The Boy of Battle Ford and the Man

CHAPTER IIIb

28 THE BOY OF BATTLE FORD part of the county. When Hamilton be- two. Elias Carter was the witness to the came convinced that he was in danger of losing his life, he managed to draw his knife from his pocket and' stabbed his persecutor just once. Hase let him down instantly in such a way that he missed the well and he hurriedly left the country to return to it no more. Ease died in a few minutes after being stabbed. The sympathy of the people was altogether with Hamilton, as he was a small 'man and a man of .peace. Hase wag a large man and rather independent and rougll. No doubt that if Hamilton had stayed and stood his trial he would have come clear, as it was in defense of his own life that he committed the awful deed. But he regarded the killing of a man, even in self-defense, so great a calamity that he wanted to get as far away from' the place and tlie people who knew it as possible. I think it is possible that he wished many times t!lat he had let Hase alone, even if he did fall into the well, An humble, conscienL:ms man can scarcely be reconciled to the killing of a person under any circumstances. Let no boy contemplate murder at all, if he ever expects to be happy. CHAPTER III. M ~ MO.THER had three sisters living near Brushy F'lrk creek, eight miles south of Gal'atia, ten miles north of our home. They and their husbands asked us to sell our claim and buy agreement. Every condition of the agreement was carried out to a tittle. I remember that a second-rate cow and calf, or yearling, were to be valued'at $8. No interest was to accrue. I never forgot the honor and fair 'dealing of Mr. Wilkins toward us. In less than one month after we buried grandfather we were moving 'away-household, live stock and familY. It was a dark and clouqy day, I looked back at the old place' as long as I could see. It was the only home I could remember . I hated to leave it. It was dear to me. Twenty years and three months passed away before I visited the old place again. I sat on my horse alone and my eyes scanned every part of the little m6ladow to discover someth,in,g I had known before. Every tree and stump and log and fence had gone. Much of the outer edge of the little field had been allowed to grow up in trees. The old muster ground was a hazel thick~t, except a path through it. I was surprised to witness so gre,at a change. There were no people living within three miles of the place whom we had left there a score of years previous. The Hills, the Hancocks, and Hamiltons; the Creeds, the Coles, and the 'Carters, the Wilkinses, the Travises, the Hases, had d.iedor moved away. My mother, my brother and my uncle, who lived with us there, were still living. The first three were Christians ana members of one near them. 'My oldest sister had died the, New Salem Baptist church, two miles before my father, and' another sister, who was born two months after my father's death, died at three months of a.ge, and my, father and grandfather, making four deaths in a few years, caused my mother to make the change. We sold our claim to WilHam Watkins, for a consideration of $100, to be paid in property, one-half down and twenty-five dollars worth each autumn for the next north of Carrier Mills; the last named three were returned veterans of the llate Civil war. I recognized the merciful providence of God in sparin~ me and mine through the long period since I had seen the old home, and there offered myself anew to th.e J..ord as his servant. during my pilgrimage that summer day in 1867. When we came to our new home on Brushy Fork I was about seven years and THE BOY OF BATTLE FORlJ 29 two months old. Our house was fifty feet above the creek to the n()rtli, and the descent of sixty degrees covered with white oak trees ,and shrubs. The five-acre field on the south came to the yard. As I look back over the intervening fifty...