from our house, Mother and I were deprived of the privilege of attending church to a great extent. I am sure Father attended church and participated in religious services as frequently as he could but his professional duties prevented him from doing so often as he was a very busy man. My brothers and sisters however attended church frequently. The only time I remember going to church during that period, was once attending a protracted meeting at the old log schoolhouse at St. Luke, and I saw Brother Bud among others participating in the services. The only other time was when I went with Father horseback one Sunday to a primitive Baptist meeting three or four miles away, held in a large brush arbor near Niangua creek. The meeting continued all day. Three ministers delivered long sermons in their sing song peculiar style. I remember that I was very tired and sleepy before the services ended and was glad to get started on our return home.

After we moved to Buffalo just before the Civil War, our family attended church regularly but the circuit rider of this Methodist Church only preached in Buffalo once a month, preaching on other Sundays at other appointments on his circuit. The church services were held then in a vacant private dwelling, I think as there was no church building in the town then. During the time we lived at Exeter, Illinois, the only church house in the town, as far as I remember, belonged to the Christian Church, but services were not held often and we did not have opportunity to go to church much there.

When we lived at Portland Mills, Indiana, there was a Christian church house, the only one in town at which there was preaching once a month, but Father generally attended church at the Old School Presbyterian Church about a mile from town, the pastor of which was Dr. Dixon, whom Father regarded as a very able minister. I frequently went with Father to that church. There was also another Presbyterian Church about two miles from Portland Mills, called the New School or Seceders Church to which merchant Robert Spencer and wife, Arch Ramsey and wife, and several other residents of Portland Mills belonged and attended church there regularly. I remember to have gone with some of them to church there a few times. There was no Methodist church house in or near Portland Mills so Father attended Mr. Dixon’s church preferably, to other churches in or near town. When we came back to Webster County in 1864, Mother and I did not attend church as far as I recollect, that fall or winter. There may have been preaching at St. Luke occasionally, and if so, I am sure Father attended whenever he could do so, but as we had no way to go anywhere except to walk, it was too far for Mother to attend church at St. Luke, so we stayed at home and when not busy with her household work, Mother read the Bible and other books and such papers as we could get occasionally. Mr. Gourley’s folks took several weekly papers and Mary would frequently bring us some of them when she visited us.

While we lived at Grandfather Rountree‘s home during a part of the years 1864 and 1865, I have no remembrance of any religious services being held anywhere in the surrounding country or nearer than Springfield, I remember on the few occasions that I was in Springfield during the time we lived near the town that we passed a nice church building with a tall spire that I learned was St. Paul’s Methodist Church and I am confident that Father went to church there frequently while he was encamped with Col. Phelps’ regiment during the last year of the Civil War. I remember on one occasion that I went to town with Grandfather and Steve, and Steve and I each bought a pair of heavy winter boots. They were made of horse hide, showed the grain of the leather and we were both delighted with our purchases. When we got home we greased our boots with tallow which Steve said "will make 'em waterproof sah."

Chapter 11 continued...

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