st preachers have to do, is
unfavorable to domestic happiness. How few members of our churches ever
think of this, or make allowance for the discomfort frequent changes of
residence impose upon the families of their preachers! To own a home
and have the taste and the means to adorn it, is an educational force
in any family; its lack, a great misfortune.

CHAPTER X.

Narrow Escapes. Is Thrown from a Horse. Has Pneumonia. Nearly Killed.
Self-possession. Almost Drowned. Eludes Angry Soldiers. Reflections.

During the Christmas holidays we went down to Oldham county to see our
relatives. While there, an event occurred, the recollection of which
brings up a chapter of NARROW ESCAPES hitherto untold, a few of which I
shall relate in their order.

When about thirteen years of age, a horse on which I was riding in a
slow walk and on a level road, fell, throwing me over its head and
coming over on top of me. It broke both bones of my left ankle and
several ribs, mashing in my left breast, which has ever since been much
depressed; it never developed like the other, and the lung on that side
is the one now chiefly affected. This accident occurred at
Ballardsville, on a public day, some three miles from home. I was taken
to the home of Dr. Swaine, our family physician, near which it
happened. He was absent, and a doctor from Shelby county was called. He
had a carpenter to make a box, reaching from my foot to my knee, and in
this he put my leg. The box was straight on the bottom, and as the
break was just in the hollow between the calf and the heel, anybody
that had any sense should have known that the broken part would settle
down level with the rest, and a bad job be the result. It was badly
set, and gave me much trouble for several years.

Following this, in successive winters, I had two severe spells of
pneumonia in that left lung, in both of which my life was despaired of.

One day I was hauling heavy barn sills. They were swung under the hind
axle, and the pole was tied by a chain back around the sill. The chain
caught on a solid rock in the road, and, as I had four strong horses,
and they all came to a dead pull, the chain broke; then the pole came
over with force enough to have mashed every bone in a man's body. The
horses happened to be on a straight pull, and the pole just brushed by
my right shoulder and side. Had it struck me, I might as well have been
struck by a cannon-ball. That ended my dragging logs wi