now at the last whether my name was Benson
or Bennington. I suppose I would have sworn to the latter, had the question
been raised, but it was not. I did not fight, for, as I have said, I seemed
to have an instinctive dread of doing something terrible in the event of my
getting engaged in combat with another. Like Falstaff, it may be, I was a
coward on instinct. I have always thought, moreover, that the Hudibrastic
aphorism is worthy of practice, because nothing can be more evident than
the fact that

"----He who runs away
May live to fight another day."

From that time to the commencement of the season for county fairs, five or
six weeks later, I kept in a condition of sobriety. County fairs, I wish to
say, and especially the Rush county fairs, did more toward bringing on the
disastrous career which has been mine--a career which has befouled the
record of my life and marked almost every page of its history--witness this
biography--with blots of shame, discord and unholy suffering than any other
cause of an external character. I was very young when I first commenced to
take stock to the fair to exhibit for premiums. I always went on the first
day, and always remained until the fair came to a close, staying on the
grounds night and day. There was a vagabond element in my nature which
harmonized perfectly with this sort of life. The men with whom I associated
were, in general, of that class who like liquor alone or in company, and
each had his jug of favorite whisky, which was supposed to be a sure
preventive against cold and colds in cold weather, and against heat and
fever in hot weather. If invited to drink the rule was to accept
immediately and return the courtesy as soon as convenient.

In those days I was the proud possessor of a yoke of white oxen, and I made
it a point to exhibit them at every fair within my reach, for they
invariably won the Red Ribbon, then a mark of the first prize. Alas, that
it did not mean to me what it now does! It meant anything rather than total
abstinence; it was an unfailing sign of drunkenness; it told of shameful
revels, of days of debauchery and nights of misery when not passed in
beastly slumber. That ribbon is now a symbol of holy temperance--it was
then a souvenir of days of disorder and evil-doing.

During the winter I was engaged to teach a district school, and for three
months managed to keep tolerably sober--that is, I did not get drunk more
than three or four times