2

Alabama

where we kept a jug under the head of the bed, and I have always kept one
under my bed. It ain't done me no harm, and I'll be an old man tomorrow!"
His shriveled face creased in a grin, and he said happily: "I'll be 67.
You know, you're an old man when you git to be 65. I'll be 67 tomorrow.

"I come in at night from the sawmill so tired I can't hardly wiggle,
and I take me a little drink, and then I eat me a hearty supper, and I go
to bed. I sleep good. Then, when I get up, I take me another drink, eat
me a good breakfast, and I feel good all day. I ain't no drunkard, and
it's all right if I ain't a drunkard."

He laughed: "I said I went directly to bed, but I don't. I set up
and read, sometimes to 11 o'clock, and I always git up at four. I reckon
if a feller gits out of bed at four all his life, he just tumbles and
tosses if he don't git up every time at four. I allus get up at four, no
matter when I go to bed." He reads western magazines, and has been doing
it all his life. His wife reads to him, when he is too tired.

He was happy as he began to remember his early days. He would talk
all day about that, anybody could see; for his voice took on strength and
vitality like that of a young man. "About that whiskey", he went on, "I
had it on and off with that preacher down in Jacksonville, in Calhoun County!"
He paused to rock his memory with glee, as he was asked whether he had ever
made any speeches about prohibition.

"No, I didn't make no speeches; I was working in those days, contracting
and sawmilling. But we won that time; we beat in the election. I'd come
in from work and write articles in the paper to the preachers." The memory
made the old man happy, and his fried-bacon body seemed to sing like taut
rawhide twitted by a breeze. "They preached me to hell, and I'd answer
'em every time, and get the best of it, too. We won that time."

He stopped for a question, and said no, it wasn't when they voted in
prohibition; "It was around 1905 or somewhere,and we won it."

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