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Alabama 3
appears a small, secret grin that is buried in him.

For forty or fifty years he has been around, many more years he romped
and drank over the country. Red Bay wasn't here when he first came and doc-
tored on horseback.

"The first schooling I ever got was when I was 8 years old. I went to
Uncle Bud Still's school, and the next year I went to Uncle Bill Waldrep's
school. Now, let me see...." He puffed on his pipe slowly, and slipped his
stocky frame into the worn easy chair. The fan in the ceiling was cool,
the smell from the little side room where Doc fixed cuts, painted wounds,
and set arms came from medicine. The streets of the town were silent except
for an occasional rubbered slither of an automobile. "Let me see, in '81,
I went to Miss Florence Barnes, and I went to Bill Nabors' school, too.
Now, I think it was out at Rara Avis I went to Uncle Bill Waldrep, that was
my pa's brother, you know. Then I went to school out there where the
Methodist Church is now. The worst school I ever went to was out at the
Bullen place; everybody studied aloud. It was the awfullest racket." His
face took on an angelic smile. "Then the Gates boys got up a school, and
taught 8 months; my pa and the other people went in together to pay them
to teach school. I went there two terms. The other schools I went to were
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