I didn't know why I would fly off the handle and cuss a blue streak. My Pa never did use any kind of bad language at all. No one around my home did. At school the big boys would tell me all kinds of big lies. I would believe anything they would tell me. They knew that when I got mad that I would put on a show for them.

SHIRT TAILS

     In the days of 1892 and 1893, us younger boys went in our shirt tails. Morris and I would be out in the field helping our older sisters chop cotton. Our neighbor's girls would catch up with their work and come over to gossip with our sisters. Morris and I would be so mortified we could hardly stand to have those girls come to where we were working.

     I remember on day we sent Morris to the house to bring out a bucket of fresh water. When he got to the house and went in to ask Ma for a bucket to carry us a drink. He was in his shirt tail. When he walked into the house, there were two neighbor girls visiting with Ma. When Morris saw those girls he screamed out and ran out of the house. Those girls thought that there was something wrong with him and they took off after him. He was screaming and running. They wee trying to catch up with him to see what was wrong, and he was trying to stay out of their way. They finally ran him down. My Ma was laughing so hard she could not tell the girls what was wrong. My Ma would laugh if one of us kids got into any embarrassing situation or got hurt.

     In 1893, just after Pa built us a new house, we moved out of our old log house. My brother, J.L. had gathered up a lot of our old shoes. He was playing shoe cobbler. He had his thread and peg and awl down by the stick and dirt fireplace trying his hand at mending our shoes. Every time he would lay his peg and awl down, I would grab it up. I finally got the awl and was showing how hard my big toe nail was. I placed the awl on my big toe nail and leaned over on 

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