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twelve and he was my buddy, because he and I would climb trees and see which one could climb the highest, wade ditches and them full of snakes, run races, climb rail fences eight to ten foot high some of them. He'd get angry with me because I could out run him so he'd throw sticks at me. While his sister Olla was up home sick, he and I had to walk to school at Napoleon which was almost two miles every morning and evening and he told me after he was grown and married that he bet he could go to the very place where he had piled up sticks to throw at me. He told me then too, that he loved me better than any friend he had but he said you was so mean I could have killed you sometimes. After school we'd be so hungry but Stella would tell us to get an apple, orange or banana and eat because if we ate anything else it would kill our appetite. So maybe there would only be one piece of fruit left in the bowl and I'd grab it and run around the house eating all the whole time and he'd say you've got to divide it, so here we'd go round and around the house until I'd have it nearly all ate and then I would offer it to him, but he'd be so mad by that time he wouldn't have it. Wasn't I a mean thing? Emile had a colored woman in Gainesville to do all of the washing for Olla, her four children, Stella, my daddy and myself. One day in July when it was so hot my father hitched Emile's pacer up to the buggy and told Rasmus and I to go into Gainesville and get the cloths and he said now daughter what ever you do don't drive this animal fast because it's so hot if you do, he'll be a white lather when you get there. So I said yes, sir; and when we got out of sight of the house I told Rasmus to touch Prince with the buggy whip and lets see him travel. I suppose some of you know what a pacer is. It's when they get down level with the ground and go to town. In other words, travel. So sure enough he was just like my daddy had said. White wasn't the name. So then we had to let him walk all the way home to cool off. I wonder where Steve got his tricks like that from? I learned one lesson while living in Westonia with sister Emma and Jahue. Her neighbors who lived next door to her would call me every day at twelve o'clock and tell me if I carry her husbands dinner to him she'd buy me some pretty ribbon to go on my hair and would give me some nickels to buy some candy and gum. So I'd go take his lunch every day, so Emma told me one day to tell her I had to help her with the baby as Philip was her baby then. But I never would tell the woman and I never did see any ribbon or any nickels. So any way it taught me a lesson not to ever promise a child anything unless you were going to do it, because if I didn't know that the Bible says
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