then and was fully grown. I weighed about 165 pounds. I shall 
always believe this heavy work stopped my growth, nevertheless a 
medium weight man can stand and endure more than one so large. 
The year I was 16 my father promised me, that if I would push 
the work, that he would send me to school at Louisville, Ky., to 
the medical college. My Dad thought I would make a good surgeon, 
but I knew I would rather dissect wild animals. However, at the end 
of my sixteenth year, a short time before Christmas, my father gave 
me two bales of cotton that were raised on our farm and told me to 
take it to Nashville and sell it and to use the money to buy such 
clothes as I thought I would need when I went to Louisville. He also 
told me that old “Babe” Thornton was going to Nashville and I 
could go with him. 
Babe Thornton was a typical old soak; he could drink a quart of 
Tennessee whiskey each day and be the same old Babe, as everyone 
called him. 
The time arrived when Babe and 1 were to start for Nashville. 
I loaded the two bales of cotton, with the help of a few of the 
negroes that were always hanging around, hooked up a span of good 
mules, spread a wagon sheet over the cotton and drove up Mill Creek 
to meet Babe Thornton, who was ready and waiting for me. We 
started at once for Nashville. Babe’s wagon was loaded with peanuts 
and mine with the two bales of cotton. We had not driven more than 
ten miles when Babe drove up to a road house, crawled out of his 
covered wagon, went into the road house and came back out in a 
few minutes carrying a gallon jug of Tennessee whiskey. He offered 
me a drink, as I had expected, and it did taste fine. It was old and 
had a mellow taste which is not found -in moonshine of today, and a 
kick that was as sturdy as the kick of a government mule. 
Old Babe would stop his team about once each hour, get out his 
jug, offer me a drink and take one himself. I indulged in a little too 
much, not being used to drinking it every day like Babe, I could not 
stand so much, but I would gauge my drink and try to keep the kick 
about the same. 
We camped by the road side that night where several other farm¬ 
ers were camping, some going and some coming. Most of them had 
plenty of whiskey but no one was drunk, with the exception of one 
loud-mouthed little fellow who thought he was the “Pea Price.” 
There was a large camp fire and it was really a very frosty night, 
but we sat close to the fire and told each other interesting stories, and 
a few smutty jokes. Finally everyone had retired except a young 
chap about my age and this loud-mouthed drunkard and myself. The 
drunken fellow wanted to go to bed also so he crawled into his wagon, 
which was sitting on the side of the hill, with rocks under the wheels 
to keep it from rolling down, as the hill was very steep. When he 
was asleep I proposed to my comrade that we release the mules from 
the back of his wagon, where he had tied them, and tie them to a 
tree, then take the rocks from the wheels and let his wagon run down 
the hill. The boy readily agreed to this, so we took the mules and 
— 14 — 
