BACK AT LAST TO THE LONE STAR STATE.
Everything went on lovely until the coming fall, about the latter part of November when I skipped the country for good. I will tell you how it happened.
One afternoon a fire broke out close to the school house and as everybody was rushing by, I became excited and wanted to go too, to see the fun. I asked the teacher if I could go, but he refused in a gruff voice. This did not keep me, I made a break for the door and was soon lost among the surging mass of people.
The next heard of me was on the "rolling deep." I had boarded a Morgan steamship and stowed myself away until the vessel was at sea, where I knew they wouldn't land to put me ashore.
"St. Mary" was the name of the ship. She lost one of her wheel houses and was considerably out of shape when we landed in Galveston, Texas. It had stormed terribly during the whole trip.
During the few hours that the ship remained in Galveston, I put in my time hunting an old uncle of mine by the name of "Nick" White, whom I had never seen. He had been living there seventeen years, therefore I experienced but little difficulty in finding his place; but after finding it I didn't have courage enough to go in and make myself known. One reason was, I thought he might think I was beholden to him, or in other words, trying to get his sympathy. I just stood at the gate a few minutes viewing the beautiful shrubbery, which filled the spacious yard and went back to the boat which by that time, was just fixing to pull out.
We arrived in Indianola one morning about sun-up. I recognized several of my old acquaintances standing on the wharf before the ship landed; among them was my old God-father Mr. Hagerty, who stood for me when I was being christened by the Catholic priest.
They were all surprised to see me back. Mr. Hagerty took me home with him and told me to content myself until I could find work.
In about a week I went to work for Mr. H. Selickson, who ran a packing house five miles below town. He gave me fifteen dollars a month all winter.
The first month's wages went for a fancy pistol, the next, or at least part of it, for a pair of star topped boots and all the balance on "monte," a mexican game. There were lots of mexicans working there and after working hours some of them would "deal" monte while the rest of us "bucked."