Around 1890, we had a good peach tree in our front yard. Ma and us children were standing around this tree one day and I had the chopping axe. I threw it down by the tree and started to climb. Ma said  "Don't you climb that tree, you'll fall, and hurt yourself on that axe." I told her that I wouldn't fall, so on up the tree I went. I got out too far on a limb and it broke. Down I came. My toe struck the blade of the axe and cut my toe about half in two. I saw the blood and grabbed my toe saying, "I will die, I will die!  Ma do something." The more I would take on, the more she would laugh. She took me into the house and got some soot from the stove pipe on a rag, and bound up my toe. Ma always had to laugh if any of us kiddies got hurt. Especially me, for I always threw a fit!

     My Pa wasn't home when this little incident happened. He was a molasses maker, and was gone quite a bit in the fall. We would have a large crop of cane to work up of our own each fall. We were working on a crop of our cane one fall and Pa had accumulated quite a lot of scimmings. He had a trench dug out by the side of the mill to throw them in.

ALCHOLIC COWS

     It came a big rain and we were off a day or so from the mill. Someone had left the gate open and our old milk cows got in and drank those scimmings. They had fermented and our old cows all got on a drunk. Of all the fun we had, it was watching those cows! After that, some of our hogs got in and they got drunk. They would just stand around and squeal.

     Pa didn't believe in drinking, but when those cows got drunk, there wasn't a think he could do, except laugh!

     Again I say, if a boy missed growing up on a farm, he has missed all the fun.

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