When it was known that I was lamed by the small-pox, it created quite a sensation among the neighbors, as well as untold grief in the family circles. I elicited great sympathy from all who knew me; my playmates were ready to lend me assistance in our sports and plays.

I felt the affectionate respect shown me, even at an early day, and I still love the names of my mother's kind old neighbors and their children for the kindness manifested towards me.

It was a case of much consultation and minute examination among the physicians of the surrounding country-all trying to divine the cause of the effect of the disease upon me. I yet remember distinctly how fearful I became on seeing any gentleman riding towards our house. I would at once make for the nearest hiding place, and it was not until a promise from my mother of a lump of maple sugar, of which I was very fond, was made, that I could be induced to make my appearance before the doctors.

The doctors seldom left me without placing some little token of affection in my hands, which greatly endeared them to me, notwithstanding my fear of them, growing out of the impression I had imbibed of their intention of amputating my leg; I therefore suffered almost constant fear until I was six years of age, or upwards, when all hopes of bettering my condition was abandoned, and I dismissed to go in peace.

It was an evident fact that I would never enjoy the ineffable pleasure of taking one even step in this life. I now am fully impressed that had the surgeons of those days been as ready to try experiments as the surgeons of the present age, my affliction might have been greatly alleviated.

Yet I murmur not at the doings of God. "He doeth all things well." I meekly bow to His holy will, knowing it is all for the best.

My mother did not live long at the place where my father

died. Soon after that sad event, she leased a place on Cedar creek, near an "Old Side Baptist" church, or "meeting house," in which Mr. Willis and Uncle Billy White were the preachers. During our severe affliction, already detailed, the latter was a friend indeed. The place of baptizing was near my mother's house; and it was there I I first witnessed an immersion. And here permit me to relate an incident which occurred at one of those "baptizings," that was quite amusing at the time it transpired, and caused some criticism. There were several baptized, and among them some ladies. As one of them was being raised out of the water, a good old brother who was sitting at the root of a tree near the bank of the stream, was heard to exclaim, in a loud tone, "dip her again, Brother Willis, for all of her head did not go under!" At that suggestion, Brother Willis dipped her the second time, which seemed to give full satisfaction to the old brother. The circumstance is as fresh in my memory as though it occurred but recently; and perhaps I am not the only one living who witnessed, and who recollects, that event-yet but few of the old settlers of that neighborhood are now living. Time, with its ever mowing scythe, has cut them down, and they have passed away, and others have taken their places.

Among my mother's neighbors was Frank Anderson, father of Paul Anderson, Sr., and grand father of Paul Anderson, Jr., colonel in the late Confederate army. Our families were intimate friends and associates. The few years we lived near them were spent in almost unalloyed happiness-at least by the juvenile part of the families.

Those were days in which my mind began to dawn and expand. The recollection of the events are vivid, and seem but as yesterday, yet I am now classed with those called old.

Col. Paul Anderson, Jr., was the first infant I ever beheld. I now remember well how I loved Mrs. Anderson's little

black-eyed babe, little dreaming, in a future day, we should be participants in one of the most stupendous wars ever recorded in history; he in the field, and I in the hospital. The memories of those days are pleasant. O days, sweet days of my childhood, how I love thee still!

But time with its stern realities soon cast a gloomy shade over those once happy days. How fondly would I erase from recollection the events of my latter days, especially the last four years of unparalleled carnage, devastation and ruin; also, the present thralldom and oppression that my people have to endure. It is pleasant to brush from memory for a time the recollection of these unpleasant events, and roam in fancy, fields of juvenile days, when with my beloved brothers, and only dear sister, with our fishing tackle in hand, stealing along through the green forest to the banks of the babbling brook, where each one, with heart elated, dashed the baited hook into the limpid stream, expecting soon to lift the shining perch therefrom. With the sweet warblings of the feathered songsters, perched upon the adjacent trees, regaling our ears with their melodies; or, with my brothers, chasing the butterfly through the green meadows, and anon throwing stones at the water moccasins, which were abundant in those days; or, perhaps, from a stream flowing from a large spring of crystal waters, wherein we oft did slake our thirst when we would become weary of our innocent sports.

O, how I love, in fancy, to live over again my tripping along the green path, on a pleasant summer's eve, by the side of my loved and adored mother, to the house of our ever pleasant and kind neighbor, Mr. Paul Anderson-my young heart throbbing with delight at the thought of having a romp and play with little Paul. Yes, I love to be a child again. It gives fresh vigor to the soul, and strength to the wearie 1 mind, and enables us to more successfully battle with the trying events of the present, and to more fully

contemplate the joys and happiness held in reservation for those who serve God upon earth, when they have ceased to labor and to suffer in this vale of sorrow, grief and tears, and are transplanted to that heavenly Eden where the redeemed of the Lord shall sing anthems of praises to that God who has redeemed us from the thralldom of sin, and washed us white in his own precious blood.

I hope the reader will not charge me with incredulity, when I affirm a faith in the recognition of friends in the spirit land, that have long been lost to our embrace in this sin-smitten world of ours. For the faith within me, I offer the consoling language of the Apostle, "We shall see as we are seen; and know, also, as we are known." I cultivate the consoling impression, that if in this mortal life we possess the faculty of knowing each other, we will know also in the life which is to come, where our minds will be more vivid, and more capable of comprehension. I was more forcibly impressed with this subject on being thrown among some. of my long absent friends, some of whom I had not seen for forty years. O, what sensations of exquisite pleasure and joy pervaded my being upon that occasion. Surely it was akin to heaven.

One of the number that formed that happy group was the veritable Col. Paul Anderson, the once wee little babe I loved so fondly, to whom I have above alluded. I need not tell the reader I gazed upon him with that scrutiny that gave satisfaction to my mind, and filled me with unutterable joy and gratitude. To know that God, who had preserved me through all the trying vicissitudes of my life, permitted me to look once again upon the form of him who had been the idol of my childish heart in the days when I knew no sin, was to me a pleasure indeed. He, however, knew me not, having left his neighborhood ere he was old enough to retain lasting impressions of any one.

Eight summers passed, and my fond and indulgent

mother was claimed by the King of Terrors as his lawful prey, leaving me a crippled orphan at the age when I most stood in need of a mother's counsel and affection. How sadly I felt my bereavement. Yet too young to fully realize the loss of an only parent, I felt, for a time, as though I could not live without my mother. There was no one to fill her place in my lonely heart, or in the family circle. The vacant chair could not be filled. The void thus created in my heart could not be reoccupied.

It was several years after my mother's death before I met with any one who could come near filling her place. My brothers all were very kind to me, and seemed to idolize me, but my oldest brother seemed to manifest special care and affection for me; in fact, he became to me as my all in all. I almost adored him.

My sister, though young, acted nobly, was kind, and loved always to make us comfortable and happy; and through her industry and maternal care my brother was enabled to keep us together. A short time before my mother's death, my brother purchased a home, which was then known as the Bethel place-named after Bethlehem church, near by. At that place mother spent the last two years of her widowed life, breathing her last on the 25th of September, 1826.

Mournfully, her six orphan and beloved children, with a large concourse of friends, followed her to her last resting place. With hearts filled with unutterable grief we saw our last earthly parent and dearest friend consigned to the cold and silent grave by the side of our father, who had slept there for eight years.

The mournful and saddening scene of that day left a lasting and touching impression upon my young and tender heart; but time, with its sad realities, admonished us that we were alone, and that it behooved us to do the best we could for ourselves. At the close of the second summer of