My next attendance at a protracted meeting was to help Thompson Little. This meeting was held at old Clarksburg on the very site, in a new church building, where I went to school when quite young and where I appeared in my first effort as a public speaker. It was a recitation and commenced the way:
"'Tis a lesson you should head,
If at first you don't succeed
Try, try again."
Well, at this meeting I preached and seven young people came forward at one time and gave me their hands and made the good confession. It was the greatest number that ever came forward at any one time upon my invitation. These seven were all my old playmates and schoolmates. It was a good meeting.
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C H A P T E R N I N E
Generous friends. Christian, Catholic Methodist, $1.50 $1.00 $0.00 A hawk story. April 15, 1865. All Irish but one. The Bible in school. Not Papa.
During this period of my life, which included the latter part of the Civil War, I was occupied mostly at Christian Liberty, and Washington, Daviers County, Ind., both teaching and preaching. A part of the two years following this was spent in school at Indianapolis and Miram, Ohio. At Christian Liberty, my church house and school house were in the same yard. On the first day I occupied the one and on the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days, I occupied the other. And on the seventh day I rested. That is the way teachers and preachers work. I am not a sabbatarian.
At Christian Liberty which was a country place I made my home for almost four years in the family of W. A. Wilson. He was a well-to-do farmer and had an interesting family. He was a good man, but somewhat peculiar. For instance, as fast as I earned money teaching he would borrow it, giving his note drawing legal interest, and when the note was due he would pay it with the identical money he had borrowed. He would also pay the interest. I asked why he did that, "O" he would answer, "I always like to have money in my pocket." "Then besides," he would add, "a young man ought to have his money at interest." Mr. Wilson was a Christian and very generous and kind. He only charged me $1.50 per week for board. I also boarded at another period in my life in a Catholic family named Wade, for three years. They, too, were kind and generous, charging me only $1.00 per week. The father and mother were old and allowed me all the privileges about the home as I were a son. More than that: they allowed he all the liberty of a Protestant Christian, telling me to read my Bible as much as I pleased, and if I wished to offer thanks at the table to do so. This I did and they their crosses.
One Saturday, when sitting in my room in the spring of the year, looking out of the open door I saw what not one boy in a million, perhaps, ever saw. A large chicken hawk made a dive down in the yard at an old hen and her brood of little chickens. Mrs. Wade heard the noise and dashed out through the open door, and threw her apron over the hawk, and caught it and choked it to death.
One winter when teaching in Tophet, I boarded with a Methodist man. He too, was kind and generous to a fault. All he charged me was nothing. He said it was worth more to have me live with his boys than it cost to board me.