After we had lived in Ebenezer four or five years and my older brothers and sister had obtained a lair education. Father soLd our Ebenezer home and we again moved, this time to a farm that he had bought in Webster County about nine miles north at Marshfield, the county seat of the County. As I was a small boy, of course, the novelty of our moving trip was a new experience to me. When we began to get ready to go and the covered wagons were being loaded with our household goods, I was anxious to get started on our journeyS But when Penelope, my colored nurse whom we all called "Nick" did not get ready to go, and I found that she was not going with us I was heart-broken r cried and clung with my arms around her and had to be forcibly carried and put in the wagon.. It was a sad parting for me, the first real sorrow of my life. She had taken care of me ever since I could first remember and I could not bear the thought of having to leave her and I was greatly grieved. But after we got started on our journey which was the first experience I had ever had of riding in a covered wagon, I forgot my trouble temporarily and was soon enjoying the trip and viewing the many passing scenes which attracted my attention. Late in the afternoon it may have been on the second day after we left Ebenezer we arrived at our new farm home in Webster County. It was a big farm, or at least I thought it was, though I learned later there were only about eighty acres in cultivation. The improvements though were very poor. The dwelling house was an old log one story structure of one room with a loft above, reached by a ladder. it had a sandstone chimney with a large fireplace, the first I ever remember to have seen though as I have said I suppose we had a fireplace in Ebenezer, but I did not remember seeing it. There was a door in the front and also a door in the back side of the house and a window on each side of the chimney which were all of the openings to admit light from the outside the house. It was a dismal looking place, and I am sure that Mother and Sister were very much disappointed when they saw it.

There were two old log out buildings, one of which was the smoke house and the other, which had a stick and clay chimney and a rock lined fireplace and a puncheon floor was used for a kitchen and was ten or fifteen steps from the house. The family from which Father had bought the farm had not vacated the house when we got there. There were several small children and I remember hearing some of the smaller ones crying for something to eat at supper that night, me especially, who said I want more "chickie". We all stayed in the house that night and it made a house full. I think the man, Mr. John Jameson, and his family vacated the premises the next day after our arrival. We were all busy for a few days putting up the furniture and getting the household goods in place and in a few days we got more reconciled to our new home. The boys began plowing, breaking ground, putting in the spring crop and making garden. Mother and Sister doing the housework and Father was soon busy visiting sick patients.

We soon became acquainted with some of the neighbors who were very friendly and we got better satisfied with farm life although we often though of our comfortable home in Ebenezer.

During the crop season everyone on the farm large enough to work was busy “from early morn to dewey eve” and when people are constantly employed it keeps them to a great extent from becoming dissatisfied, but of course, the old log house was very unsatisfactory, and as we had a large family then, it was entirely too small. However, not many months elapsed until some men brought Father two or three loads of undressed yellow pine lumber from the pine forest some distance south of Marshfield. Then a carpenter, Mr. John Anglin, came and brought a work bench and a lot of carpenter tools. For several weeks he worked dressing lumber and sawing it in proper lengths for ceiling the big room. Be nailed it an, covering the log walls and the joists overhead, and he weatherboarded the house outside. After he had completed the work on the old building he built a room about ten feet wide the entire length of the house on the south side. This side room Mother used for a kitchen and a bedroom for Bud and Tom. This was a great improvement, although having a large family we were in need of more room. 1 enjoyed watching the carpenter at work planing the lumber and making long curling shavings and sawing and nailing on the limber, and I thought I would be a carpenter when I grew to be a man.

Soon after the carpenter work on the house was done, Father bought a new cook stove known as a step stove, the front part of the stove being a step, so to speaK, lower than the back part. Mother and Sister had been cooking on the fireplace in the out door kitchen in pots and oven, the latter set over hot coals on the hearth with hot coals on the lid which was hot and laborious work, and the new stove in the new kitchen was greatly appreciated by them. We had a good spring not far from the house, over which there was a log spring-house in which Mother kept the milk and butter. we had several rnilch cows and as there was an abundance of native grass in the pasture and on the outside range during the spring, summer and fall, and plenty feed in the winter, We always had all :he butter and milk needed. My brothers, who tilled the farm, had raised a good crop of grain, hay and vegetables and so of everything, usually grown in garden or on farm; we had an abundance. Father was getting a good practice and was often gone all day and part of all of the night.. Several years previous or before he began the study of medicine he had been advised by Dr. Bailey, as I have before stated, to use tobacco for his throat and stomach ailments, and he began to smoke a pipe. He still used the weed and became an inveterate smoker. I remember seeing him frequently starting off horseback to see the Sick, first lighting his stone pipe with cane stem, the kind he always used and after he started I could see the smoke rising up as he puffed his pipe. Me surely enjoyed smoking. Me always used home-grown tobacco, that is, I mean tobacco grown by some farmer in the community. I think tobacco was not raised on our farm, and Father bought it usually in large twists and he would cut it up fine for use in his pipe.

In the course of his practice in Webster County, Father had the assistance of another physician, Doctor Upshaw in serious cases of illness. They were not partners in the sense that each one shared in the profits of the other’s practice, and there was only a mutual arrangement that each one should go to the other ' assistance when requested. Frequently in cases of illness the remedies usually relied on in such affections would not be effectual, which would render a consultation necessary and consequent agreement arrive at respecting diagnosis of the disease and the remedies indicated. This arrangement was useful in cases where there was a probability that resort would have to be had to a surgical operation. I remember hearing Father speak of the case of one of his patients in which there was a surgical operation. Preliminary to the operation, Dr. Upshaw, who was a physician of long and varied experience and a surgeon of great ability, was called by Father in consultation. The patient, Mr. Archie Marlin, a brother of James Marlin to whom I shall have occasion to refer later on in this narrative was afflicted with white swelling in one of his arms. A disease in which, although badly swollen, the affected member of the body does not become inflamed or discolored, hence the name white swelling. The affection, if not arrested, continues to spread until the vital organs become involved. The consultation in this case revealed that the disease had become malignant and an amputation of the limb was necessary to save the patient’s life. Dr. Upshaw and another surgeon, I think from Springfield, assisted Father in performing the operation which was successful and Mr. Marlin fully recovered his health. I remember to have seen him after his arm was amputated.

People frequently came to Father desiring to be bled which was a common practice at that time. The patient's blood would become congested, that is, impure from some cause or had too much blood as it was said then. Now, I suppose it would be called high blood pressure, and the usual remedy then was being "bled". I remember that one day a man came to our home and asked such an operation. Father told him to remove his outer clothing and bare his left arm. Then Father brought in Mother’s large dishpan and set It on the floor. The man sat down holding his arm outstretched over the pan. Father got an instrument, looking like a knife with a very sharp blade and then I went out of the door, Mother told me afterward that Father made an incision in the big artery which is prominent in the center of a person’s arm and the blood spurted out. After it had bled about a quart in the pan, Father put a ligature or cord tightly just above the elbow, stopping the bleeding. I had no desire to witness the operation.

It was also common in those days for persons to come to have Father extract one or more aching teeth. There were no dentists in that part of the country then and probably few, if any dentists, in the larger towns. The family physicians were expected to perform the dental operations. Father had several instruments called forceps for extracting teeth, and one kind used for very difficult extractions were called "pullekins", at least the commonly used name for them. One day two men came, one of them desiring to have an aching molar pulled. The man sat in a chair with his head thrown back and mouth wide open. Father got a sharp bladed instrument he called a lancet, found the location of the aching tooth and cut around the gum next to the tooth and it bled freely, the man spitting the blood in a pan near where he sat. Then Father told the other nan to hold the patient’s head who was directed to catch a firm hold with both hands on his chair, and then Father got a pair of pullekins and just as he was about to pull the tooth I declined to witness the operation and made a hasty exit from the house. Mother said Father put the instrument firmly around the tooth and then with a strong, quick motion pulled it out. I heard the fellow cry out "Oh!" and I was standing away out in the yard. When I came into the house sometime later, the men had gone away. The one minus a tooth greatly relieved, no doubt, but with a very sore gum.

There was an old man, a hard visaged and very bowlegged old fellow, who sometimes cams to have Father go to see some of his family who were ill. He was a very gruff spoken man and I was terribly afraid of him. Every time he came, if I saw him time, I would leave the house and not return until the old man, whose name was Caleb Haymes, went. On one occasion he entered the house before I knew he was near and on seeing him I was so terrified and cried so piteously that Sister carried me out of the house where we stayed until Mr. Haymes had departed. I learned when I was older that he was a very estimable kind man notwithstanding his rough exterior appearance. He was a local preacher in the Methodist Church.

I remember many incidents of my child life, while we were in Webster County. In common with other boys I liked a dog, and I had a black and white spotted shepherd dog named "Captain" of which I was very fond and he was my constant companion and playmate. One day as we were chasing a rabbit after running it awhile, it got away from us. By this time we were some distance from the house in the east part of the field and being very tired I stopped to rest. There was a small depression or sink hole near where I stopped which was partly filled with grass and leaves, and I thought it was a fine place to rest. So "Captain" and I laid down there in the low place, and as it was warm and quiet, it soon fell asleep. As I had been gone from the yard some time Mother missed me and as she could see nothing of me, she sent Sister to hunt for me, but for some time her search was in vain. Then she became alarmed and hallowed loudly for me, and it was not very long until she saw Captain coming toward her, he then ran back some distance and she followed him and finally reached the sink hole, which was out of sight of the house, and there she found me Sound asleep. I had felt perfectly safe as long as Captain was with me but Mother was very uneasy about me and told me about Sister hunting me when I returned to the house.

I recollect one evening when we had fish for supper. Like most children as well as nearly all grown people, I was very fond of fish but I was not as careful as I should have been in eating the fish, and I got a fish bone stuck in my throat. Father was away from home that evening and so Mother tried to dislodge the fish bone in various ways but her efforts were unsuccessful. She and the children were much disturbed about it and I was frightened fearing the bone would stay in my throat, and might choke me, or Father would have to cut it out. After supper we were sitting around the tire waiting for Father to come homer Brother Joe, the family story teller, related several funny stories in trying to amuse me and finally told a very humorous tale at which all including me laughed heartily and the fish bone became loosened and came out of my throat?

Frequently some of Father’s patients who were convalescent would visit us to consult Father about their need of further treatment and sometimes they would stay all night with us. I remember on one occasion a Mr. Mimms was an overnight visitor. At supper Mother was pouring coffee for the guest and members of the family. As she was beginning this task I was standing by her side at the table and was asking her to pour me some milk in my mug. In her haste to try to quiet my frequent requests for my milk, she poured the milk in the mug arid instead of giving it to me passed it to Mr. Mimms. I saw what she had done and I loudly cried, "Mother,, the man’s got my mug! Make him give it back!" and I cried and jumped up and down until the guest and the family were all in a roar of laughter. I got my mug then, but the incident greatly embarrassed Mother. After supper Mr. Mimms took me in his lap and talked so kindly to me that I liked him very much. While I was sitting in his lap Father asked Mr. Mimms something about his affected leg and foot. He put me down and pulled off his boot and stood up to show that the leg was considerably shorter than his other leg and the foot and ankle were badly twisted. I observed his condition and became afraid of him and after he put on his boot, I declined to sit in his lap again or talk to him.

In the fall of 1856 there occurred two events that greatly disturbed not only me but I think others of the family. Brother Joe, it seems was then my favorite brother (he was always telling me stories), married Sarah Caples, a young girl whom none of us knew except Father, and whose parents lived at Marshfield. When he brought her home after their marriage I liked her appearance on first sight. She was a large blue eyed, fair haired girl and I thought she looked fine but as she was as yet a stranger to me I would not talk to her for some time but as she appeared so kind and friendly I soon got to like her. She told me she was my big sister, romped and played with me and we became great friends. In a few days however, Joe and his bride moved to a farm Father had given Joe about a mile from our home and I imagined we had lost my brother and would never see him again, though of course I ought to have known, but I was a very ignorant country lad, I did not realize they had only gone away a short distance. Then one morning Joe came back home and when he returned to his new home I went with him and stayed all day. Sarah played with me and gave me good things to eat and I had a fine time.

Chapter four continued...