"It doesn't matter where you go, Howard, or what you do, honestly, if you will get a lot of books to read and study them. Read the lives of Lincoln and Horace Greeley, who started out of the woods. Books and study are the keys to the great outside world. If you would be more than a laborer with your hands—study, my boy," I advised, putting my hand on his broad shoulders.
"I'm goin' to do it, suh—I'm goin' to do it sho'," he repeated as he followed me to the gangplank.
And there he stood on the end of the wharf until the ship was out of sight, occasionally waving his arms. For a time I was actually disturbed by the pathos of the boy's conduct. I knew that in our country there were still thousands more like him not yet reached by our woeful educational system, especially in some parts of the South.
My work in the Excise Department was new to me and kept me very busy for the next five years. Howard Byng had practically passed out of my mind. One day the chief informed me that there was a lot of "moonshine" whiskey coming down the Altamara River in Southern Georgia, that the still was in the center of an immense cut-over swamp, and anyone approaching it could be seen from far away. Also that revenue officers usually came away hurriedly with bullet holes in their hats and clothing, and without the Swamp Angels who had formed the habit of not paying the federal tax on distilled liquors. He wanted to know if I would undertake to bring them in, saying that, as I hadn't many failures to my credit I could afford to stand one. But what he really meant to convey was that the case had become a stench to the department's nostrils, and that I must go well prepared to clean things up.
I found the county was as big as Rhode Island and without a railroad; the county seat a village, and the sheriff a picturesque character. He said he could give minute directions to locate this "still," but so far as he was concerned "pussenly" he had just been re-elected and wanted to serve out his term, "sheriffing" being the best paid job in the county, and that his family needed the money. He was strongly of the belief an attempt on his part to capture the gang would be a direct bid for the undertaker and a successor.
"But, now suh, don't misunderstand," he continued. "Those three or four fellows up there in the 'cut-over' ain't no friends of mine."
The "still" was up the river about thirty miles, and then off three miles, in a creek that was almost dry, except at high tide.
He helped me procure a flat-bottomed rowboat, to which I attached an electric propeller which I thought would send it along quietly—oars are much too noisy—and I started out at night, expecting to get at the mouth of the creek at high tide, which would be about midnight.
After going up the river some twenty miles, I saw a light ahead on the left bank that soon grew into a row of lights,—and electric lights, too. I thought it must be a packet coming down, but packets on that river were small, primitive affairs and again, as I drew closer I saw that the lights were not moving, but located on the bank that raised a little at that point. I thought it strange the sheriff did not mention this landmark. As I came abreast of it, I could see it was some kind of a factory, but decided to look it over, "if I come back," which the sheriff had cast doubt upon.
For a few miles above something about the contour of the bank puzzled me for a time. I was conscious of the fact that memory and geography are often linked together. Unerringly I could think of a hotel by name when I reached a town, not having thought of it before in years. Even a telephone number I could recall when the geography was right. Having discussed this mental phenomena with others I found I was not alone in possession of this freak of the brain.