“Labor ain’t cost me nothin’ because my two boys and me do all the work and we ain’t never had to hire no outside help. And the timber we’ve cut ain’t cost nothin’ neither ’cause, just between you and me, we been sort o’ stealin’ it off the land of a rich Yankee who owns a big stretch of the bottoms and ain’t got nobody watchin’ it.
“I’ve also been kind of favored in the matter of shipments, seein’ that my cousin is district freight-agent for the railroad and he fixes up things so our freightin’ don’t amount to nothin’ at all.
“That’s the way she stands—no wages for outside hands, no cost for timber, and practically nothin’ for freight bills.
“And last year I lost twenty-five hundred dollars.”
§ 137 There Spoke a Sympathizing Soul
In the latter years of his picturesque career Colonel Eph Lillard was warden of the state prison at Frankfort. It was no more than natural that the Colonel should be a sincere lover of good horseflesh. To him, a thoroughbred was almost the noblest work of God.
In his conduct of the prison he applied some of the kindly principles which actuated him in his private life. It was his boast that no penitentiary in the South was run on more humane lines. One morning, though, word spread through the town that during the night a convict up at the Colonel’s big, stone-walled establishment had hanged himself to the bars of his cell. In a body, the correspondents of the Louisville and Cincinnati papers waited upon the warden to learn the details of the suicide. They found Colonel Lillard in his private office wearing upon his genial face a look of genuine concern.
“Colonel,” said the spokesman for the group, “it begins to look to us as though some of your pets were not so well satisfied as you’ve been letting on. How about that fellow who killed himself last night?”
“Boys,” said the Colonel, “I’ve just been conductin’ an examination into the circumstances of that most deplorable affair. The situation with regards to the late deceased prove to be mighty affectin’. It seems he was sent up the first time to serve two years for stealin’ a horse. When he got out he went back home and stole another horse. They caught him before he’d gone more than half a mile and the jury gave him five years and back he came again. After he’d served his second term he went into an adjoinin’ county to the one where he’d formerly lived and slipped into a stranger’s stable and stole a mighty likely blooded mare, but was overtaken at daylight next morning and inside of three months was back here again doin’ an eight-year term. The way I look at it, the poor fellow took to broodin’ and just naturally despaired of ever gettin’ hisself a horse.”