effects of them are still here. Ballast all over 

 the land for quite a distance— gullys, etc., 

 washed out, and, in fact, numbers of acres 

 simply destroyed as far as farming is con- 

 cerned, without a large amount of worlc. 



December 31st, 1912. — While Mrs. Studabaker 

 tho^ight she was to get out of Missouri without 

 any further malarial troubles, yet in this she 

 was disappointed, for she had another chill 

 this day, and it was more strychnine and 

 arsenic, because she could not take quinine. 



January 1st, 1913. — I thought that I was going 

 to escape any of the other than ordinary ills 

 incident to a change of climate li!\e coming to 

 Missouri, but in this I was to be fooled, for at 

 this time I began getting boils — -"risings" — on 

 my neck, and say, I had some "risings" that 

 was "risings" within the next thirty days, but 

 I had to keep at it, for the public sale was to 

 come off the 30th and things had to be looked 

 after, and I sure kept at it, "risings" or no 

 "I'isings." 



January 14th, 1913. — While in New Madrid a 

 short time before this date and copying our 

 trust deed from the records, I heard one of 

 the deputies remark that she had an awful 

 amount of work to do that had just come in, 

 and she said A. J. ]\Iatthews had just filed 

 fifty chattel mortgages, and this party said. 

 "Oh, that won't amount to much, as you will 

 only have to register them, as he only files his 

 mortgages." I inquired what was meant by 

 "only filing mortgages," and it was explained in 

 this way: When a mortgage is spread of record 

 it costs a dollar, but when a mortgage or copy 

 is filed it only costs ten cents. This was a new 

 one on me, and as I had been giving Mr. C. D. 

 Matthews several mortgages and paying $1.00 

 each for them, I was curious to know how he 

 cared for his mortgages, and I looked them up 

 and found that he filed his chattel mortgages 

 and that I had given him seven (7) at a total 

 cost to myself of $7.00 and a cost to himself for 

 filing of 70 cents. Of course I gave these mort- 

 gages to protect Mr. C. D. Matthews in selling 

 me goods on credit, and L merely recite these 

 matters to you, dear reader, that when you go 

 to Missouri to work for a season or niake a 

 crop and have to have credit you can be in a 

 position to know exactly what other people 

 make off of your needing and accepting their 

 assistance. 



Jan. 30th, 1913. Public Sale Day. I was so 

 determined to get out of this country that in- 

 stead of renting farm when I sold land and 

 trusting to following the usual custom of this 

 country of "selling out rental proposition and 

 your farm implements and other personal prop- 

 eity," I decided to make a long storv short and 

 have a public sale, and so from generous ad- 

 vertising and a very good day as to weather 

 I had a fair crowd and things sold fairly well. 

 I v,-ould not advise anyone, however, to run 

 against the usual custom of a country, as you 

 are more than apt to lose out. 



February ."ith, 1913. While mv sale ad read 

 that all goods were to be settled "for before being 

 moved, yet where people were supposed to be 

 as good as A. J. Matthews, or his sons, Dvman, 

 m particular, I did not enforce the rule, and bv 

 so doing I lost out to the extent of about $12. 

 I had sorted the corn that I had— it being 

 Johnson County White— of a very pure breed — 

 and in order that people might bid on it in 

 small quantities I made 14 piles of about 12 

 bushels each and so informed the auctioneer, 

 Mr. A. A. Ebert, of Sikeston, Mo., that he should 

 sell one pile with the privilege of taking as 

 many as they wanted, and that each pile was 

 supposed to contain about 12 bushels. Well I 

 was not present when he made the statement 

 to the people as to the amount of each pile, but 

 w-as there in time to hear Lyman Matthews bid 

 off one pile at $4.00, and when Mr. Ebert asked 

 him how many he wanted, said he would take 

 them all, which made this corn bring about 33 

 cents per bushel, which was less than the feed 

 corn, which was the inferior grades out of this 

 same corn, brought. Well. I could not object 

 to the bidding of it off, neither did I trv to, 'but 

 T ^'"2" ^''*^' "°* settle for it that dav. and when 

 I had the clerks. Messrs. Deane and Case, call 

 him up over the 'phone about it, he made all 



kinds of apologies, so they said, and agreed to 

 I emit for it at once. Waited the next day for 

 check to come and it did not. so as I had busi- 

 ness in Sikeston the next day, I told Messrs. 

 1 )eane and Case that I would call at their office, 

 office of A. J. Matthews & Sons, and see Lyman 

 and settle with him there, and as that was on 

 my road to leave Missouri, I did go to Sikeston 

 the next day and to their offices and when 1 

 spoke of corn settlement, he told me that they 

 had taken the corn home and weighed it and it 

 fell short quite a number of busliels, and as Mr. 

 Ebert had guaranteed it to be 12 bushels to the 

 pile that was all they would settle for. Now 

 Mr. Ebert had not been authorized by me to 

 GUARANTEE amount, giving an amount of 12 

 bushels as an approximate amount for people 

 to figure from, telling how we had arrived at 

 that amount, , but here I was— ready to leave 

 the country — all settlements made but this one 

 — didn't know where Mr. Ebert was — corn had 

 been weighed by one of their tenants out in 

 the country, just how and where I did not know, 

 so I let it go and settled with them at the 

 reduced amount by which I lost at least $12 

 on A No. 1 seed corn that they had already 

 bought at the ridiculously low price of about 

 33 cents per bushel, and then as Mr. Lj'man 

 Matthews had said that the check was in the 

 mails I waited for Messrs. Deane and Case to 

 report it, so about 7 p. m. that evening they 

 came driving in from Matthews with ths letter 

 but no check, and had to insist on Messrs. 

 Matthews & Sons giving a check for it— the 

 reduced amount — so that I might not be delayed 

 in my getting away the next day, for the boys 

 trip in — trying to help me and getting a settle- 

 ment out of these people on this small matter I 

 paid them an extra $4. Didn't get much for 

 that seed corn,- did I? Now a word to the wise 

 is sufficient, and I trust, friend, you will profit 

 liy my experience. 



February 7th, 1913. From Sikeston I went 

 direct to West Lebanon, Ind., and here met Mr. 

 Charles Amos, who said he was the party that 

 had bought land of Mr. Lindley that I used to 

 own, and I told him as I was on my way to 

 Chicago I thought I would come by and see 

 what kind of a talk he had had with the boys, 

 and' asked him if he received either directly or 

 indirectly any benefit from the fact that I gave 

 up to Mr. Lindley $150 rental on the land and 

 he said he had not. Then I told him that while 

 it was not in my contract, yet Mr. White and 

 T liad talked the deal over and he told me that 

 they did not wish to buy my farm unless they 

 could resell it and that they could not resell it 

 unless they could get $1.50 out of the rental for 

 this year and 1 would have tu pay the interest 

 until the 1st of January, 1913, on the back notes. 

 Well, Mr. Amos and I went to the bank where 

 he was cashier and he read over his contract 

 and told me that he did not receive the $150 

 rental, and he had to begin paying interest on 

 the deferred payments from October 1, 1912, so, 

 reader, you can see that in addition to many 

 other things there was at least a conflict of 

 statements on this matter, while in truth there 

 was two statements — separate contracts — and it 

 was all right for there to be, for I sold the land 

 to W^. P. Lindley, and Mr. Amos bought it of 

 Mr. Lindley, and in my contract they had me 

 paying interest on about $14,000 from October 

 1, 1912, to January 1, 1913, and at the rate of 

 6 per cent interest to Mr. C. D. Matthews, and 

 on top of this Mr. C. D. Matthews had me pay- 

 ing an extra 2 per cent for accommodation — 

 not enforcing the provisions of the trust deed 

 — and on the other hand Mr. Lindley had Mr. 

 Amos paying 6 per cent on I suppose a like 

 amount, from October 1, 1912, to January 1. 

 1913, and also that $150 rental on farm was lost 

 somewhere. Now I did not want to create a 

 feeling with Mr. Amos that he had been 

 skinned, but I could see that he was leaning 

 that way, and in our talk I asked him what they 

 bad done with the elevator they had traded 

 for and he told me they had resold it and he did 

 not know just exactly what they had received 

 for it, out it was either $5,000 or more. Now I 

 had asked Dr. Dunaway what they received for 

 elevator and he said $4,000 and then I asked 

 Mr. White and he told me a little more than 



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