RECOLLECTIONS OF A RED-HEADED MAN IRAM.BOSWELL LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFOKK1A SAN DIEGO V \ /\ \ Recollections of a Red-headed Man BY IRA M. BOS WELL "A glad heart maketh a cheerful countenance.' "A cheerful heart is a good medicine." i CINCINNATI THE STANDARD PUBLISHING COMPANY Copyright, 1915 The Standard Publishing Company DEDICATION To Transylvania, the oldest university west of the Alleghanies ; and to the multitude of Alumni who have made her name honorable in every calling and profession of life; and to the Professors who have so efficiently exercised themselves in their noble calling, this little volume is lovingly dedicated by the author in apprecia- tion of the benefit derived while a student in her classic halls. CONTENTS PACK INTRODUCTION 7 I. MY FIRST AND OTHER PANTS 17 II. CHILLS 24 III. SWIMMING 28 IV. RED HAIR 38 V. CALLED TO PREACH 53 VI. MY FIRST CHRISTMAS IN THE UNIVERSITY 62 VII. THE HOUSE OF BISHOPS 70 VIII. STUDYING NATURAL SCIENCE 76 IX. AN INVITATION TO DINNER 81 5 6 CONTENTS X. PAGS JUST BECAUSE I AM RED-HEADED 87 XI. TWENTY MILES FROM A RAILROAD 98 XII. SOCIAL LIFE IN THE UNIVERSITY 110 XIII. VACATION EXPERIENCES 122 XIV. ORATORY IN THE UNIVERSITY 133 XV. ONE MORE WORD AND I AM DONE.. . 141 INTRODUCTION It is good to be born. This statement will not be contradicted except by some dis- putatious dyspeptic, whose morbific diges- tive apparatus transforms him into such an advocate of the objective case as to make it impossible for him to agree even with the food he eats. This is a good and beautiful world and I am glad I was born into it; so were the human sharks, who live on the little fish, glad that another sucker was born. Our start in life depends upon our birth; but life in its enjoyments and useful- ness depends in no small degree upon the liver, and the liver depends upon the life. To begin these recollections with my birth may seem trite and unnecessary. My only excuse for so doing is, that is when and where I got my start in life. I have always looked upon my first birthday as the most important, and, taking every- thing into consideration, the most necessary one in the long and eventful series. With- out it the others would have been impossi- 8 INTRODUCTION ble, and these recollections would have been lost to the world. When I was born I was too young to understand this, and conse- quently did not appreciate the importance of the occasion. Had I known I was to write these recollections, I would have im- proved my opportunities then and since; and not only would I have had more recollections, but what in many cases is, perhaps, mere hearsay, would be knowl- edge. I am satisfied that few know just when and where to draw the line between early recollections and family traditions. I take this position because my observation, not experience, has shown me that in later life so many have difficulty in drawing the line between fancies born in the imagination and facts belonging to real experience. Among this class are those natural-born musicians who blow their own horn and play their own lyre. Most of these are like the trombone-player in the band which was leading a funeral procession. In the midst of the most beautiful and solemn part of the music he suddenly let out a blast which came nearly stampeding the proces- sion. When the bandmaster demanded the reason for such an unseemly effort he ex- cused himself by saying: "A horsefly lit on INTRODUCTION 9 my music. I thought it was a note, and determined to play it, if it burst my horn." I blush to admit that unbiased and re- liable witnesses testify that I spent the day of my birth in contemplative silence, refus- ing to speak to any one. I admit that such behavior was not becoming in the honoree of such an event, but, in extenuation of my failure to do the polite thing, I plead igno- rance, inexperience, and the further facts that I had never read a subscription-book on "Etiquette," nor taken a course in a correspondence school on "How to Behave in Polite Society." I started in life just where every other man except Adam started; but there were many advantageous circumstances that were peculiar to me. For these circumstances nor for my start In life do I claim any credit or praise. I am glad of this, for it has been hard enough for me to pay for all the other things I have gotten credit for since my birth. I had nothing whatever to do with selecting the place and date of my birth, nor the choosing of my father and mother. I am profoundly thankful that these matters were taken entirely out of my hands. When I was a baby children did 10 INTRODUCTION not have as much to do with the control of parents as now. I rejoice at this, for I tremble to contemplate what might have been the consequences had I been consulted. I was too young and inexperienced to take a wise interest in such matters. I have made so many mistakes since then that I am satisfied that I would have made a botch of the whole thing. Besides, I might have decided not to have been born at all, which, of course, would have ruined my whole life, and materially reduced the world's supply of red hair. I was ushered into this world not quite thirteen months after the South, personified in Lee, returned her unbroken and un- stained sword to its historic and honorable scabbard, never to be withdrawn save to protect the downtrodden of the earth or to defend the "Stars and Stripes" from being torn by foreign foes or desecrated by the polluting touch of ungrateful traitors. My people my kinsfolk and the people of my native State had returned from battlefields where they had proved their valor and sus- tained their honor, and were patiently, loy- ally and heroically rebuilding their ruined homes, reclaiming their wasted fields, and recovering their lost fortunes, before a INTRODUCTION 11 Southern mother held me in her arms, taught me to love the old South, to have hope in the New South, and to be true to our reunited country. I am thankful that the beautiful, tender and patriotic stories of the "Stars and Bars" and of the thin, hun- gry, ragged regiments of "Gray" told me by my parents always increased my love for the "Stars and Stripes"; for did not my ancestors brighten those stars with heroic deeds and make red those stripes with their blood? I was born neither in a cabin nor a pal- ace, but in a home. It was a comfortable cottage, owned by my father, and situated in one of the most beautiful little cities God ever smiled upon. The memories of my youth are mixed with the odor of roses and magnolias, with songs of mocking-birds and floods of sunshine, and, better still, with kisses from lips that are now singing with the angels. Had the wisdom of Solomon been mine, and had it been in my power to select my parents, I could not have made a better choice. My continual and earnest desire is that my life be worthy of them. Sweet as chimes at eventide are the recol- lections of my home. The memories of those beautiful, far-off days are like echoes 12 INTRODUCTION "That touch and thrill the listening heart, And make a thousand memories start From valleys slumber-bound." Like the mocking-bird's serenade that used to waken me in the early morning, they awaken the vanished moments that lie asleep upon the trundle-bed of long ago. I am a child again. All day long, without a care, I romp beneath soft Southern skies. The sun is set, the shadows creep along the ground, with fluttering, rapid wings the swallows circle above the housetops and dip into the open, hospitable chimneys. The stars merrily twinkle their good-night kisses to me as I go into the house to find mother. I always found her. My supper over, I kneel at her side. With her hand upon my head, she teaches me to say: "Now I lay me down to sleep, And pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep; If I should die before I wake, I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take." A few minutes more and my tired little limbs rest in slumber's sweet repose. As I sleep, guardian angels, with faces like fa- ther's and mother's, bend above my pillow. Ever have their dear faces been my light; their blessed hearts, my comfort, and their noble lives, my strength and example. There is no better place on earth to be INTRODUCTION 13 born than Columbus, Mississippi. True, that is the only place I was ever born, but I was born there. I am glad the stork took me to my native city. I would as soon be a man without a country as not to have been born in my native State. It is worth being twins just to get to be born there twice. Columbus is noted for her beautiful homes, her shaded, flower-bor- dered streets, and her cultured, refined and intelligent citizens. It is indeed a famous city. Her fame, however, does not rest alone upon the fact that I was born there. One of her principal streets is the old "Mili- tary Road," cut in 1815 by General Jackson on his way from New Orleans to the Presi- dency. In 1540, De Soto, on his way to his grave in the Mississippi, crossed the Tombigbee River at this place. Little did these two great men, as they blazed their way through the trackless wilderness with axes, realize that in the years to come, not far from the place where, perhaps, their roads crossed, would a baby be born who was to blaze his way through the world with his hair. Besides being the place of my birth, Columbus is unique in another thing. It was here that the good women, whose loved 14 INTRODUCTION ones had been offered as a sacrifice upon the altar of war, strewed flowers upon the graves of the Blue and Gray alike. This act of heroic impartiality was the first of its sort in the history of the world. The soldiers of the North were in command of the city. Tears still trembled upon the sorrowing eyelids of the South. The wounds of war were still bleeding through many thousand crimson lips. At first some difficulty was encountered by the women in getting permission to decorate the graves of the Confederate soldiers as the officer in command of the Federal troops feared a riot might result. Permission, however, was finally granted. When the roses and lilies had been lovingly strewed upon the graves of their loved ones, these noble women, whose crushed hearts went out in sympathy to the lonely, sorrowing hearts of their sisters on the other side of the struggle, turned from their own sad graves and placed lilies and roses upon the graves of the soldiers of the army that had brought them defeat and devastation. That was a victory. The glory of it will never be for- gotten, but will forever be among the most precious treasures of the South. There was no spirit of riot or revenge there, and when INTRODUCTION 15 the commander saw the magnanimous un- selfishness of the true Southern heart, he ordered the soldiers, who were there with loaded guns to quell the expected riot, to fire a salute of honor over the graves of the Confederate dead. His was the heart of the soldier. The superb act of these women has been immortalized in verse by the Northern poet, F. M. Finch. "By the flow of an inland river, Whence the fleets of iron have fled, Where the blades of the grave grass quiver, Asleep in the ranks of the dead: Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment-day, Under the one, the Blue, Under the other, the Gray. "These in the robings of glory, Those in the gloom of defeat, All with the battle-blood gory, In the dusk of eternity meet: Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment-day, Under the laurel, the Blue, Under the willow, the Gray. "From the silence of sorrowful hours, The desolate mourners go, Lovingly laden with flowers, Alike for the friend and the foe: Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment-day, Under the roses, the Blue, Under the lilies, the Gray. 16 INTRODUCTION "Sadly, but not with upbraiding, The generous deed was done; In the storm of the year that was fading, No braver battle was won. Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment-day. Under the blossoms, the Blue, Under the garlands, the Gray. "No more shall the war-cry sever, Or the winding river be red; They banish our anger forever When they laurel the graves of our dead. Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment-day, Love and tears for the Blue, Tears and love for the Gray. "So with an equal splendor The morning sun rays fall, With a touch impartially tender, On the blossoms blooming for all. Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment-day, Broidered with gold, the Blue, Mellowed with gold, the Gray. "So when the Summer calleth On forest and field of grain, With an equal murmur falleth The cooling drops of the rain : Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment-day, Wet with the rain, the Blue, Wet with the rain, the Gray." I. MY FIRST AND OTHER PANTS. Long before my mustache had pushed itself into the public eye, or had done any- thing to merit being called down, I fell in love. But with no desire to pluck the tini- est feather from the busy wings of Cupid, nor to take the exquisite and illusive tickling from the dart of that daring and paradox- ical little god, who transforms the cob pipes of old bachelors into rattlers and turns the love of old maids from cats to cradles that little god who builds homes out of hearts, gilds a cabin into a palace, strews the path of youth with roses, and mellows old age with music, I unhesitatingly assert that the most thrilling and impressive ex- perience in a boy's life is not his first love affair, but his first pair of pants. Few can remember the first time love entered their hearts, but no one forgets the first time he enters pants. Looks have much to do with a boy's falling in love, but with pants it is different. 2 IT 18 RECOLLECTIONS OF The material out of which the pants are made is not material to him, and the cut of the pattern cuts no figure with him, regard- less of the figure he cuts in the pants. Pants is pants. A little boy, who lived not far from me, got his first pair of pants a week or two before I got mine. They were the first pair of reversible pants I ever saw. They almost discouraged me, as I was afraid the style might become epidemic in my neighborhood. It was said that his mother laid him down on the cloth and cut the pants to fit. He always looked as if he had just had a fit. The only way you could tell which way he was going when he was standing still was to note which way his toes were pointing. You could not tell by his face, for every time he would look down he would think he was going the wrong way, and would turn his face the other di- rection. He frequently made himself dizzy trying to adjust his face to his pants a per- formance that resembled a dog trying to catch up with his tail. Many times his mother could not tell whether he was re- turning from school or just starting. But he was proud of his pants. Notwithstand- ing their twinlike appearance, they had two advantages. If he put them on wrong side A RED-HEADED MAN 19 before, he did not have to take them off; and his mother often got out of the notion of whipping him by the time she located the proper place to apply the slipper. One day my mother sent to a Mrs. Smith's to borrow a pair of her son Billy's pants to use as a pattern for a pair for me. Mother tried them on me to see about the fit. She saw about it; for I had one when she made an effort to extract me from the pants. I did a Marathon all over the house, up stairs and down stairs. Running sort of ran in our family. I was some runner when I had an incentive. Mother was some in- centive. She was some runner herself. It was not long before I found myself in her lap with my body bent at a right angle just the right angle for the proper applica- tion of a slipper. As I now recall the mat- ter, those were the warmest pants I ever wore. At the time I wished that Billy was in them and I was in a cooler pair. Since then I have often heard of the seat of war, and I am satisfied now those pants contained one. The first time I heard a band play "A Hot Time in 'the Old Town To-night" I was convinced that my mother originated the tune the day she played upon my anat- omy with her slipper, only the words of my 20 RECOLLECTIONS OF song would have been "A Hot Time in Billy's Pants To-day." Like most of the mothers of that day, my mother had rather old-fashioned notions about the fit of a boy's clothes. She always insisted on my having them large enough to allow for my growth. Her allowance was rather liberal. She seemed to think that if they should fit me when they were new, I would burst them before they were worn- out. This economic principle of hers kept me a year behind my clothes. By the time they would fit me they were worn-out. I really think I stunted myself trying to grow fast enough to catch up with my clothes. The only parts of my body that did their duty in the growing line were my feet. They rather overdid the thing. It made no difference how big I got my shoes, they were too little for me before they quit squeaking. By the way, I wonder what has become of all the squeaks they used to put in boys' shoes? I suppose they are with the dear old copper-toed, red-top boots. It made no difference how hard I tried, I never caught up with my clothes. One of the first resolutions I formed was to use the first money I could get to buy me a suit of clothes that would fit my A RED-HEADED MAN 21 body and meet the requirements of my rather exuberant taste. When I was about fifteen years of age the janitor of our church gave up his job, and I secured it. The treasurer of the church was in the clothing business. I was in luck. He was to keep the money, and when there ;vas sufficient to my credit I was to select a suit of clothes and have them all to myself. Caesar was no more elated over crossing the Rubicon than was I the Saturday night I went down to select my suit. The clerk that sold me the suit earned his money. I was hard to satisfy, but by bedtime I had all selected and concealed in my room. I slept about as well that night as a boy usually does the night before the circus comes to town. That was one Sunday morn- ing I did not have to be called. I was up before the worm had fallen a victim to the early bird. When I got into my clothes and looked in the mirror, the object that con- fronted me was as gorgeous as a peacock. Narcissus was no more pleased with his reflection in the stream than I with mine in the mirror. My straw hat was the color of a ripe strawberry. My coat and vest were green, and my pants were a delicate cream. My head swam for joy. The room 22 RECOLLECTIONS OF was too small for my glory, so I went out into the back yard to practice for my grand entrance to the breakfast-table. Pride comes before a fall. My fall was a climb. In the egotism of self-satisfaction I had forgotten to take into consideration our old family dog. Tige and I had been brought up together. We had almost eaten out of the same plate, but he failed to recog- nize his old friend. My suit was too much for him, and he treated me as a stranger. His greeting, while strenuous, was not cor- dial. I soon saw he was in no humor for argument, and I was forced to take refuge on top of the flower-pit. There I roosted until his continual racket woke up the family. They rescued me. When they got a good view of me and my clothes, Tige's remarks seemed simple and gentle com- pared with what they had to say. My father's oration was hardly compatible with a Sabbath morning and his position as an elder in the church. Tige's real name was Adah, but, because of her unladylike behavior, I decided to give her a fictitious name in order to pro- tect her reputation. This experience with my first selection of a suit did not create any prejudice in A RED-HEADED MAN 23 my heart against clothes, but it did to a con- siderable degree subdue my taste. From that day I ceased to be so tropical in the selection of my clothes. But I must confess that no suit has ever given me the pleasure that one did when I first put it on. 24 RECOLLECTIONS OF II. CHILLS. Besides spring fever and falling in love, I had all the other diseases to which a boy is heir. However, as well as I now recall, none proved fatal. In this regard I was more fortunate than a painter that used to live in my town. He fought in the Civil War and was a brave soldier. One day some one asked him whether or not he was wounded during the war. "Yes," was his reply, "I was wounded seven times, and six of them was fatal." What I missed in fatality I made up in number and variety. However, I had rather have divers diseases than fatal ones. They are more easily cured. If I should catalogue all the dis- eases I had when I was a boy, it would read like a medical dictionary or a hospital pro- gram on a parade. At one time it seemed that I would soon exhaust the catalogue, and no doubt I would have done so, had not a large number of new diseases been invented or imported. By the way, diseases A RED-HEADED MAN 25 are the only thing the Republican party has never put a tariff on. They have made up for this oversight by putting the tariff on medicine and coffins. My hospitality toward all the ills of the flesh was so noted that I was always one of first to entertain any disease that came to town. I got so I felt slighted and lone- some if there was not something the matter with me, and my folks would think that if I was not sick, I was seriously ill. I am glad to say I never had any bones broken. How- ever, I did crack my voice trying to lift a tune, and I frequently strained my veracity handling excuses for the non-performance of my daily chores. The nearest I ever came to going into the show business was when a spell of colic made a contortionist out of me. My mother hardly ever locked me up that I did not break out with something. While it is true that I had the habit of taking every disease that came along, I can not say that I enjoyed any of them. I found smallpox to be a humorous disease without being the least bit funny. But the meanest and most contemptible thing I had when I was a boy was chills. I have no respect for chills. I have tried them and know what I am talking about. 26 RECOLLECTIONS OF Take my advice and have nothing to do with chills. They will disappoint you. As soon as you think they are your friend, they will shake you. They are the earthquakes of the human body, and will shake all the sympathy out of your system. They will make you a terror to the beauty doctors, and dislocate your disposition. They stick to you like poverty, and are as hard and costly to get rid of. Like poverty, they seem to descend in some families from gen- eration to generation. They won't make you any more friends than will poverty, and they frequently cause you to shake off the friends you do have. I had chills for several years. I felt a little selfish and unappreciative continually having chills, when there were scores of chill tonics advertised by the people who manufactured them as being sure cures for chills. They may have cured chills of their troubles. All that tackled me seemed to be healthful. However, they never cured me of chills. I do not know what they put in the tonics, but I am satisfied they used a good deal of lie in the printer's ink when they advertised. The most radical treatment I took was a liver-pad. I did not particularly fancy its A RED-HEADED MAN 27 odor, still it did not enter my head that it would be serious. The minute I put it on I began to lose my friends. Even the druggist who sold it to me seemed anxious to be rid of me before other customers came into his store. My appearance in a crowd always meant the disappearance of the crowd. No one knew I was wearing a liver-pad, hence everybody looked upon me with suspicion. My immediate family, of course, knew it, but they never took me to their bosom as in the farmer days, and were unanimous in their opinion that I should sleep in the woodshed. The Board of Health looked as if they wanted to quarantine me, and the undertaker seemed to think I had cheated him out of a job. Thinking the absent treatment would be efficacious, I finally threw the pad away; but for a long time I found the words of the poet to be true: You may air all your clothes, And bathe as you will ; But the scent of the liver-pad Clings to you still. 28 RECOLLECTIONS OF III. SWIMMING. All my time, however, was not taken up taking down medicine. Like most normal boys, I hunted and fished, played ball and hookey, went to Sunday school and the circus; but I never learned to swim that is, with my whole body. My head could always swim. Perhaps I am the only boy that ever grew up in Columbus that did not learn to swim. Most of them naturally took to water, but not to soap. The mothers of most of the boys I knew had to whip them into the bath-tub, and whip them out of the swimming-hole. We were surrounded by swimming-holes. Blue Rock, just above the county bridge across the Tombigbee, and Gravel Hole and Sand Hole, a little farther up the river, near the island, and the one near the fish- trap in Luxapalila Creek, were the most popular when I was a boy. Most any after- noon in the summer they were like glove- cases full of undressed kids. A RED-HEADED MAN 29 On the bluff above the river between Blue Rock and Gravel Hole there used to be an artesian well, all that was left of the old Simon's mill. They had torn the old mill down before my time, but had for- gotten or failed to pull up the well. It was, as I now recall it, a twelve-inch pipe extending about thirty inches above the ground, with a hole near the top to allow the water to escape. By placing your hand over the hole the water would run over the top, and you could bury your face in the clear, cold water and drink. How good that water was, only a thirsty boy with his face hot and flushed from the race for the first drink, can know. It used to refresh me clear down to the stone bruise on my heel. How like the old well are the springs of kindness that refresh our bruised hearts and weary souls after the hard knocks and bumps which life and unappreciative livers so often deal us. On both sides of the road of deep sand over which we had to go to reach the old fish-trap there grew in wild profusion a speary cactus, which we called "prickly pear." Those of us who were not too old went barefooted and always kept in the middle of the road to avoid the cactus. 30 RECOLLECTIONS OF But, in order to have fun, some of the older boys, who wore shoes, would bury cactus in the sand. It was selfish fun, and all on the side of the fellow with shoes. The boy with spears from the cactus in his feet never joined in the laugh. The world is full of fellows who laugh and live on the hurt of others. I have always enjoyed fun, and I love to laugh; but I never enjoyed fun that hurt the other fellows, nor found it opportune to laugh when others cried. Life's road has enough thorns in it without burying more to wound the feet of the tired pilgrim, and the one who laughs along the way, gathering noth- ing but flowers of pleasure, will find thorns enough without my scattering any more. There is sufficient wholesome fun in the world for us to get our share without wringing laughter from the tears of others. Give me mirth and money with no stain of blood from another's bruised and murdered joys and hopes. I am no poet. The following lines make the confession superfluous. However, I offer the poem, not as evidence of my not being a poet, but to show what Luxapalila Creek seems to me as I look back through the years that lie between now and the time A RED-HEADED MAN 31 I used to try to fish and swim in its hos- pitable waters. If these lines do not tell the truth about the creek, it is the years that lie and not the author. 'Tis sweet to stand at close of day And watch the lights and shadows play On Lux'palila's lovely banks, Where lilies grow in fragrant ranks, And waters eddy 'round the knees Of shady, silent cypress-trees. On every side sweet jess'mine dwells And perfume shakes from yellow bells; With crimson wings the redbird cleaves A path of flame through the willow leaves, While in the waters, cool and deep, The shadows of the landscape sleep. His blazoned armor all aglow, The dragon-fly flits to and fro; The swallows skim along the stream, Their ebon pinions all agleam With drops of water, jewels rare, Quivering in the golden air. The mocking-bird's last serenade Sounds from the beech-tree's cooling shade, And just beyond the water-mill Is heard the plaintive whip-po'-will, While close beside the old mill-race The bullfrog sounds his tuneful bass. The evening shadows softly lie, A holy silence from the sky, On Lux'palila's dark'ning stream, And the rising moon, with silver gleam, Shoots through the shadows, soft and bright, Swift arrows from her bow of light. 32 RECOLLECTIONS OF My mother was a most peculiar woman. She would never obey me, but insisted on my obeying her. Such a situation would be very embarrassing for some children I know. I feel sorry for parents whose chil- dren are too strict with them. My mother had a very stubborn disposition. When I went barefooted, notwithstanding my plea that my feet would get just as dirty the next day, she made me wash them every night before I went to bed, and when I would elude her vigilance and slip into bed with my feet carefully deposited in a chair so as not to get the sheets dirty, she would pull me out and make me wash them. I frequently, in my sleepy resentment, wished I did not have feet, but I got some comfort by thinking what a time I would have if I were a centipede's little boy. It is strange how much comfort we get out of the mis- fortunes of others. Somehow mother was never afraid of me, nor was she too up to date to discard that old-fashioned motto: Spare the slipper and spoil the boy. Many a boy has been cured of what might have been a fatal ailment by the skillful and opportune application of a slipper poultice. A slipper is often a boy's best friend. I have known several that possessed warm A RED-HEADED MAN 33 and lively souls, and personal contact with their activities has left its impress. Even after I was big enough to wear suspenders and take personal interest in keeping my ears clean, my mother still took a great deal of interest in me; and never seemed satisfied unless she knew where I was going and where I would be when I got there, and had some idea of what I was doing when I reached where I was going. She would not often let me go where I was going unless she knew I could do what I was going to do, if I went where I was going to go. The above is one reason why I never learned to swim. When I would ask her to let me go in swimming with the boys, she would ask me if I could swim. I would answer in the negative. Then she would look at me, and while her hand rested upon the sewing she was doing for some member of the family, perhaps a jacket for me, she would say: "No, you can't go this time. Wait till you learn how to swim." With rebellious heart I would go out into the front yard to wait for the boys to come by on their way to the fish-trap. Soon they would come trooping by. What a merry crowd they were and how lustily they would 34 RECOLLECTIONS OF yell, "Come on, Peckerwood, let's go in swimming." But I would choke back my tears, and with a brave voice say, "Nope." "Why?" would come the response, as a crowd of insinuating eyes and sarcastic smiles would show through the palings of the fence. "Because I don't wan'ter," would be the reply, all the time the desire in my heart branding as false the words on my lips. With a laugh and a shout they would rush on their way, flinging back at me as they ran, "You can't; you are tied to your mammy's apron-strings, that's why." When they were gone I would throw myself down, dig my toes in the dirt, beat the earth with my fists, and in my bitter disappointment and misunderstanding cry out against the tyranny of my mother, and try to break the apron-strings. There was treason in my heart against the best friend and the wisest counselor a boy ever had my mother. Anarchy reigned and bade me overthrow the government of my queen, untie or break the apron-strings and disobey her laws. But her loving fingers had tied the strings around my heart with a love-knot, and the harder I tried to untie them the tighter they tied. These strings were always long enough to let me go where there was good, A RED-HEADED MAN 35 clean, wholesome fun, and no boy ever had a happier childhood; but they were too short to allow me to go where she thought there was any physical or moral danger. I now know she knew best what was good for her boy. Her laws were born in love and executed with an eye single to the wel- fare of her children. If she made mistakes, they were mistakes of overcautious love. Those apron-strings belonged to the apron she wore when she toiled to make my childhood happy and my manhood worthy. I have seen them in the kitchen, I have seen them when fever burnt my little body, and when I was tired and she took me in her lap I could feel the apron-strings as my arms went around her waist. Yes, I was tied to my mother's apron-strings. I was sometimes ashamed of it when I was a boy, but I am proud of it now. When I left home to make my own way in the world I could always feel the tug of my mother's apron-strings, pulling and keeping me tied to home and its helpful influences, and as long as they pulled I could never get far from that which is pure and sweet and good in life. Mother used to meet me at the gate when I went home. But when sickness laid 36 RECOLLECTIONS OF a heavy hand upon her and took her strength, she first met me at the door, but later on she waited for me in her big arm- chair. The last time I went to see her she had gone home before I could reach her, and her body waited in the casket beneath the flowers. The apron-strings still tie me to her just as tight and strong as when I was a little boy, but they do not hurt me now. God pity the child whose mother has no apron-strings, or who, if she has them, has failed to tie them hard and fast about the hearts of her children. The world is fast ; I'm weary of its pace, And long to see my darling mother's face. A picture of that face, most wonderfully fair, Is hanging in my heart in its frame of silver hair. That face that used to bend so gently o'er my bed, And soothe with mother-patience my little aching head. How often when a child I have dreamed and waked with fear, But I found the loving face of my precious mother near. And when through sore temptations I have wandered in the night, That face has been a beacon to lead me back to light. And since like gay-winged birds my childhood days have flown, With Jacob I have often laid my head upon a stone. And when soft-fingered Sleep has closed my tired eyes, God dropped his golden ladder down through the dark- ened skies, A RED-HEADED MAN 37 And angels soft descending with outstretched wings of white Would change to glorious day-songs my sorrows of the night. Then my heart would fill with joy as I listened to their song- May God forgive the error, if what I say is wrong^- But among that band of angels there were none that could compare With the face of dear old mother and her crown of silver hair. Yes, mother, I am weary of the world and all its show ; Come now and sit beside me as you used to long ago; Place close upon my cheek, with its marks of worldly care, Your face with all its wrinkles and your wealth of silver hair. 38 RECOLLECTIONS OF IV. RED HAIR. As these are the recollections of a red- headed man, I think it proper that some- thing should be said about hair in general and red hair in particular. Without hair, history would indeed be a bald subject. Hair and civilization are very closely rela- ted, as much so as clothing and civilization: for they both perform the same office, and desire for either is a proper indication of a rise in the scale of being. Just as Samson lost his strength with the loss of his hair, will civilization cease with the passing of hair. Blessings and honor have been heaped upon the man who makes two blades of grass grow where once only one grew; but immeasurable wealth and untold honors await the man who can produce a hair-re- storer that will restore hair that has with- drawn from view, or that will induce a new growth to appear. Color will not be con- sideration. It is hair that is wanted. A learned writer says: "The Argonautic A RED-HEADED MAN 39 Expedition (1263 B. C.) forms a sort of separation point between the fabulous and the authentic." This is as much as to say that Grecian civilization had its birth about the time search was made for the "Golden Fleece." Many attempts have been made to explain this beautiful myth. Some think it had reference to the raw silk of the East; others, that it refers to the custom of col- lecting the gold that washed down from the side of the mountains by placing sheepskins in the beds of the streams; and still others, to the beautiful sunlight. My own opinion is that "Golden Fleece" refers to red hair. We all know that raw silk, fine gold and sunlight are beautiful and poetic expressions often used when referring to red hair. I think the myth had its foundation in the following version of the story, which I offer as my contribution to "subjective history." Pelias was a bald-headed old king, who in his later days became somewhat civilized. He then became ashamed of the nude con- dition of his head. He objected to wearing his hair after the style of the split skirt, and longed for a wig. Red hair being then, as now, the most beautiful and suitable for civilized man, he attempted to scalp Jason, who was possessed of an abundant crop of 40 RECOLLECTIONS OF "Golden Fleece." Like all red-headed men, Jason was able to take care of himself. He slew Pelias, and from that day to this the baldheads have had it in for the redheads. In beginning these recollections I said it was good to be born. I now add that it is better to be well born, and better still to be born red-headed. I speak from personal experience; for I was born red-headed, and have never gotten over it. Unlike a bald- headed man, I have held my own. Being a birthday present, I have never desired to get rid of it, and on account of its color it has been of considerable use to me. Red- headed men, like poets, are born, not made. This can not be truthfully said of all red- headed women. Most red-headed men get their red hair from some ancestor, but a great many women get theirs from some drugstore or hair-house. They may say it is false. I agree with them. For some reason, men are prejudiced against red hair, and some go so far as to say they had rather be bald-headed than red-headed. They should be patient and give nature a chance to do her complete work. They have their rathers, and if they will only possess themselves with patience, the baldness will soon work through and A RED-HEADED MAN 41 show on the outside. Good heads, like good books, ought to be red. In the color of my hair I am strenuous. The fact is, if to be red-headed is a sin, I am afraid I have committed an unpardon- able one. But if red hair is a sin, I am not to be held responsible; for it would be a case of being born in sin, a matter of hair- edity. When I was a child an artist wanted me to sit as model for an angel. My pretty face and long red curls were angelic, but pay, persuasion nor punishment could make an angel of me, not even a model for a pic- ture angel. I doubt if there be any red- haired angels outside the realm of art. I am glad I have red hair, and plenty of it. I am glad it is genuine red. I never liked faded hair, nor a head with a big cleared place on top and just a fringe of red hair around the outer edge of the clearing. One looks as if he tried and couldn't, and the other, that he couldn't, if he tried. I heard of a bald-headed man, a good many years ago, who had a little hair just above each ear. He was riding on the train, and behind him was a man from the great State of Texas. Every few minutes the bald- headed man would reach up and scratch first above one ear, then above the other. 42 RECOLLECTIONS OF This performance made the Texan nervous. Finally he reached the end of his endurance, and, reaching over, touched the bald- headed man on the shoulder and said: "See here, pardner, if you will drive them up in the clearing, I will help you kill them." I do not tell this story because it is new or original, but because it comes under this head. I like red hair, but I draw the line on red whiskers. When I was a very little boy I used to say when I grew up I wanted to be a great big man and have whiskers that would drag the ground. However, that was before I knew that my whiskers would have to be the same color as my hair, and long before I had any full realization of color values, and before I had personally felt the prejudice of others against red hair. The full force of what I would look like with red whiskers came to me one day when I saw a man from the country with a shock of red hair and whiskers to match. It was a hairassing sight. The whiskers began at one ear and ran their fiery course clear around to the other. He was riding a tan- colored mule, and looked like the sun, mounted and ready for his diurnal race across the skies. It was the smashing of A RED-HEADED MAN 43 one of my childhood ambitions. Then and there I determined never to have whiskers, and have escaped only by a close shave. I have been frequently asked, "What makes your hair so red?" My usual answer is, "Blushing at the fool questions asked me." This answer may not be scientific, but it is simple and very satisfactory to me. Sometimes I say: "My dear sir, the color of my hair is perfectly natural to the hair itself. From the day of my birth to the present there has not been an infinitesimal deviation in the shade of a single hair from the standard of redness. I conclude, there- fore, that it is, as I have said, naturally red. From my study of hairological chro- matics I have come to the conclusion that this natural condition of color is caused by the pigmentary contents of the cellular tis- sue of the hair follicle. This follicle is, as you know, a bulbous depression in the cutis. In my case this colorific oil is blood red." However, this nearly always brings on an argument, and the world knows that red- headed people are constitutionally opposed to any sort of controversy. To be perfectly frank, I do not know just what makes it so red. The first time I ever saw it it was just as red as it is now. Red hair seemed 44 RECOLLECTIONS OF to run in our family. At least, it did when any member of the family got after me. Strange as it may seem, if it did run, it was fast. Color is caused by the vibration of ether. The longest and slowest vibrations make red. It may be that some heads are so superior to others that light lingers longer about them and strokes them with long and tender touches as if loth to leave. Candidly, the best explanation I can give for my red hair is that one of my ances- tors had scarlet fever and it settled in my hair. The man who is so unfortunate as to have any other hair than red has one advan- tage, he can mix and mingle with multitudes and scarcely be noticed, but red hair attracts immediate attention wheresoever it may go. It is prominent among a few and can not be lost in a host. It is impossible for a red- headed man to pass through this world without having to run the gauntlet of all the eyes and tongues in the neighborhood. He is like a red flag in a pasture full of bulls. From my youth up I have been a target at which every archer seemed to think himself predestined and foreordained to shoot. Few of them have ever run the risk of falling from grace. So, do not A RED-HEADED MAN 45 blame a red-headed man for being a porcu- pine. His quills are the arrows which have been shot into him. These arrows reach the quick in thin-skinned people, and they are always sore and sensitive. I have been through it all. For a long time such things raised my temperature to that of a pepper- box. When I first entered school I felt it a matter of duty to at least try to lick any and every one who had anything to say regard- ing the color of my hair. I made many manly efforts. Such tactics, however, were not pursued by me to the end of my first school year. I was in the repair-shop too often to make it profitable, and I got licked with such Russian regularity that I was neither a comfort to myself nor an honor to my family. A strange thing happened in one of my encounters. I went into the fight with two blue eyes and came out with two black ones. I never had a very long nor prominent nose, but it was exceedingly pugnacious. When I got into a difficulty I could not restrain it from jamming itself against my adversary's fist. It did not hurt the fist, and to protect my nose I decided to trust no longer to brawn, but to brains. I soon learned to smile when an arrow hit me, pull it out, increase it to a harpoon, and 46 RECOLLECTIONS OF let the sender have it back. I always select- ed a vital spot. One of the earliest recollections of my childhood is of a man saying to me, "Sonny, run home and tell your pa he can cut down his grocery bill by putting you on a stump and letting the peckerwoods feed you." If his statements were true, red hair might solve the problem of the high cost of living. I did not run home, but I did then and there hope he would not die until I grew up and was big enough to whip him. In strange places and among people I had never seen before I have been embarrassed by hearing on all sides from certain fellows such ex- pressions as these: "My! look at that head." "Behold the king of the pecker- woods." "Did you say 'fire'?" "Send in the alarm." If a healthy, robust idea should by accident stray into the head of one such fellow as these, it would die of the blues from sheer loneliness and lack of exercise. How do you think you would feel if some fellow pretended to use your head as a cigar-lighter? When I have attended church I have had those by whom I took my seat complain of the sudden rise of tempera- ture, and they would, with much smiling at their originality, begin to fan themselves A RED-HEADED MAN 47 most vigorously. I took my sweetheart to church one night, and two of my rivals sat down just behind me, and opened up a blacksmith-shop, using my head for the forge. One day before I was old enough to vote, I went to Natchez, Mississippi. On my way uptown from the depot I passed by a dealer in second-hand humor. There are a host of such dealers in the world. This one was of that age when the sap begins to flow through the head, and is often mis- taken for mental activity. His sign was a chestnut with a worm rampant. As I was peaceably passing by, this excavator of "Prehistoric" wit called out, "Where is the white horse?" Quickly turning, I replied, "I am a stranger in your city and do not know where the white horse is, but if I were looking for a jackass, and had a hal- ter, I would put it on you, provided I could get it over your ears." Untrue to his kind, he did not kick. Some time after this I was in Little Rock, Arkansas. The next morning after my arrival I was arrested. The only charge against me was that I was red-headed. I came very nearly forsaking my colors and making a run for safety. I was so humil- 48 RECOLLECTIONS OF iated and despondent that I was on the verge of dyeing, or, worse still, trading hair with a bald-headed man. They arrested me on account of my head. It seems that a fellow in another part of the State had been up to some meanness and skipped out. The only thing they had by which to iden- tify him was his hair. It was red. They telegraphed it all over the State. The news, not the hair. Every time a stranger who happened to have red hair took off his hat in an Arkansas town the police depart- ment got busy. It looked every day as if they were having a torchlight procession. While in Little Rock I attended the theater one night. My seat was in the front row on the first floor, counting from the ceiling. As soon as the curtain went up, a lady came out before the footlights, looked in my direction, and went into ecstasies, dramatically exclaiming: "The moon, the moon, oh, the beautiful moon!" In the midst of her rhapsody a gentleman of such flannel-mouthed Irish variety that a drink of water would have made him shrink, rushed upon the stage and called out so that everybody in the house could hear him: "Hush up, you fool! That's no moon; that's a red-headed man in the loft." A RED-HEADED MAN 49 On a number of occasions the color of my hair has been of peculiar benefit to me. What success I have attained, what things I have accomplished, and what heights I have climbed, have resulted from the color of my head. My hair has just naturally headed me that way. Samson's strength was in the length of his hair, but mine is in the color. While in the university I was asked to speak at a Bryan rally. It was the night before the election of 1896. The hour was 12 P. M. I claim, therefore, to have made the last speech of that remark- able campaign. My youthful appearance, the lateness of the hour, and the further fact that I was introduced as a student of the university located in that city, caused an immediate stampede for the door. Only a minority got up to leave, however, as the majority had been put to sleep by the pre- vious speakers. Before they reached the door I called out: "Fellow-citizens, hear my explanation. From the color of my head you think I am a 'Gold Bug,' but I am not. My head may appear like unto gold, but it bears false witness as to my heart. Don't blame my head; it was born that way, and I can't change it unless I dye." This halted them, and they took their seats. I must 50 RECOLLECTIONS OF have made a good speech, for the next morning when I went to the polls to cast my vote, a fellow, who approached me as if he were laying a snake rail fence, and whose breath smelt like a distillery running overtime, took me by the hand and said: "Shake, pardner; I'm drunk, but you are a of an orator. You can have my vote for Congress." Poor fellow! When I looked at his dirty, disheveled hair and soiled clothes, I decided not to make the race for Congress with him as my sponsor, and as no one else has ever offered to vote for me, I have never made the race, and my seat in that august body is occupied by some other millionaire, whitewashed object, polit- ical accident, or patriot. On the 4th of July, 1899, I delivered a patriotic address in Mississippi to an audi- ence of several thousand. Many of them had small flags pinned to their waists and coats to indicate their patriotism. I told them I needed no flag to show my patriot- ism, for I was the flag incarnate. "Yes," said I, "I am a white man, the blood in my veins is blue, and my head would make the reddest stripe on the flag cry, 'Hold, enough !' ' In my public speeches I have often se- A RED-HEADED MAN 51 cured the immediate attention of my audi- ence by some reference to the color of my hair. I was always ready with it. A lady who had heard me on several occasions re- marked that one objection to me was that I never made a speech without bringing in my head. I plead guilty, but immediately exonerated her head from having anything to do with her tongue. She is not lonesome. Scores of heads, if arrested with the tongue and charged with particeps criminis, would have no trouble in proving an alibi. In the firm of Head & Tongue, Head is too often the silent partner. Though my tongue stays out a good deal, and is generally pretty busy, I nearly always send my head along as chaperone. It is my deliberate opinion that many a man's tongue has gone to our State Legislature, and even to Con- gress, and his head never heard of the election. I am also fully persuaded that a goodly number of preachers have never understood that their call was not to their tongue alone, but also to the head and heart. Too many people work overtime with the tongue and let the head overdo the vacation business. I have often been struck with the strange phenomenon of the head being sound asleep and the tongue 52 RECOLLECTIONS OF suffering with an almost incurable case of insomnia. "What God has joined together, let no man put asunder," is wholesome doctrine and "very full of comfort." I am a Shriner. I was born with a fez, and have only to tie on the black tassle. I wish to apologize to any bald-headed reader who feels hurt because I prefer red hair to no hair at all. I admit that a bald head is better than no head. In fact, they have many advantages. Barbers can cut their hair with sandpaper instead of scissors, and they furnish excellent pasturage for flies in the good old summer-time. For orna- mental purposes they are without equal for front-seat decoration at vaudevilles. We should discredit most jokes about bald heads. As a general thing, there is nothing in them. If a man wishes to wear his hair decollete, that is his business, not mine. However, I am too modest to wear mine cut as low as some I have seen. Ingrowing hair may not be as painful as ingrowing nails, but it is more observable to the general public. A RED-HEADED MAN 53 V. CALLED TO PREACH. From red hair to real religion is no very long jump. However, until I turned the tide of public opinion it was generally believed that red hair tended more toward perverseness than preaching. This slander- ous suspicion still lingers in the heads of a large number of well-meaning but deluded people. They still believe that red hair and high temper are twins. I have seen men who wore wigs, and women who wore rats, with more temper than possessed by the fellow who, if evolution be true, might have descended from a flamingo. If I could remove the above-mentioned suspicion from the heads of the aforesaid people without cracking their skulls, I could dem- onstrate to the scientist that such a thing as a vacuum does exist in nature, provided the people who hold such opinion are a part of nature. There is another class holding the same view, but as they at times show some signs of intelligence I do not think they are 54 RECOLLECTIONS OF hopelessly lost to further enlightenment. At the risk of doing violence to their cha- otic gray matter, I am going to attempt the enlargement of their information. Not many red-haired people are found in our asylums and penitentiaries, and only a few dye. They do not feel lonesome among statesmen, patriots, philanthropists, politicians, preachers, and professional base- ball players. Among the most noted war- riors they are found to be the bravest of the brave; and among runners, the swiftest of the swift. If all the great men and beau- tiful women of the past and present should remove their hats at the same time, there would be a blaze of glory all along the line. It would be a torchlight procession from Eden to the author of these recollec- tions. The biography of the red-headed men and women of the past could well be called "Beacon-lights of History." However, that I may do no violence to history, I am forced to admit that those who knew me best when I was a boy thought me too full of mischief to ever be a missionary. But you can never tell how good looking a boy is by counting his freckles. My father was an elder of the church, and when we had no preacher he A RED-HEADED MAN 55 would do the preaching. He always stood on the floor just in front of the pulpit. When he did, the future preacher in me would get the upper hand of my fear and caution, and I would slip away from mother and climb up into the pulpit. Standing where he could not see me, I would imitate his every movement, much to the delight of the young people and the mortification of my family. An old maid, who used to sit near the front, never failed to express her desire to kill me. I am extremely thankful that she failed to carry out her desire; for, if she had, it would have humiliated me at the time, and mortified me to this good day. After services, and we were at home, my father violated the "Sabbath" by run- ning a tannery. I helped him. I would hold him in his chair and furnish the hide while he did the tanning. When I was about fourteen years of age it was decided to have the young men and boys of our church lead the prayer-meetings. I accidentally overheard some of the sisters discussing the new plan. Among them was the before-mentioned old maid. They said: "John [he is my brother, and a few years older than I] will lead, but as for that Ira don't mention it." Right then I deter- 56 RECOLLECTIONS OF mined to fool them. The night John was to lead he could not be found anywhere. The next Wednesday night was my time to lead. Without John's knowledge, I bor- rowed his best tie and tallest collar. For many days I studied my subject. When the night arrived I timed my arrival at church so as to have the crowd a little uneasy and give the know-it-alls a chance to say, "I told you so." Upon my arrival, with my Bible under my arm, I marched down the aisle, took my seat and called for a song. I then turned to my father and said: "Brother Boswell, lead us in prayer." The old maid like to have fainted. She would have, but her curiosity kept her from it. The prayer-meeting was a success, and as soon as the benediction was pronounced, the good sisters rushed up to me and said: "Oh, Ira, you must lead lots of times." Stretch- ing myself to my full limit, and assuming all the dignity possible, I replied: "Not on your life. Get John; I heard what you said." My mother's heart was set on my being a preacher, and there was a sort of hazy idea in my own mind that I might enter the ministry some day. Fortunately, when I moved to Memphis they put me to work in A RED-HEADED MAN 57 the church. If there is any preacher in a boy, church work will bring it out. I never met a finer set of young people than were in the Linden Street Christian Church. Church work was a pleasure. What de- lightful days those were. The memory of them is like the rich, sweet music of chimes that keep the air tremulous with melody long after the bells are stilled. During those delightful days it was pressed in upon me that I should devote my life to my fel- low-man, doing the work my Elder Brother left for me to do. In other words, I felt my call to preach. It was not a call like Brogan had. Brogan was full of the ego- tism of ignorance, which he mistook for sanctification. He thought he was an ex- horter, but he was an exhauster. One night he gave the following account of his call: "I was a bad man, brethren and sisters a gambler and a drunkard. For twenty-five years the Lord chased me, trying to get me to preach. But I would not do it. At last he got me in a corner and I had to preach or kill myself. I made up my mind to kill myself. So I got my pistol and Bible, and, after telling my family good-by, went down into the woods. I read a chapter, prayed, put the pistol to my head, but before I could 58 RECOLLECTIONS OF pull the trigger the Lord said: 'Brogan, Brogan, do thyself no harm.' I sprang to my feet, shouting and promising God to surrender and preach." I always have doubted that story; for, notwithstanding God's seeming lack of judgment and skill in chasing Brogan twenty-five years, I am satisfied he knew no bullet would have hurt his head. At the meeting where he told this story he was remonstrated with for calling on three or four to pray at the same time, and then making so much noise him- self as to make it impossible to hear the others. He was told he could not edify the church that way. "I don't want to edify the church," was his enlightening reply; "I want to edify the Lord." There was nothing mysterious about my call. I saw that men were needed. I felt that I was one of the men needed; and friends, whose judgment I highly esteemed, told me I was fitted for the work, and if I would go to college and prepare myself, I would do good. I responded to the call of duty, and believe it was the call of God. I was in business and gave it all up. It is no small thing for a young man to change his whole course and purpose of life. Not until I had bought my ticket and was sitting A RED-HEADED MAN 59 on my trunk on the platform of the old Memphis & Charleston depot did I fully realize the step I had taken. I had been with a crowd of young people at the home of one of my dearest friends until after midnight. From there I went to the depot. It was a lonesome wait. As I sat there lis- tening to the "chug, chug" of the steam- pump and the dismal, mournful complaint of the steam as it escaped through the whis- tle on the locomotive, the world suddenly grew big, and I was alone. I was never so lonely as then. The old life was gone, the new life was yet to come. In the gloom the faces of my old friends seemed to mock me. They smiled and changed, and drifted out into the darkness. Some of them have never come back, some look down from be- yond the stars, and some, like the daguer- reotypes of old, require peculiar angles to bring them out. There were no new ones to take their places, and my whole life seemed empty. How long this feeling pos- sessed me I do not know, but, in spite of my depression, there was no regret in my heart that the step had been taken, and there never has been any. After what seemed to be an age the darkness began to lift. It was the raising 60 RECOLLECTIONS OF of the curtain for the beginning of a new act in the drama of my life. A reddish glow made itself seen above the rim of the eastern horizon and beneath the brim of my derby. Porters, travelers and other human beings were soon in evidence. The busy rumble of trucks was heard on the platform, trunks and hat-boxes were put aboard, the conductor gave his signal, and I was off for the University. A day's visit was made in Chattanooga, and again I was on my way to Lexington, Kentucky. I ar- rived late that afternoon, and went imme- diately to the home of the president of the College of the Bible. What a delightfully charming old man I found him to be. He was clean, clean through. Robert Graham was a man whose very presence was a bene- diction. The boys called him "Daddy Graham" because he took a fatherly interest in us all, and we loved him. On my way to Lexington I was greatly impressed with the beauty of the blue-grass region. It was my first experience with that famed country, and I was astonished at the large weeds which the farmers al- lowed to cover their broad and beautiful acres. Later I was informed that my weeds were hemp. Two boys on their way A RED-HEADED MAN 61 from the great State of Georgia to enter the University came to the conclusion that the hemp was the famous blue-grass about which they had heard so much. 62 RECOLLECTIONS OF VI. MY FIRST CHRISTMAS IN THE UNIVERSITY. The first Christmas eve I spent in the University was very mild, and at bedtime a drizzling rain was falling. During the night there was a sudden and decided change in the temperature. The rain turned into snow, and everything began to freeze. We were awakened during the night by the popping and crashing of the limbs of the trees out on the campus. The next morning we were greeted on every side by a scene of wonderful beauty. It was like an enchantment. The rocks and trees, hedges and bushes, fences and houses everything was covered with transparent silver. When the sun broke through the clouds, ten thousand thousand fairy suns burst from the heart of the ice in glad re- sponse, dazzling the eyes with their glorious brilliancy. Every bush was aflame with beauty and every tree was transformed into giant clusters of blazing gems. Had the rainbow been frozen and flung broadcast A RED-HEADED MAN 63 over the earth, the carnival of color could not have been more gorgeous. It looked as if dust from the celestial walls had been caught by the Frost King and frozen into jewels. Icicles, great and small, shot through with the splendor of every con- ceivable gem, glittered and sparkled along the eaves of the houses, and the most deli- cate and intricate laces had been woven by the fingers of the frost fairies and hung along the telephone and telegraph wires. It was an anthem in color. But with all this marvelous beauty there was terrible destruction. Telephone poles were broken and the wires mixed in hope- less confusion. Shade-trees were denuded of their limbs, blockading the sidewalks and narrower streets. Trolley-wires were broken and the entire street-car system had nervous prostration. The warmest-looking thing on the cam- pus that morning was my head. Early in the morning I started downtown. Up to that time my feet had dwelt together in love and unity, and my control over them had been perfect. For some reason they decided to take different routes. So secretly was this decision resolved upon, and so suddenly and energetically was it executed, I was 64 RECOLLECTIONS OF compelled to sit down at once and with con- siderable force and determination in order to regain control over my rebellious and scattered members. One of the boys, while walking in front of Morton's bookstore a few days later, lost his balance, and his feet, going straight in front of him, struck the heels of a lady who was walking just ahead of him. Nei- ther being able to keep up with their feet, both sat down. He sat on the ice, she sat in his lap. The gallant student, taking off his hat, exclaimed: "Keep your seat, Madam. Excuse me for having nothing better than my poor, miserable body to place between you and the cold earth." All honor to the University. Sir Walter Ral- eigh was outclassed by a wearer of the 'crimson." My first Christmas in the University was one of the most delightful days I ever spent. The names of most of those with whom I went, carrying cheer and help to the poor and sick, have faded from my memory, but I shall never forget the joy we got from our missions of mercy. One picture will remain with me always. It is a room on the third floor of a business block on Main Street. A crowd of happy young A RED-HEADED MAN 65 women were standing just inside the door and two strong young men are handing a big basket, heavy with good things, to two old women. One is sitting at a sewing-ma- chine, one hand on her work; the other hand is brushing tears from her wrinkled cheeks. The other woman is standing in the middle of the room with some sewing in her hands, the tears falling unheeded upon her work. Tears and smiles mingled together on their drawn, wrinkled faces.. They were sewing to pay for their Christ- mas dinner, and there was more in the basket than they could earn in a week by sewing. They could not say a word. At every effort to thank us they would choke, and have to give it up. But their tears and smiles were more eloquent than any words could have been. One of the boys spent that Christmas with some of the members of the church on which he practiced once a month. Out of respect to the ministry, he was asked to sit at the head of the table and carve the tur- key. Previous to this he had never so much as carved a sausage. Nevertheless, he grasped the knife as if he were chief butler in the dormitory of the Bible College and one of his daily and special duties was 66 RECOLLECTIONS OF carving turkeys. He made a heroic but fatal lunge at the bird. The knife flashed, the turkey slid out of the dish and rolled under the table. As the turkey hit the floor the diners rose to their feet. The carver, embarrassed and excited, and mis- understanding their alarm, in a loud voice cried out: "Brethren and sisters, please be seated. Don't be afraid; the turkey can't get away; I have my foot on him." Like the laws of the Medes and Per- sians, the bill of fare at the dormitory was never changed. The lack of change in the bill of fare was caused by the lack of change in the boarders' pockets. For the price paid, better board could not be had any- where. We knew nothing about the high cost of living, nor the cost of high living. The food was good, wholesome, well cooked and plenty of it. However, a change now and then was a very agreeable break in the gastronomic gymnastics of the boarders. This change in the natural order of things took place on Thanksgiving. All who lived in the dormitories recall with pleasure their happy experiences there, and are still aston- ished at the maximum amount of gravy the cook used to get from a minimum amount of beef. A RED-HEADED MAN 67 During Christmas week my roommate and I missed our supper at the dormitory, and had to eat at a downtown restaurant. The bill of fare was better, but the bill for the fare was bigger. We had called on some young ladies, and did not leave in time for supper at the dormitory. It was reckless to stay so long, but we had two excuses. We were enjoying the young ladies' company, and, besides, we thought we might receive an invitation to supper. When we left, my roommate said to me: "Have you any money? If so, let me have it." As it was after banking-hours, I had only a dime, which I at once let him have, refusing to take his note or to charge interest. Several blocks were walked in silence, when he gave me a most cordial in- vitation to take supper with him. I accept- ed, and in a few minutes we entered a restaurant on Mill Street and ordered a simple meal. We enjoyed it. The only drawback was a boil, which, fortunately for me, was located on my roommate. Several times we expressed the wish that some of the dormitory boys could see us putting on style. There is no great pleasure in being distinguished, if there be no one to see your distinction. 68 RECOLLECTIONS OF When the supper was ended, my room- mate walked over to the cash-register artist, and asked the amount of his bill. "One dollar," was the reply. The toothpick fell from my host's mouth as he turned to me and said: "Bee, he says it is one dollar." Calming myself, I said: "What is that to me? Am I not your invited guest?" My roommate had forty cents, and my dime made a sum total of fifty cents in the treas- ury. He looked through all his pockets at least five times, and at last turned and said: "Bee, have you any money about you?" He was fighting for time. We both knew I had no money, but my hands started on what we both knew, a priori, to be a fruit- less search. Five times I went through my pockets, seriously and earnestly, but there was not the suspicion of money to be found. There was not even the odor of money, no, not a cent. With a pained expression on his face, my host, with a faint hope that he misunderstood, again turned to the cash- ier, and said: "How much did you say?" "One dollar," was the calm reply as he edged between us and the door. "He says one dollar, Bee," my host whispered to me in a tone of chagrin and disgust. Away went our hands again on a fruitless search. A RED-HEADED MAN 69 All this time the proprietor was gazing upon us as if we were giving a sleight-of- hand performance or an exhibition of delsarte. Exhausted with the strenuous but hopeless search for money, my host handed the cashier his fifty cents, turned to the proprietor, and said: "We are students in the Bible College of the University. I thought I had enough money to pay for our suppers; but fifty cents is all I have, and that fellow says it is one dollar. Here is my watch. Keep it until I call and pay the balance." "Keep your watch," said the proprietor; "we don't sell suppers on time. You can stop in any time and pay the bal- ance." Down in our hearts we were glad none of the dormitory boys saw us in the restau- rant. To be extinguished is not so bad when no one sees your extinction. After leaving the restaurant we walked some dis- tance in silence. Finally my host put his hands on my shoulders and said: "Bee, wasn't it awful? But there is one conso- lation." "What is that?" I asked. "I will not have to have that boil lanced. Under the strain of the excitement it broke." "So did we," I replied, and we continued in silence to the dormitory. 70 RECOLLECTIONS OF VII. THE HOUSE OF BISHOPS. The comradeship of college life is one of its most valuable assets. There is a charm about it that lasts as long as the memory of college days lasts. I had many dear friends in the University, but I can not mention them all in these "Recollec- tions." However, I am going to tell about one organization of which I was a member "The House of Bishops." It was an unique club, but nothing like as theological as its name would indicate. It was not an ecclesiastical organization at all, but a social club, composed of the following fel- lows: Howard, Gano, Jesse, Dick, Ben, Newt, Charlie, Russ and the writer. It had its Genesis one night at the Phoenix Hotel while a few of us were en- joying the unusual experience of a six o'clock dinner at that well-known hostelry. Its Judges were many, and those who thought it exclusive were ready for its Exodus at any time. Its Leviticus was not A RED-HEADED MAN 71 completed at once, but was a matter of growth. When completed, its laws were as hard to change as those of the Medes and Per- sians. These laws were very simple. Its membership was not to be increased and there were no officers. Every man was equal. We were to meet once a week to enjoy a banquet which was to be given by one of the Bishops. The amount to be expended upon the banquet was limited. We were to give five dollars apiece to any and every Bishop when he married. At that time there was no especial demand for us in the matrimonial market, and each of us thought our five dollars safe. But since that law went into effect all the Bishops have married. We have all spent our five dollars and received them back again. In all but two of the homes thus formed has been heard the music of prattling tongues. The supreme object of the "Bishops" was to have the best possible time consistent with our calling and purpose in life and we had it. Howard broke the law as to banquets once at his boarding-house. It was a most elaborate spread. The big mahogany table was surrounded by the "House of Bishops." Howard, the gray 72 RECOLLECTIONS OF matter of whose head was even then stretch- ing his scalp too fast for his hair to keep up, was at the head of the table, if a round table can have a head. Dick, with a hatband bigger than his waistband, and a head full of brains; Charlie, and the musical-fingered Ben; Newt, with the valedictory as good as won, and Russ, with athletic and de- clamatory medals; big-bodied Gano, with heart as big as his body, and mind as big as his heart; scholarly Jesse, full of fun and fact; Graham, handsome, polished and brainy these were all there. Yes, I, the "fiery-crested orator," was there. But why mention it? I was like a blind man in an art gallery or a deaf man at a band concert. I was hungry, but un- able to eat. From the table I was to go to the platform to contest for a medal. For fear of spoiling my oration, I spoiled my supper. I know now that one supper in the stomach is worth two medals in the hands of the judges. I lost out in the con- test, and when the "Bishops" came upon the platform to console me, I answered, "Yes, but I would not mind it so much if I had not lost my supper as well." I will never again let a possible medal spoil a positive supper. A RED-HEADED MAN 73 The serenades do you remember them, boys? Gano and the "golden fleeced" were not allowed to sing on these occasions. Often did this crowd gather on the steps of "Morrison Chapel" and sing until "the clock in the steeple struck one," and the police department threatened to strike ten. One night when Gano and I were requested to swallow our voices, we got our revenge. I could, in those days, imitate to perfection the barking of a small dog. The best be- loved of one of the "Bishops" was being regaled with "Sweet Antoinette." At the most touching part, when the tenor was in his most intense distress, I began to howl like a dog in great pain. From howling I was driven to loud barking by the strenuous commands of Gano to hush up and go home. Still I barked, much to the confusion of the vocalists and the strangulation of the tenor. Gano seized a brick and threw it upon the pavement with great force, whereupon I began to yelp like a dog which had just awakened from dreams of weiner- wursts and frankfurters. Every dog within a radius of ten blocks took up the chorus, and the singers scattered in every direction; but the dogs continued barking till broad day- light. 74 RECOLLECTIONS OF The last time the "Bishops" were together was in April, 1898, at Junction City, Kentucky. All were there except Jesse. The occasion was my birthday. I was preaching there at that time, and the church entertained the "Bishops" in my honor. Since that gathering two of the boys have gone home Ben and Charlie. Charlie was the first to go. He was a prince among men. No man was hand- somer. An Australian by birth, he had to an unusual degree the musical voice of that land of the Southern Cross. The alphabet, under the magic of his charmful voice, be- came a poem and a song. His future was bright in its prospects. He enjoys a bright- er present. Who could know dear little old, fun- making, mirth-provoking, dark-eyed Ben, and not love him ? Cultured, well educated, strong minded, he was a most agreeable companion. His heart was so full of music it ran out of the ends of his fingers. He composed "Come, Boys, and Sing to Old K. U." for the "Bishops," but it was too big for us, so we gave it to the University, His sweet voice no longer falls upon our ears. He is in the better land. Charlie and Ben each left a wife and A RED-HEADED MAN 75 little boy. May the memories of the fathers ever be a rich legacy to the mothers and their boys. In the beautiful cemetery in Lexington the bodies of our comrades lie beneath the blue-grass, while the silent statue of Henry Clay through storm and shine watches over them. In October, 1909, after a separation of eleven years, eight of the "Bishops," with the widows of the two who have gone on ahead, sat down to dinner together in the Fort Pitt Hotel, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We shall never all be together again in this life, but we may all sit down under the shade of the trees by the side of the river which flows from the throne of God, and renew the friendships formed in the dear old days we spent together in the Univer- sity. 76 RECOLLECTIONS OF VIII. STUDYING NATURAL SCIENCE. Next to a stolen conversation with a Hamilton College girl, the most enjoyable thing in the University was Professor Fair- hurst's department. Not much can be said as to his good looks. His wife evidently took him "sight unseen." It is also conceded that as a singer he could never be a star of the first magnitude. His voice was like a soprano automobile horn. As a scientist he should have known that the mouth was made to talk through, but for some reason he made constant use of his nose in his vocal exercises. What he lost in voice cul- ture and beauty of facial expression, he, without doubt, made up in knowledge of all the branches of his department. He had no use for a text-book of any sort, ex- cept to indicate the lesson for the next day. He was a text-book in himself. Many of his students, from mere absorption, became text-books, bound in calf. The Professor, besides being a past master in science, was A RED-HEADED MAN 77 a man of keen wit and always had on hand a bountiful supply of wholesome humor. He took a real interest in the boys, and all the boys loved him. The student who kept his mind awake came from his room full of science and good humor. No doubt there were some who sat for months in his department with- out any special benefit, but it was no fault of the Professor. You can not hang pic- tures on a wall that will not hold nails. While I was preaching in Meridian, Miss- issippi, a young lady informed me that a certain young man had said that he enjoyed hearing me preach, but that I made no impression on him, as everything I said went in one ear and out the other. I told her to inform the young man that I was not to be held responsible for absence of anything in his head to stop what went in his ears. The condition of that young man was the condition of many in the Profess- or's classes. He often told some fellow, who failed to hold much science in his head, that he must have been the little boy that got a bean in one ear and his mother poured water in the other to wash it out. Many are the memories, and as delightful as numerous, that come to me when I recall 78 RECOLLECTIONS OF the hours spent in his classroom. His reci- tations and lectures would cure the worst case of blues or swelled head the University could boast. You need not expect me to recall for your edification any of the science I got there. You can find that on my library shelves, well preserved in text-books and "Organic Evolution Considered." While studying the circulation of the blood, a frog was needed to demonstrate the matter. He offered to take a frog in lieu of a recitation, and would let a big, fat one count perfect. Next day one of the boys came in with two palpitating, plump ones. The class greeted the delivery of the frogs with loud laughter and applause. "That's right, boys, laugh now," said the Professor, "but when examination day rolls around you will wish you had more than two frogs to your credit. If you wish to pass, some of you had better put in all your spare time between now and examina- tion day catching frogs." When that day did come, boys all over the room could be heard saying: "A frog, a frog, my kingdom for a bushel of frogs." During one of his lectures he noticed one of the boys had his feet upon the top of the bench just in front of him, the hollow A RED-HEADED MAN 79 of the instep resting on the rail. The boy was somewhat famous in the University for the size of his feet. Suddenly stopping his lecture, he said: "Young fellow, are your heels on the floor?" Needless to say, they were soon there. The class in mineralogy was standing its examination at the close of the session. One of the boys asked to be excused from the room. "Have you answered all the ques- tions?" was the reply. "Yes," said the student, with a smile of great self-apprecia- tion, "I stood your examination in fifteen minutes." "You surprise me," said the Professor; "I did not think it would take so long to empty that head of yours." One "First Day of April" his classes all ran on schedule time. While the class in "Physics" was taking its medicine there came a lusty rap at the door. "Come in," called the Professor. After a short period of silence there came another rap, more lusty than before. "Didn't you hear me?" he called; "I said, 'Come in.' ' Again there was silence, followed by a still more lusty rap. This time he walked over to the door and opened it. No one was there, but tied to the door-knob was a most dilap- idated specimen of cur dog. He was, or, 80 RECOLLECTIONS OF rather, had been, white and shaggy, but had the appearance at that time of having been used as a mop and never dry cleaned. "Well," said the Professor, as he closed the door, "some fool has been here and left his business card." During the cold weather some of the boys had a custom of coming to his room to keep warm. One of these fellows was about six feet long and of the circumference of a fishing-pole. If umbrella covers had feet to them, he could have used them for stockings. His arms were slightly curved and his legs more so. One day he and several others were standing around the stove, and the Professor asked them to be seated. All sat down except the tall, thin man. Several times the request was made for him to be seated, but he continued to stand. At last the Professor called out: "Say now, young man, why don't you sit down? Can't you see the stove is warping you all out of shape?" A rather impertinent and inquisitive young fellow called out one day during a session of the class in zoology: "Say, Pro- fessor, how long can an animal live without brains?" "I don't know exactly," was the reply; "how old are you?" A RED-HEADED MAN 81 IX. AN INVITATION TO DINNER. During my college days I preached twice a month for a church about fifty miles from the University. There was a woman in the church who was always asking me when I was going to take a meal at her house, but she would never ask me to take a meal there. She was a spare woman, such a woman as most any church can spare. Her continually asking me why I never did a thing she never asked me to do began to get on my nerves, and I decided I would call what I thought was an effort to get credit for hospitality without paying the price. So on the following Sunday after my decision, when she extended the customary bi-weekly invitation, I immediately accepted. Though surprised, she seemed delighted. Next Saturday I arrived in the town and got one of the town members to drive me out to the home of the hospitable sister. Her home was about three miles from town. The brother was a big, fat, jovial sort of 6 82 RECOLLECTIONS OF fellow, and joked me a good deal about my prospects for dinner. He was the brother that guyed me one day in a crowd for being a little man. He said: "I am a whole lot bigger man than you are." I told him that that depended upon whether he ran the tape-line around his waist or head. How- ever, he had a good horse and soon drew up at the big gate. I bade him good-by and started for the house. He started for home. It was nearly dinner-time, and I saw as soon as I entered the house that there had been no special plans made for dinner in that house that day. A preacher gets so he can read signs in a home just as the astronomer reads them in the skies. Knowing that the friend who had brought me was getting farther away all the time, and that, if I wanted any dinner that day, I had to act with promptness, I said: "Is this the day you are expecting me for dinner?" With a look of pained sur- prise and injured innocence, she replied: "No, brother; did you think it was?" I was forced to confess that I did so think; but I could plainly see there was another "think" coming to me, and that "think" would have to hurry or I would have to use "Christian Science" and give my stomach A RED-HEADED MAN 83 absent treatment to satisfy my appetite. I said I was sorry I had made the mistake. She said she was too. "Where is your hus- band?" I asked. "Gone to Stanford," was the reply; "and I was so anxious for you to eat with us when he was here." "Well," I said, "we can wait dinner on him. When will he return?" "Oh, not till night, and he will be so disappointed not to eat with you." The situation was getting more des- perate every moment, and I was too hungry to wait until night for something to eat. "Excuse me," I said, as I dashed out of the house and rushed over to the side fence. The brother who had brought me out was not yet out of sight. The road made a curve after leaving the front gate, and after running for some distance came back toward the side of the house. I climbed upon the fence and began to yell with all the strength of my lungs : "Oh, Brother B , oh, Brother B , come back and get me quick." The sister came out in the yard, and said: "Never mind, brother, don't worry; if it is a horse you need, I will lend you one." The horse was refused, and I started out to look for a dinner. About a mile and a half from there was the home of an aged mother in Israel. Her home 84 RECOLLECTIONS OF was the preacher's home. Like the good woman of the Bible, she had a room for the prophet. Hers was a beautiful home. The big brick house was surrounded by a lawn of blue-grass, but the deep green of the grass showed only in patches here and there through the snow. The whole place had about it the air of hospitality. Even the bare-limbed trees seemed to extend their long, brown arms in welcome. My knock on the door was answered by the dear old grandmother, whose highest social ambition was to entertain "her ministers." All min- isters were hers. "Have you had dinner?" I asked. "No, but why ask?" I told I had not had any, and was looking for a place to get a square meal. She asked me in, and informed me that I could have a square meal there any time of day I wanted it. While waiting dinner on her daughter and her husband, who had gone to town that morning, we sat by the glowing fire and talked. /The aged grandmother sat by the fire in her big arm-chair, while her little four-year-old grandson played with his toys upon the floor. - Her hair was like fine-spun silver in which were caught the soft, sweet shadows of life's evening tide. His was A RED-HEADED MAN 85 like fine-spun gold in which was caught the sunshine of life's early morning. She was memory, he was hope. She talked of the flowers of the past that had bloomed and faded, but had left their fragrance to re- joice her declining years. He played upon the floor, his smiles and gleeful shouts strange promises of coming sobs and sor- rows. Every now and then he would leave his play, crawl up into his grandmother's lap, put his arms around her neck and kiss her aged, wrinkled cheek. With trembling hand she would brush away her tears, and the lips of memory would snatch sweetness and strength from the lips of hope. Such is life shadow and sunshine, sobs and songs, memory and hope. /May we all so live as to sanctify memory and glorify hope. One of the boys, who preached for a church about sixty miles from Lexington, was sick and had to send another young preacher to fill his appointment. He arrived Sunday morning and went from the depot to the church. When the services were concluded, many shook hands with him, but no one asked him home to dinner. He was hungry and had spent all his money reach- ing the appointment. Something had to be done, and done at once. Drawing himself 86 RECOLLECTIONS OF up to his full height and assuming all the dignity possible, he walked up to a gentle- man and said: "Come and go home to dinner with me." "Where do you live?" was the reply. "Oh, in Lexington." With a laugh the gentleman said: "I guess you had better go home with me to dinner." He went. Another boy, finding himself in a similar fix at a country church, selected the one who looked as if she would have the best dinner of any, walked up to her and said: "I beg your pardon, but are you the sister that asked me to go home to dinner with you?" "No," she replied, "I am not the one, but I can ask you. Will you go home to dinner with me?" He thanked her for the invitation, and, like the other fellow, went. The above and the following will show that I was not the only student preach- er who had trouble with his commissary de- partment. This one went out some distance in the country during his vacation to hold a meeting. After his first sermon an old lady came up to him, and in a high-pitched voice, with a strong nasal tone attached, said: "Well, brother, you must stay with us some. I told them when they was a-gettin' up this meetin', that I was perfectly willin' to bear my part of the burden." A RED-HEADED MAN 87 X. JUST BECAUSE I AM RED-HEADED. There was a certain fellow in the Uni- versity whose head was as hairless as an egg and as empty as a toy balloon with a pin-hole in it. He was agent for a joke factory that went into bankruptcy at the time the discontinuance of the building of the tower of Babel threw so many people out of employment. The hair that should have been on his head was usually on his jokes. His jokes would have made a better appearance if they had been treated as the farmer down in Mississippi told my wife his butter had been treated. Among the good things he said in favor of his butter was that it had been haired. When asked for an explanation he replied: "Well, you see, it is this way: my wife always runs a fork through it to get all the hairs out." One day the fellow who had received absent treatment for hair was telling how he got away with a red-headed man. Being in the crowd, I took it that he was talking for 88 RECOLLECTIONS OF my benefit. "It was this way," he said; "a red-headed fellow said to me, 'Hello, friend, you were not around when they were giving out hair, were you?' 'Oh, yes,' I said, 'I was there, but there was nothing but red left and I would not have it.' ' "You are mistaken, friend," was my reply; "you refused the red hair when people of good taste were clamoring for it, because you were absent when they were distributing gray matter." I came very nearly being the cause of a riot in Hamilton College one day, and all because of the color of my hair. I roomed directly opposite the college. The lady who had the front room next door to mine, re- joiced in the possession of a lamp with a large red shade. Late one afternoon one of the girls remarked that she saw the red- headed student sitting at his window. An- other one said that she was mistaken; that the lady had lit her lamp with the red shade. The discussion grew warm, and soon a large number of the girls were in- volved in the debate. Fortunately, the supper-bell called them from hair to hash, and the riot subsided. Just after dark one evening I met a fel- low in front of my house,, who seemed to A RED-HEADED MAN 89 be in trouble. Approaching him, I inquired as to his trouble and offered him my ser- vices. He informed me that he lived in one of the suburbs, and had been trying for ten blocks to get on a car that would take him home, but for some reason he had failed to get one to stop. I guided him to a proper place, and waited for a car, promising him that I would see that he got on the right one, and would instruct the conductor to put him off at his street. While waiting for the car he recognized me, and said: "Pard- ner, you are a preacher, ain't you?" "Yes," I replied. "Well, I declare, you are a preacher, and I am- drunk; and you are going to put me on the car and tell them to put me off at the right place?" I agreed that he had things correctly sized up. "Well, all I gotta say is that it is a nice thing for you to do," he said as he leaned on me for support. "No," he con- tinued, "that ain't what I wanted to say. Yes, it is, but that ain't the way I wanted to say it." One day while I was serving the church in Lebanon, Kentucky, a woman street preacher was delivering a tirade against everything she could think of and many things she never thought of very much. 90 RECOLLECTIONS OF Most of her remarks, however, were di- rected toward preachers and saloon-keepers. I had taken my stand in a doorway of one of the stores. Some one said to me: "Brother, she is giving you preachers a plenty." A fellow, standing on the walk just in front of me, turned and carefully examined me from foot to head. Having completed his examination, he asked: "Pardner, are you a preacher?" "Yes," was the reply, "I am." "Well, I am a saloon-keeper; and she's giving us , ain't she?" "It looks that way to me," was my reply, as with blushing head I walked away. The chairman of one of our State mis- sionary conventions, in introducing me to the audience, said among other things: "While in the University I lived in constant fear most of the time. You see, our red- headed brother, who is to speak to us now, had a room in the dormitory just beneath mine, and I was in constant dread of his setting fire to the building and burning me up." I began my speech by saying: "Our chairman was about the greenest specimen that ever entered the University. He was that green he had to be posted to keep the cows from eating him. I thank him for what he has said. A light breaks in upon A RED-HEADED MAN 91 me and reveals that which at the time was hidden. I noticed the frightened look upon his face, but never dreamed that I was the cause of it. However, his fears were groundless, and, had he come to me, I would have set his mind at ease. I could have proved by a unanimous vote of the student body that there was absolutely no danger: for it would have taken a six months' experience in a dry-kiln before he could have scorched, much less burned up." This reminds me of another chairman. His name was Hill, and a fine fellow he was. He introduced me to a large Chris- tian Endeavor session in the Colosseum in New Orleans, by saying I was from Miss- issippi, and that the red hills of the State were no redder than my hair. I replied by saying: "If it were not for the nearness of the chairman, I would be thinking of the 'green Hill far away.' ' I stuck my head in the ticket window at Campbellsville, Kentucky, one day, and called for a ticket to Dyersburg, Tennessee. The agent was a friend of mine. He gave me the ticket and said he had a favor to ask of me. Of course I put myself at his service. I was always rather reckless in granting favors. He had a lady friend, 92 RECOLLECTIONS OF she was going the way I was, and he wished me to see that she made proper connection with the train going south from Louisville. I wanted him to introduce me at once, but he was too wise for that. Had he done so, I think I would have managed to have been accidentally left in Campbellsville. As I walked up and down the platform, visions of female youth and beauty floated before my eyes, but there was no floating on the part of the lady in question. It would have taken a derrick to float her. The train waited sometime at the station. That train never was in a hurry. Anticipation was al- most consuming me. Finally the agent took me into the car, passed by all the good-look- ing young ladies, and stopped at a coach pew that was full of woman. She was a flood of fat and nearly overflowed the bench. I was afraid I would have to meet her on the installment plan. We are an extrava- gant people. There was enough waist about that woman to have made extra large twins. What a waste of material was there in the material of that waist. Now, I have no objections to fat people. They are more to be loved than thin ones; because there is more to be loved. But this woman would have bankrupted a Mor- A RED-HEADED MAN 93 mon elder. Besides herself, she had seven boys. They ranged all over that end of the car and from the age of six on up to whatever age was necessary for the oldest one, there being no twins. When we reached Louisville I gathered up my own traps, the lady's hat-boxes, suit- cases, etc., and, bending under my burden, started through the waiting-room of the Union Depot. I was young then, and timid. The expressions of amusement and pity on the faces of the crowd embarrassed and puzzled me. But I understood it all when I reached the door and looked back. The chil- dren were strung out one behind the other, and the lady of the flesh brought up the rear like Mahomet's mountain following the prophet. The children had been taught to take off their hats in the house and every last one of them was red-headed. During my younger days I held a revi- val in a small town in Mississippi, and made my home at the leading hotel in the village, which was run by a member of the church. Near the public square, in front of the post- office, was a horizontal bar. This bar was very popular with the merchants and cus- tomers when there were no dog-fights or games of marbles to attract their attention. 94 RECOLLECTIONS OF One day the crowd called on the "parson" to show what he could do. I had not been out of college very long, and could do more real stunts on the "pole" than in the pulpit. I swung on my knees, my arms, and the small of my back. When I went to dinner my hostess said: "What have you been doing over in town, brother?" "Nothing; why?" was my answer. "My porter came home a few minutes ago, and told us that you got up on that acting-pole and went round and round so fast you looked just like a rosebud." That was one time I could have passed for an American Beauty. Not far from this place, a few years later, I had an experience which, if I had not been born red-haired, would have made me red-headed. I was holding a camp-meet- ing. The tabernacle was a big affair that seated about twelve hundred people. It would seat more, if some of them stood up. The floor was covered with sawdust, and made a most hospitable asylum for dogs and fleas. The tabernacle was pretty well filled at every service. I hesitate to state the number of dogs that attended the meet- ing. However, as most of the people in that section of the county came, most of the dogs came also. Of course each dog A RED-HEADED MAN 95 brought his fleas with him. There was such a general distribution and mixing of fleas that when the meeting came to an end no one could tell whose fleas from whose. Whatever may be true as to "hookworms" in the South, none of those fleas were afflicted with them. I never could understand why dogs have such a desire to attend meetings. My preaching always seemed to have peculiar attraction for them, and they have been a source of great annoyance to me. Once a little dog sat down in the aisle in front of the pulpit and looked up at me in such an appreciative way that I got nervous and asked some one to remove him. No one undertook the job, so I stepped down out of the pulpit, caught him back of the neck, walked to the door, and pitched him out in the yard. When I returned to the pulpit and looked down, there he sat. But he was not alone, but had brought another one with him. One day at the camp-meeting I mentioned above, an old farmer sat on the front seat in the tabernacle, and under the spell of my eloquence fell into a trance. Some rude fel- lows said he was asleep. He was smoothly shaven except for a long fringe of whiskers 96 RECOLLECTIONS OF under his chin. His elbows rested on his knees, his head in his hands. His or some other fellow's hound came through the tabernacle on a tour of inspection. When he saw the calm, peaceful face of the farmer he stopped and wagged his tail most heartily. Suddenly his head shot forward, and his long, moist tongue swept the farmer's face from the hair under his chin to the hair above his forehead. The spell of my eloquence was broken. The farmer sprang to his feet, and, with a well-placed kick, sent the hound about five feet in the air. I say five feet. That may be a little extravagant, but I know he went up four feet in the air. The ungenerous response of the farmer to the affectionate greeting of the dog disgusted him, and with a yelp of dismay he lit out for home. I was sorry, for there was much similar work for that hound to do that day. This spectacular duet of the farmer and the hound came very nearly breaking up the service. It had a most demoralizing effect on the young people in the audience; and the young man who was leading the singing with his cornet, and who sat on the platform, and had watched the whole performance with intense interest, laughed so heartily A RED-HEADED MAN 97 that, there being no back to his bench, he fell over backwards, and wedged himself in between the pews, and I had to stop preach- ing long enough to pull him out. 98 RECOLLECTIONS OF XI. TWENTY MILES FROM A RAILROAD. For several days during December, 189 , I could be seen walking about the campus of the University with my hands shoved down into my pockets, my chin drawn down between the ears of my collar, my eyes squinted, and my tongue asleep. I had a bad case of the blues, and could have said with Antonio: "In sooth, I know not why I am so sad; It wearies me; you say it wearies you. But how I caught it, found it, or came by it, What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born, I am to learn; And such a want wit sadness makes of me, That I have much ado to know myself." While in this condition I was made a proposition to teach in one of our small colleges, which I accepted without asking where the town was in which the college was located. When I learned that it was twenty miles from a railroad my resolution to go was considerably shaken; however, I stuck to my agreement, and have never re- A RED-HEADED MAN 99 gretted it. The little town was a county- seat, so called, perhaps, because so many of the citizens of the county sat down there to whittle, when they were not too busy playing checkers or trading horses. The college building was a large brick structure, situated in the best part of the town. The town itself was beautifully situated on a slight elevation, which sloped in every direc- tion, affording good drainage. It was a clean little town. Her people were cul- tured, cordial and charming. I was to begin my work in the college the first of the year. Much to my delight, a friend of mine in the University asked me to go home with him for the Christmas holidays. He lived ten miles beyond the little town, and not in the direction of a railroad. But a home such as his, with its comforts, its cheer, its good things to eat, and its love, does not need a railroad close to it. Some of my happiest days were spent in his home, and I love it. The last twenty miles of our trip from Lexington was made in an old-fashioned stage-coach the sort with a big body, swung on leather straps. It had a huge leather boot on the back to carry freight. On the high seat in front, by the driver's 100 RECOLLECTIONS OF side, was the man who gave the people along the road notice that we were coming. This was done with an old-fashioned stage- horn. The night I made the trip there were twelve passengers inside the coach and twelve on top. The four big, strong horses swung us along at a rapid rate. Half-way to our destination four fresh horses were put to the stage, and in a short time we were in the little town where I was to do my first teaching. Next morning my friend and I, with several other fellows, started for his home, ten miles farther from the railroad. The pet, poetical name of my friend was "Bull." I began my work in the "College" the first of the year. I taught from eight o'clock in the morning until four in the afternoon. From six until half-past six I read Greek with the Principal. Every morning I re- cited Hebrew to him, and every afternoon from four until half-past four I read, or, rather, tried to read, Arabic with him. After the class in Arabic we cut the wood to be burnt in the four rooms of the build- ing, and also swept out these rooms and the chapel. For exercise we built the fires every morning. I preached nearly every Sunday. Many times I have ridden horse- A RED-HEADED MAN 101 back forty-five miles from Saturday morning until Sunday afternoon, preached twice, and received the munificent sum of one dollar and thirty-five cents, and had fully thirty cents after paying for my horse. I know what it is to feel like thirty cents. My first appointment was about four miles from the "College." The thermom- eter registered eight degrees below zero. I walked to this appointment Sunday morning and back home that afternoon. As my traveling expenses were nothing, I came out even financially on the trip. One Sunday night I went home from a church in another part of the county with one of the brethren. The next morning at the breakfast-table the young hopeful of the family, as soon as he spied me, set up a series of yells that were worthy of twins, and refused to be comforted. His father insisted on knowing the cause of the dis- turbance. "You said you were going to bring the preacher home with you I" "Why, this is the preacher," said the father. "No, it ain't, either," he yelled, "he ain't got no whiskers." One of my regular appointments was with a delightful little church about four miles from the "College." I preached 102 RECOLLECTIONS OF there on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning once a month. One Saturday I was advised not to make the trip, as it had rained hard the night before and the creek which was between me and the church was out of its banks and was dangerous to cross. I borrowed a small gray filly, how- ever, and determined to make the effort. I know better now than to try to fill an ap- pointment on a filly when the creek is too well filled. She was exceedingly frisky and rather uncertain. The man that owned her would let anybody ride her in order to save the expense of having her broke to the saddle, and I was willing to ride anything that any one would let me have, in order to cut down expenses and to keep from being broke. When I reached the creek, which was after several very exciting excur- sions into the woods on either side of the road, I found it full and overflowing, and rushing like a mill-race, but I started boldly in. When about midway of the stream I was forced to stick my feet straight out in front of me. This forced the filly to kick straight out behind her and toward the skies. But for the fact that I grew sud- denly very fond of the filly and quickly em- braced her around the neck, I would have A RED-HEADED MAN 103 been thrown into the water, and these rec- ollections would be anything but dry. Fi- nally, after much excitement, and when I had come to the conclusion that there was nothing in the universe but water, and that was full of filly, she got her head turned upstream, and went kicking and plunging up the creek for about twenty yards. By that time I was in the saddle, and headed her toward the bank. In a few minutes I was on the side of the creek toward the church, but too wet to be in a good humor and too cold to be happy. While I sat there trying to think of words, not incom- patible with my calling, that would express my opinion of horses in general and a cer- tain filly in particular, it suddenly occurred to me to imagine the impression I would have made on some of the members, had they seen me in the creek. The very thought was so ludicrous that I burst into a loud laugh. This relieved my feeling, but frightened the filly, and she lit out up the road like a quarter-horse. I had on a long overcoat, which had during the previ- ous performance become unbuttoned, and as the filly went up the road my coat streamed out behind like a flag in a stiff breeze. Every time the filly jumped the 104 RECOLLECTIONS OF coat-tail popped, and every time the coat- tail popped the filly jumped. I was in despair; for I knew that one or the other had to wear out before the filly would come down to the dignified pace befitting the calling of her rider. I wanted the filly to wear out first, as I never desired to ride her again, and I did not know where I could get another coat that I could wear as long as that one. About half a mile from the creek there was a sharp turn in the road, and as we swept around it we passed a member of the church going to town. His horse made frantic efforts to get through the fence in its commendable desire to give us the entire pike. As we passed I waved my hand and my coat-tail at him, but, as the filly had a pressing engagement down the road, I did not stop to shake hands. When I reached the church I found no one there. On account of the rain, they did not expect me. Wet and tired, I rode over to the home where I was to spend the night. It was my first visit there, but by no means the last. It was one of the best homes in the county and one of the finest families in the State. The head of the house was a . -good man, and exceedingly well-to-do, but was peculiar in that he spent A RED-HEADED MAN 105 very little on himself. His wife offered me his Sunday suit, but I refused it. After that the best she could do was to give me a pair of low quartered shoes not mates and without strings, dry underclothing, white yarn socks, and a pair of blue linen pants about four inches too short. Fortu- nately, my Prince Albert was dry. When I came down into the parlor clad in blue linen pants four inches too short, low quartered shoes, white yarn socks, and a Prince Albert coat, I made an impression on that family they have never forgot, nor have I. Next day my clothes were dry and I reached church without any serious acci- dent. After services I made an effort, diffi- cult but successful, to mount my unregen- erated steed. Close to the church was a large, open, grassy space. Over near a high fence a number of the brethren and sisters, with their children, had gathered to watch with pride their pastor's skill in horseback-riding. This pride had been greatly augmented by the thrilling recital of the brother who had met me on my way from the creek. I drew the lines tight, put one foot in the stirrup, but just as the other foot went up into the air, the filly lit out. 106 RECOLLECTIONS OF The manner in which I had drawn the bridle-reins caused her to go in a circle. Around and around we went, filly and pastor, the former making a circle with four feet on the earth, the latter describing a circle with one foot in the air. Men, women and children sought places of safety. The smaller ones went through the cracks in the fence, but the larger ones got stuck. Some went over the fence, some took to the bushes, and some went under the church. Finally I got into the saddle, and a gray streak, trimmed with red, went down the big road at a rate of speed altogether out of harmony with the peace and quietude of the "Sabbath." One of the most faithful members of this church was a young fellow about my age. He had sandy hair and rode a sandy- haired mule. He lisped the member, not the mule. One Sunday I arrived early at the church, and while talking to one of the elders, my sandy-haired friend rode up, hitched his sandy-haired mule, and joined in the conversation. As he did not shake hands with the elder, nor speak to him, I concluded he did not know him. I immedi- ately introduced him, but, as I had forgot the elder's name, I did not call it. "Oh, A RED-HEADED MAN 107 yes," was the reply, "that's all right, but I know him real well; he's my father." One Sunday morning while preaching in this church I noticed a large, fat woman in the audience. She was a stranger, and was seemingly most deeply interested in my sermon. After the services she shook hands with me most cordially, and attempt- ed to press something into my hand. I let her press. It felt like a five-dollar bill. It felt that way, not because I knew how a five-dollar bill felt, but because I was in such urgent need of a piece of money that would feel like a five-dollar bill. I thanked her most profusely, and could hardly wait to get out to where I had my horse hitched to see just what it was. At last I got my horse between me and the crowd, and my five-dollar bill turned out to be a small pink tract on "How to Obtain the Blessing of Entire Sanctification." I refused then, and I refuse now, to say just what I thought. I regret to say that the pink tract was never read. No doubt you would be sur- prised to learn how blue a pink tract can make a preacher, and how nearly a tract on sanctification can come to spoiling, tem- porarily, what sanctification a fellow has. 108 RECOLLECTIONS OF My feelings in the matter can be better ap- preciated when I inform you that I have ridden horseback eighteen miles, preached two sermons, and received several hearty congratulations. I once rode ten miles, de- livered a lecture on "The Life and Labors of Paul," for which I received one dollar and twenty-five cents, one dollar of which sum I paid for my horse. I agreed to preach once a month, for one church, at the enormous salary of twenty-five dollars per year. I received a little more than seventeen dollars for the year's work, gave them three extra months in an effort to collect the balance, and paid more than ten dollars' horse-hire reaching the appoint- ment. I preached once a month for three months for one church, and received my pay from one of the elders as follows: "We are much obliged." Such pay helps the heart, but it is rather hard on the stomach. However, I do not regret a sin- gle experience, and I am glad I never re- fused to preach my best, even when my pay was the poorest, and that I never re- fused to go, pay or no pay. The people were not to blame. They had never been taught to pay. They were not stingy. Their homes were always open to me, and A RED-HEADED MAN 109 they gave me the best they had. I was treated like a prince. Somehow they seemed to think that the gospel was free, and they did not wish to interfere with the established custom of keeping it free. 110 RECOLLECTIONS OF XII. SOCIAL LIFE IN THE UNIVERSITY. While a part of the great ocean of life, colleges and universities are to a consider- able degree land-locked seas. They have their calms and storms; their hidden rocks and harbors of safety; their big and little vessels, some for work and some for pleas- ure; their pirates and discoverers; their freighters and dreadnaughts ; their disman- tled ships and those that safely make the port. Yet the university waters are not entirely isolated. The ebb and flow of the great outside ocean are felt on their shores. Blasts from the furious ocean storms stir the sails of the ships within the harbor, and wreck some of those that venture too near the storm-tossed ocean without. Wreckage from the ocean drifts into the sea and dis- ables some of the weaker vessels, while the stronger ones use the winds to fill their sails for great voyages. Some of the boys be- come mere stowaways or roustabouts on these vessels, or become masters of tramp A RED-HEADED MAN 111 ships that never affect the world for real worth, while others become masters of splendid ships which enrich the world with their merchandise and discoveries. The "University," while a small ocean within itself, had its waters constantly dis- turbed by the wind and traffic of the outside world. Our professors kept abreast of the times, our platform had on it the best lec- turers before the American public, and the social life of the fashionable world had a most intimate connection with the Univer- sity's "Four Hundred." I regret to state that many of those who reached "four hun- dred" on the social ladder, never climbed much higher than "seventy-five" on the class ladder. The greater the grace exhib- ited by them in their social functions, the greater the grace necessitated on their be- half in the classroom by their teachers. On the morning of the inauguration of Governor Bradley of Kentucky, as was my daily custom, I attended chapel services in historic old Morrison Chapel. I had on my best clothes. The shine on my shoes rivaled that on the crown of Professor Mil- ligan's head; my black cutaway coat had a tail to be proud of, and my pants were still warm from the tailor's iron. I was, in 112 RECOLLECTIONS OF fact, the latest thing in clothes that morn- ing. So late, indeed, that I came nearly being too late for chapel exercises. From chapel I went to Professor Ellet's room to spend an hour in fruitless endeavor to follow him in his matchless flights of geometrical eloquence. In the midst of his oration, when he had just projected a line, one end of which was fastened to the horns of Capricorn and the other end tied to the trident of Neptune, and was preparing to bisect it with another line starting from the helmet of Mars and ending I have never learned where, there came a loud rap on the door which' awakened every member of the class. The rap startled the Professor, and he accidentally cut his line on the glittering sword of Perseus. He found the end of his line, tied it to the tail of the Bear, and opened the door. I may be mixed in these lines, but I was busy studying astronomy among the twinkling stars of the heavenly faces of the earthly bodies of our co-eds. During the study I had fallen asleep. The knock on the door called me to earth again just as Venus and I were drinking from the Milkaway with the Great Dipper, and Aurora was making glorious the dawn of a new day when Eros would be A RED-HEADED MAN 113 king. After the Professor opened the door and had exchanged a few words with the author of the disturbance, he turned to the class and informed me that I was wanted in the hall. As I went out I was fully aware that the eyes of every young lady in the class were full of admiration and the heart of every young man full of envy. My sartorial effect on that class was something of which to be proud. In the hall Ash Brook was waiting for his prey. During vacation Ash sold fruit- trees and lightning-rods. This, and other graces not necessary for me to mention here, earned for him among the student body the honorable title of "The Defender of the Truth." He began at once a recitation of his troubles. He was going to the inaugural ball at Frankfort; he had ordered a pair of black trousers for the function, but the tailor had disappointed him; it was nearly time for the train to leave, and he must have my black trousers at once. For a short time there was an animated discussion, but eventually we were seen to enter the dormitory and go into the room of a "Bibe" who had left his door unlocked. In a short time Ash was seen hurrying across the cam- pus, and I, his victim, was left standing in 114 RECOLLECTIONS OF the middle of the room, holding in my hands a pair of tan-colored trousers, terri- bly warped, and bagged at the knees. My humiliation was great. Putting them on was a necessary performance. I was several blocks from home, and could not afford to fail to report back in the classroom. Geom- etry, like smallpox, is a thing a man gets enough of the first time. "Marks" with both indicate whether or not you have passed. My only showing to be "marked" sufficiently to pass was to get perfect in attendance. Whatever may have been true as to the relative length of heads, Ash's legs were shorter by about three inches. Worse and more of it, he was bowlegged. It was one of the unsolved problems of the "Univer- sity" whether the parenthetical expression of his legs was caused by the excessive weight of his generosity or from using a keg for a hobby-horse before his legs were properly set. However, whatever may have been the solution of the problem, I, a dis- ciple of Euclid, very nearly dislocated my knee-joints in my efforts to get into those trousers. I have heard of people taking off their hats to those who got the best of them, but I thought I was going to be com- A RED-HEADED MAN 115 pelled to take off my knee-caps in acknowl- edgment of the superiority of those trousers to all my efforts. I rejoice to say that I reached the class before adjournment, but my name was Ichabod my glory was de- parted. The tan trousers failed to make connection with my patent-leather shoes, and their disgraceful curve forced my compan- ionable knees far apart. It is needless to say that when I entered the room I received an ovation. That night in Frankfort a pair of black trousers "danced till the break of day," but in Lexington a pair of tan pants hung on my wall like a great wish-bone. Speaking of pants recalls the fact that pants are very useful and often exceedingly hard to get. No one more fully realized this than did I when I was in the "University." While Newt and I were roaming out on North Broadway, near Sixth, there came a great stringency in the money market which seemed to localize itself in our room. About the best we could do was to keep ourselves in coal and our landlady in good humor. This not only necessitated our wearing our pants, but also our coats, longer. There was in the firm one real good pair of pants. They did double duty. About the time these were demanding the 116 RECOLLECTIONS OF company of an overcoat, Russ entered the "University" and moved his trunk to our room. He brought a fresh supply of money, a part of which was immediately invested in a new pair of pants. The pants had not been in the room many days before I received an invitation from a young lady, living on High Street, to attend a social gathering that night at her home. "We are going to have a good time and plenty of ice-cream and cake," she said, and added, "Now, be sure to come, and don't fail to bring Mr. Newt." I was expecting her to invite him, and tried to head off the invitation, but failed. However, I promised to be there, and to deliver her invitation to Newt. Also I in- sisted that it would not be at all necessary for her to say anything to him about it. I knew he loved ice-cream and cake, and, being fully aware of how seldom such table comforts came our way at the boarding- house, I felt very sorry for him. I also loved ice-cream and cake, but was too un- selfish to feel sorry for myself, so I at once made up my mind to let Newt stay at home. Besides, I did not want him to feel sorry for me. Frequently I find sympathy embar- rassing, and I am so timid that embarrass- A RED-HEADED MAN 117 ment frustrates me so "I have much to-do to know myself." After supper the night in question, when I returned to my room I was dismayed to find Newt with the pants on, calmly sitting by the fire. For a moment I was completely rattled, for he had on the only pair of pants fit for social functions other than lawn or skating parties or such other outdoor gathering as would call for an overcoat. The question which agitated the gray matter under my copper-colored dome was how to get the pants without re- signing from the "Ancient Order of George Washington" and unduly arousing the sus- picion of the owner of the pants. In a care- less sort of way I informed him that I had to fill an important engagement and the pants, and if it would not inconvenience him too much, I would be pleased to exchange pants with him. Without manifesting much concern, I began my toilet, and by the time I was ready for the pants the pants were ready for me. After I had the pants on and securely fastened, I began to enlarge upon my en- gagement. I told him where I was going and all about the refreshments. This ex- cited him, and a number of times he ex- pressed disappointment and amazement at 118 RECOLLECTIONS OF not having received an invitation. My heart went out to him in his trouble, but my legs stayed in the pants. There is a great deal of such sympathy in the world. I completed my toilet at last, and as I went out the door I called: "Oh, by the way, Newt, the young lady told me to be sure to insist upon your coming." There was the noise of an overturned chair, and as I went out the gate, lowering any track record ever made in the "University," the door opened and above the clatter of my heels I heard the command: "Bring my pants back here at once." But I was going too fast to stop without tearing the pants, and, besides, I recalled the old proverb, "If the pants fit you, wear them." Professor Teufelsdrockh was not mis- taken when he said: "Clothes give us in- dividuality, distinction, social polity." In- deed, in the eyes of many, clothes are the man. It is not what is in the clothes, but what is on the man. The eyes of many seem to be closed to all but clothes. Two of the "University" boys Russ and Dick had been to Salvisa to fill the former's appointment, and on their way back were forced to remain in Lawrenceburg for sev- eral hours. They took advantage of the lay- A RED-HEADED MAN 119 off to attend the exercises at a barber-shop. It was sort of a skin game. Russ was a rather handsome fellow in those days, and, with his new suit on, his six feet of athletic young manhood was exceedingly attractive to the bootblack. The shine artist had just polished his shoes and was at work on Dick's. Looking up, he said: "Who's dat young fellow over dar?" "That is a young preacher from the Bible College at Lexing- ton," replied Dick. "No, sir, boss, he's no preacher; he's a gen'leman." He was not mistaken as to his being a gentleman. Among all the students in the "University" with whom I came in contact, and they were hundreds, I am certain that outside of one select circle but few failed to measure up to the standard of a gentleman. There was one "select circle," however, numbering nearly fifty, that could not count in all their crowd one gentleman. A single gentleman was not permitted among them. Had he been permitted, he would not have remained single long. They were the girls of the "University," and their crimson cheeks were the college colors. For the benefit of the better informed readers, the writer desires to state that he is well aware of the fact that "pants" is 120 RECOLLECTIONS OF considered inelegant in Boston. No, not the article itself, but the word. In naming this garment I should say "trousers." But I object; for if this should become the uni- versal custom, what would become of our old friend, the joke about the dog's lungs being the seat of his pants? Confidentially, let me say that if the seat of the dog's pants was as dilapidated as the seats in most of the pants in the room of the writer, during the stringency in the money market referred to above, the dog would die of a hole in his lungs. On one occasion a very charming young lady was gracious enough to invite me to her coming-out party. (Excuse the digres- sion, but every time I see a lady in one of these up-to-date, down-in-the-neck, split con- traptions I am in mortal terror for fear the party will come out. It is my opinion that such dresses are in poor taste, even if they do at times show good form.) On my way to the function I stepped into a florist's to get a few dozen roses. Down in Mississippi, when I was a boy, if you asked some one for a rose, you would be given a pair of scissors and an invitation to go out in the yard and help yourself. So you can see how wholly unprepared I A RED-HEADED MAN 121 was for the ordeal through which I was to pass. With joy in my heart and a quarter in my pocket, I asked the florist for a dozen pink rosebuds. It was fortunate I said "buds." "I have no buds," he an- swered, "but I can let you have some full- blown roses." Something in his look or tone prompted me to grasp "buds" and , swing on to them. "I am sorry," I replied, "but let me see the roses." With that he set out a jar of as beautiful roses as ever [I saw. I can not explain it, but somehow [he looked more like a man behind a gun [than a man behind the roses. With great iemphasis on "buds" I said: "Those are "beautiful, but I prefer 'buds'; however, what are they worth?" "Twelve dollars per dozen," was his calm reply. I grew suddenly dizzy. Every rose in the jar seemed to grin at me as it nodded me a heartless good-by. However, I rallied, and, grabbing at "buds" with greater desperation and determination than any love-sick girl ever swung on to another girl's "bud," I steadied my voice, and, with my quarter clinched in my hands, I bowed and backed out of the store, saying as I went: "Thank you, sir, they are indeed beautiful, but I prefer 'buds.' " 122 RECOLLECTIONS OF XIII. VACATION EXPERIENCES. My first vacation after entering the "University" was spent in Memphis. Such was the confidence of the members of the Linden and Mississippi Avenue Churches in the ability of the Bible College to make a preacher out of raw material in one term that I was not simply invited, but almost forced to occupy their pulpits. Newt suf- fered from the same confidence, as did both congregations. A few Sundays after our arrival I preached my first sermon in the Mississippi Avenue Church. The ther- mometer stood at 100 in the shade, but I stood 150 in my Prince Albert. The con- gregation has been too charitable to say what they stood. My aim was to preach about twenty-five minutes. The text of my sermon was, "Prepare to meet thy God." The context was everything I could think of, and more things than I had ever thought of before. I heard one of the boys preach on this same A RED-HEADED MAN 123 text, in the colored church on Constitution Street in Lexington. When he finished his discourse an old deacon came forward, looked with compassion upon the brother, and said: "Breth'en and sisters, we come out here, this mornin' to heah a serment. Our young brother has preached on 'Pre- pare to meet thy God,' but I is satisfied none of us have come prepared to heah sich a serment." I am persuaded that the con- gregation that heard me was in a similar state of mind. After what seemed to me an hour, and, no doubt, to the congregation a foretaste of eternity, I looked at the clock. To my horror, it had marked off only ten minutes. My situation was des- perate. I had reached the most important and interesting part of the sermon, the con- clusion; but I felt compelled to make that sermon at least fifteen minutes longer. My heart melted within me. My body had long before this melted within my Prince Albert. Had my flow of words equaled my flow of perspiration, I would be still running a race with Tennyson's "Brook." After several times "repeating for the sake of emphasis," and when I had told all I knew, all I thought I knew, and many things I knew I knew nothing about, I once 124 RECOLLECTIONS OF more ventured to look at the clock. The hands had not moved a second, but had "stopped short never to move again." For some reason, it could never afterwards be made to keep time. For nearly sixty min- utes I had made a windmill of myself, and I have ever since been thankful that there was no "Don Quixote" in the audience, reckless enough to assault me. The following Sunday, Newt preached his first sermon from the same pulpit. His notes were distributed over several pieces of paper. His thoughts were distributed over the interim between the Garden of Eden and the last "Amen" of "Revelation." The day being excessively hot, he endeav- ored to use a large palmetto fan. In the midst of one of his finest flights he used his fan too vigorously, and his notes flew some on their own account. It was an unusual but interesting sight to see several deacons chasing sermon notes, while the preacher, like a "bird with a broken wing," fluttered around the pulpit. Two or three Sundays after this Newt went down in Mississippi to preach for a small congregation not far from the Ten- nessee line. A friend went with him, and when the collection was being taken, to A RED-HEADED MAN 125 stimulate the brethren to give liberally, dropped a silver dollar in the basket. The deacon carefully examined the dollar, and then called to the deacon on the other side of the church: "Come on back, brother, you needn't go any further; we've got enough; save the rest for the next preacher." I was the next preacher, and "the rest" was nearly enough to pay street-car fare over and above my railroad expenses. A short time afterwards the brother who was respon- sible for our preaching in that church com- mitted suicide. As there was no apparent cause for such a rash act, and as he made no explanation about it afterwards himself, there were some who said it was because of the sermons he heard. They argued that he had never done such a thing before, that the deed was committed shortly after hear- ing the last sermon, and that they had felt a similar inclination immediately after hear- ing us. During this vacation I preached one night in the Methodist Church in Horn Lake, Mississippi. There was a fairly good audience. (It was my first sermon in that community.) I made a great effort, taxing my lungs to their fullest capacity. Only one in the audience went to sleep, but 126 RECOLLECTIONS OF he snored with such vociferous variations in every known and unknown key on the scale of sound that no one else could sleep. As he was the man who had invited me down there to preach I was greatly dis- gusted at his unctuous disregard of my most frantic pneumatic efforts, which were al- most sufficient to puncture my inner tube. Singing the last song waked him up, and as soon as the benediction was pronounced, he came forward, grasped my hand, and in a loud voice exclaimed: "Brother, I never en- joyed a sermon so much in all my life." I was glad he slept; for he was the only one in the audience to compliment the sermon. This reminds me of another compliment. I have an aunt, who is now well on towards her eighty-sixth birthday. For many years she has been very deaf. When I first began my ministry, I attempted to fill the pulpit of our church in my home town. My mother, who was too ill to attend the ser- vice, asked Aunt Eliza how she liked the sermon. "It was splendid; Ira is a great preacher, Jane," was her reply. "Did you hear him, 'Liza?" asked my mother. "No, Jane, not a word; but he looked like he was preaching a big sermon." Moral: If your ears can not compliment a fellow, give your A RED-HEADED MAN 127 eyes a chance. Moral No. 2 : If you can not preach, look as if you can. By the way, you can make your own and the life of every other fellow much more enjoyable, if you look for the pleasant rather than the unpleasant thing as you journey along. I have made it a custom to turn everything I hear about me into a compliment, if it is possible to do so. It makes me so much happier, and I never found pleasure in being unhappy. It may sound strange to you, but I have found some people that are never happy unless they are miserable. They will go out of their way, and jump over banks of roses, to land in a briar patch. Others ignore the scratch of the thorn in their enjoyment of the perfume and beauty of the rose which blooms just above the thorn. Some will not eat cab- bage for fear of the snake they think is in it, while others kill snakes to get the cab- bage. A man and his wife were walking through a lumber-yard. The husband said, "Wife, isn't that an awful odor?" "I rather like it," she replied. "Like it, wife? What is the matter with you?" "Nothing; I have always liked the smell of fresh sawed lumber." "Oh, I am not talking about lumber; just turn this way, and smell this 128 RECOLLECTIONS OF old pond." "Smell it yourself," she an- swered; "I prefer to smell the lumber." Friend, you are the boss of your own nose: do not complain at the rottenness of the world because you keep your nose over a stagnant pond when there is a yard full of fresh sawn lumber all around you. Some time during April, 189 , I re- ceived a communication from the church at Texarkana, stating that I had been recom- mended to them as a proper man to fill their pulpit during the summer. They also desired to know what sort of a preacher I was, and what I thought I was worth per month. I wrote them that I was surprised that any one would recommend me, as I had only preached nine times; that, if I knew what sort of a preacher I was, I was too modest to tell them,' and that I had never put a price on my ability. I might have told them what I was worth by the year, but the amount seemed too small to be divided by twelve. To my astonishment, I received a call, and the promise of fifty dollars per month. I accepted, and began my work there on the first of May. On my way down the train stopped for a short time in Little Rock. To get a little fresh air, and to give my mind a vacation A RED-HEADED MAN 129 from its constant contemplation of the im- mensity of that fifty dollars per month, I went out on the back porch of the Pullman. As soon as I got there a "gentleman" said: "My friend, won't you smile with me?" I am nearly always in a good humor, and never neglect an opportunity to smile, so I immediately responded: "Why, of course, I am always glad to smile with any me." I had hardly finished my reply, when the fel- low poked a bottle at me nearly half as long as his arm, and said: "Help yourself; smile as often as you want to." Excusing myself by saying that I did not know before what an Arkansaw smile was, and that I never indulged in such smiles, I beat a hasty retreat into the car. After my berth was ready, and we had left Little Rock far behind, I could not sleep for thinking of bottled smiles bottled in bond and Ar- kansaw. Maybe the man who drank it smiled. Of course the saloon-keeper who sold it, and the distiller who made it, and the people who were willing to get the revenue from it, smiled. No doubt the demons in hell smiled as men drank the stuff that makes demons on earth, and transforms homes into hells. But there are no smiles on the face of the man who, while 9 130 RECOLLECTIONS OF filled with it, takes the life of a friend or an enemy. There are no smiles on the faces of broken-hearted wives and mothers, nor do they show through the tears of starv- ing, ragged children. That was not a bottle of smiles. It was full of shrieks and sobs, cries of despair and ravings of desperate men and women, and moans of dying hope. There were no smiles there that play on the lips of babes and beautify the face of old age; but it was filled with painful pov- erty that steals smiles from the lips of childhood and robs old age of its joy. If there were smiles in that bottle, they were stolen from babes and brides and mothers; they were smiles that mocked peace, enticed virtue, and snared youth to debauchery and old age to disgrace. Oh, the pity that the sunshine, which smiled o,n the field of grain, should be brewed into bottle of disaster, and not baked into bread of prosperity! Upon my arrival in Texarkana I was surprised to find no delegation of church- members at the depot to meet me. I did not know so much about those things as I do now, and perhaps my estimation of my own importance may have been a little excessive. Being anxious to look as much like a preacher as possible, I went at once A RED-HEADED MAN 131 to the best hotel in the city, and adorned myself with my Prince Albert coat and the most approved ministerial expression. With my ministerial coat on and with my voice far enough down in my throat to satisfy the most orthodox, I went into a barber- shop and deposited myself in a chair. The colored barber lathered my face, and, while stropping his razor, said: "Boss, how long has you been in our town?" "Not very long," I answered. "Yes, sah," he con- tinued; "how does you lak our town?" "Oh, pretty well, pretty well," was the reply, in a voice which had its habitation in the region of the diaphragm. "Dat's right, boss, dat's right," exclaimed this tonsorial son of Ham, "but you would lak Hot Springs a heap better; dere's lots more sportin' characters dere." While in Texarkana I administered the ordinance of baptism for the first time. Here, also, the first response was made to my appeal at the conclusion of my sermon. A gentleman, aged about fifty, came for- ward one night, gave me his hand, and informed me that he wished to put his mem- bership in the church. I was very much excited and got things a little mixed. I told the audience that the man was a very great 132 RECOLLECTIONS OF sinner, that he had wandered away from the church, and had come to ask forgiveness and to be received again into the fellowship of the church. All the time I was talking the brother was making motions and signs for me to stop, but the more the brother motioned, the more and the worse I said. Finally, in a desperate effort to stop me, he got me by the coat-tail and pulled me out of the pulpit. He then informed me that I was mistaken in my estimation of him; that he was not a bad man, and was not coming to confess his sins, but to place his membership in that congregation. I went back into the pulpit, apologized, told them I was greatly mistaken in the man, and for them not to believe anything I had said about him. However, after knowing him better, I think I was mistaken when I was mistaken. I worked hard and faithfully for four months, and in September returned to Lex- ington and again entered the "University. 1 * A RED-HEADED MAN 133 XIV. ORATORY IN THE UNIVERSITY. No educational institution has a more substantial right to boast of her public speakers than the "University." She has produced a number of truly great orators; and a host of speakers, who rise above the average, made their debut in "Morrison Chapel." At least two things operate to produce this happy result: The "University" students are taught something to say, and they have boundless opportunities to say the something they are taught. The pro- fessors come in personal contact with the students and encourage all their efforts at oratory. It is a matter of no small pride to all of us, that, whether our college mates went out as preachers or lawyers, they have taken honorable rank in the pulpit or at the bar. While standing in a jewelry store some years ago, in Port Gibson, Mississippi, a neatly dressed darky, about thirty years old, entered, shook hands with me, and said: "Doctor, I have great confidence in 134 RECOLLECTIONS OF your ability, and I would like to get you to help me." I was agreeable, and told him I would be glad to render any assist- ance in my power. "I am a graduate of Alcorn College, and have great confidence in your ability," he continued, "and I want you to help me." I again indicated my willingness to render all the aid in my power, and asked him what I could do for him. To this he replied: "Well, I have great confidence in your ability, and need your help. I have not known the pardon of my sins more than three months, and have been made chairman of the board of deacons of the Baptist Church. Now, what I want to know is, how to functiate my capacity." The "University" teaches her graduates how to "functiate their capacity," and there is not a place on the earth where the sun shines 365 days in the year where they are not found "functiating their capac- ity" in the varied vocations that engage the attention of civilized men. From opening day in September to clos- ing day in June, oratory of every brew is on tap in the "University," and nearly every matriculate is a faucet. They are getting ready for the contests. The three principal contests are "The Transylvanian Gold A RED-HEADED MAN 135 Medal," "Representative in the Intercolle- giate," and "Representative in the Chau- tauqua Contest." I entered all three, and lost the best two out of the three. I won the "Transylvanian" ; but had it not been for the decision of the judges, I would have won the other two, and on the same ground might have lost the one I did win. The honorable title "Fiery-crested Ora- tor" was conferred upon me by one of the students of the "University," who lived in Logan Hall, ate graham bread and sor- ghum, studied hard, and was honor man of his class. It was given in the fierce heat of a controversy carried on through the columns of one of our college papers. Forged in the heat of controversy, and hurled with all the force of his mighty pen, it stuck. The "Fiery-crested Orator" has always felt satisfied with the title, and also with the result of the controversy. The day following one of the contests, which was lost by the "F. C. O.," I was accosted by a gentleman as I was on my way to town, who asked me whether or not I was a "University" man. Being answered in the affirmative, he said: "How about the contest last night? Is the fellow that won a good speaker?" "Be sure he is," was 136 RECOLLECTIONS OF my reply; "he is more than good, he is fine; he beat me." I have never been able to figure out where the comfort and glory come in from diminishing the strength and skill of the fellow that licked me. When I am licked I desire that it be fully known that it took some man to do the job. For at least a month before these con- tests come off the "University" is as full of orators as a calendar of dates or a dormi- tory boarder of prunes. The very air of the campus is malarious with eloquence; and oratory becomes epidemic. To appre- ciate this you must bear in mind that before the final contest in "Morrison Chapel" there are several primary contests for each event. These are open to any and all who wish to enter. From the close of classes to the closing of the big front doors, every room in the two main buildings is windy with its orator; and the orators are at it again from the opening of the doors next morning until Bill rings the big bell for chapel. During recitation hours each of the many society halls resounds with such agonies of elo- quence that the busts of Cicero and Demos- thenes weep for the laurels of the Forum and Mars' Hill. The rooms in the dormi- tories are full of oratory all day long and A RED-HEADED MAN 137 far into the night. Those who pass along North Broadway at night can hear these orators pouring forth eloquence to the stars from various places of advantage on the classic porch of "Morrison Chapel." So moving are these efforts that in the spring the trees on the campus fill their trunks and leave. Besides the contests mentioned above, there must also be counted the numerous declamatory contests; the orations, declama- tions and debates in the literary societies every Friday night; the platform full of Washington Birthday orators; the semi and final open sessions of all the societies; class day orators; intersociety and intercollegiate debates; and last, but not least, the final exercises of all the departments of the "University." The contests and open sessions held in "Morrison Chapel" are high festivals. The finest orchestra in the city is secured. Every seat in the chapel is taken. The auditorium is filled with expectancy, enthusiasm and carbon dioxide. The band plays; the ora- tors, escorted by their ushers, march upon the platform where Andrew Jackson and Marquis de la Fayette have spoken, and Albert Sidney Johnston and Jefferson Davis 138 RECOLLECTIONS OF have said their pieces, and the champions of the orators endeavor to outdo each other with applause for their favorites. It thrills me now to think of it all. Before and after each speech the ushers mingle with the audience to get whatever is to be sent up to the orators. This is done so that those who wish to send up bricks can deliver them without danger of injuring the furniture or walls of the chapel. Sometimes books and flowers are sent up, but generally the orators are snowed under with notes. They are written by friends and foes, the former to encourage, but the latter to discourage the speaker. It is an unheard-of thing for the friends of one orator to interfere with another orator while he is speaking, but they are justifiable in getting him rattled before he speaks, and guying him after his oration is ended. To those who are not in the atmosphere of these occasions, this may seem a little hard, but the boys never so considered it. To the contrary, it put them on their mettle; and, besides, these contests were all a part of their preparation for the real contests of their public life. On one of these occasions, just before the contest began, the four orators of the A RED-HEADED MAN 139 evening were waiting in the anteroom for the time to arrive for them to go upon the platform. One of the speakers, whose liver was somewhat out of order, took some liver pills from his pocket and put them in his mouth. One of his competitors, observing the performance, asked what he was taking. "Liver pills," was the reply. The ques- tioner, whose mind was on his oration, un- derstood him to say "delivery pills," and asked him how many were a dose. "From two to four," was the reply. The questioner, whose voice was dry and husky from the constant flow of hot air, sometimes mis- taken for eloquence, through his wind-pipe, said: "Well, I am in a pretty bad fix; let me have six of them." He received them, slowly chewed and swallowed them. Soon the band began the grand march, and the orators marched upon the platform and took their seats. He of the husky voice was the last speaker. The room was close and warm; and before his time came an un- seemly commotion began to make itself felt beneath his vest. At last the time of his triumph arrived. Believing himself a cer- tain winner, he arose filled with ambition, hope and "delivery pills." The commotion under his vest became more unseemly. With 140 RECOLLECTIONS OF face as pale as ashes and in a voice agoniz- ing in its despair, he exclaimed: "Ladies and gentlemen, before the dawn of history you will have to excuse me; some enemy has done this." With that he rammed his handkerchief into his mouth and made for the fresh air. He afterwards insisted that had it not been for the "delivery pills," he would have won the medal for oratory. However, it was generally conceded by eye-witnesses that he was entitled to a medal for speed. A RED-HEADED MAN 141 XV. ONE MORE WORD AND I AM DONE. One day a rather bright young fellow was sent to the board to solve a problem. His place at the board was near the stove, and the stove was red hot. Toward the latter part of the recitation hour the pro- fessor, addressing him, said: "Are you done, Mr. Smith?" "One side of me, Pro- fessor," was his immediate reply. I am nearly done, and with the telling of two more little stories I shall be completely done. While visiting a member of my congre- gation one day, in a certain Kentucky town, I was much interested in watching a little child crawling about the room. He was a bright, beautiful boy, and as happy as a sun- beam in a garden of roses. On a table near the window was a handsome candelabrum. The refracted rays of its prisms fell upon the carpet like broken bits of rainbow; and with thoughtless glee the little fellow crawled over the floor, catching with eager fingers the bits of colors. When he would open his fingers 142 RECOLLECTIONS OF and find no pieces of rainbow there the joy would die from his face and tears would start from his eyes; but as soon as he would look around and see the colors still scattered over the floor he would smile again and con- tinue his chase. Finally, worn out with going from one bright spot to another, he fell asleep among his illusive pretties. There were tears on his lashes, and the smile had faded from his lips. It was a beautiful pic- ture, but a sad one. Sad because it was a miniature of the life of many thoughtless people, who, chasing the gay, bright pleas- ures of life, fall asleep at last, empty-handed, empty-hearted and unfitted to die. They are Lorenzos, pleasure-seekers, who, spending their lives devouring the apple of pleasure, come at last to the grave, ashes on their lips and a tasteless core in their hands. Life is duty, not pleasure. We should see how much we can put into life, not how much we can get out of it. "O ye Lorenzos of our age ! who deem One moment unamused, a misery Not made for feeble man ! Who call aloud For every bauble driv'd o'er by sense ; For rattles, and conceits of every cast, For changes of follies, and relays of joy, To drag your patient through the tedious length Of a short winter's day Say, Sages ! say, A RED-HEADED MAN 143 Wits, Oracles ! say, dreamers of gay dreams ! How will you winter an eternal night, Where such expedients fail?" I have seen the bright, happy side of life, and I have seen the dark, sad side. I have been with my friends in the green pas- ture and beside the still waters, and I have gone with them through the valley of the shadow of death. But in it all some of the saddest have been the sweetest. Little Lois lived with her parents on the side of the great hill which overlooked the city. She was six years old and was in the pri- mary department of the Bible school of the church for which I ministered. One Sunday afternoon, while playing with some matches near a pile of straw, she was fatally burnt. The night her spirit left her burnt, pain- tortured body, she clasped her little hands and said: "Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep; ' If I should die before I wake, I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take." Then she stopped, and, calling to her father, asked: "Papa, did you say go straight on ahead, and I would find every- thing all right?" "Yes," said her weeping father. Then her little hands fell by her sides as she finished: 144 A RED-HEADED MAN "God bless papa and mamma, And make me a good little girl." And now good-by. Let us take God as our companion, keep straight on ahead, and may he make us good men and women is the sincere prayer of the author of this little book, who has found more pleasure than pain, more roses than thorns, more kindness than harshness, more good than evil, sunshine behind every cloud, gold in all the dross, triumph in every struggle, strength in weakness, glory in defeat, smiles in every sorrow; in fact, has found this present world, interpreted in the light of God's word, a glorious prophecy of a better world to come, and who is glad that in the distribution of hair he received an abundant supply of red. UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 001 034 573 4