17

16.

Majestic Hotel, in Athens, but soon accepted an invitation to board
in the home of one of the other men who worked where I did. I'd
boarded there for several days before I learned that my host and I
had been neighors and schoolmates in my early years in Alabama.
From then on we had plenty to talk about, and lots of questions to ask
each other. I lived with that family until I married.

"I was playing setback in a hotel lobby in Monticello, Georgia,
in 1918, one evening, when I heard my name called. A Mr. Oliver had
recognized me from my resemblance to one of my uncles. He and this
uncle had gone out west together. He told me that this uncle of mine
was the 'bravest man under the skies: he would stay where no other man
could.'

"While traveling I met the girl I married, and our first home
was with the family that had practically adopted me when they took me
from the Majestic Hotel. Kinship is not closer than the relations of
my family and the couple who had shared their home with me in the
years before our marriage. My wife and I called our host 'Dad.' He
has been dead, 'Lo, these many years,' but the golden ties of friend-
ship still bind us to his family.

"I'm still working for the same employers who induced me to
make my home in Athens, but this is no longer their home. While they
have moved their home office to another city, they employ me to attend
to their interests here.

"You don't need to be told about the instruments I invented for

1702