all "cradled." At this I was an adept, never
meeting any one that could excel me. The same was true of jumping and
running foot races. Hundreds of men could no doubt beat me, but I never
happened to meet them. I kept up these exercises till I left college.

When I was about twelve years of age my father built a large and
comfortable house on another part of his farm. It was of hewed logs,
and a story and a half high, with a large kitchen and dining-room,
porches, etc. It was subsequently weather-boarded, and it is still a
comfortable, commodious dwelling, owned by my mother, who never left it
till her children all married and went to themselves. Father died of
typhoid fever in 1860, in the fifty-third year of his age. He left my
mother in comparatively easy circumstances, with nearly three hundred
acres of land, plenty of stock, and a considerable amount of money on
interest. By industry and economy on the part of himself and the whole
family this property was accumulated, and he died in the assurance that
with prudence on our part we could all make a respectable living. My
mother now makes her home with her oldest daughter, Mary Crenshaw, wife
of Mr. O. B. Crenshaw, a few miles north of Simpsonville, Shelby
county, Ky. She waits in confident expectation that before long she too
will depart to be with Christ and His redeemed, where the families of
his saints will be reunited for ever.

After I grew to be a young man, I became very fond of fashionable
amusements; I liked dancing, and went far and near to engage in the
fascinating exercise. I gave a great deal of attention to dress;
priding myself on being a gentleman; hence I found a welcome in the
best society. In those years of wildness and wickedness, some things I
was careful to avoid. I never learned to play cards, to gamble, or to
tolerate the company of immodest women. For the latter I had an
invincible repugnance that grew stronger with my years.

In the summer of 1855, while harvesting for her uncle, I first met at
the dinner-table Miss Jennie Maddox, the lady whom I afterwards
married. I looked as rough and unprepossessing that day as she ever saw
me afterwards. I was as brown as a Florida "cracker," and my dress was
anything but elegant. Had I anticipated the forming of such a
captivating acquaintance, I should have made some preparation, but I
was caught, and I had to make the best of it. We were married September
11, 1856; I was twenty years and a half old