<TITLE>12. Par 38-40</TITLE>L-38 I begin to come down the line; I thought, "Yes, Ralph Fields, he's in eternity. I called three or four more of the boys, "William Hensel, in eternity." I thought, "Who stood next to him? I did. I thought... Who, say... Who was next to me? Edward, in eternity. I look right behind me, and seen Bill Ault: eternity. Behind that, Howard Higgins, in eternity..."
My, I looked up across the hill where the old home place used to stand, and there was a housing project; the home was gone. The old place wasn't like it used to be; the old spring was stopped up, the fields had become people's lawns, just in a little twenty, something years. There I begin to cry, I thought--I said, "Oh God, here we have no continuing city." When I thought, "Dad, how I used to see him come across the field, his black hair wavy, and coming across the field; he'd meet mother out at the gate and all of us kiddies, and take us up in his arms and walk into the house." But he's past; it's already fallen in. "Here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come, whose Builder and Maker is God."

L-39 I stood there, and I--I got to crying. I thought about the day that I took the handful of popcorn away from my brother down there. I just... First time I was ever... When I got in need I'd even eat a heel; that's the truth. I'm not just saying that, but that's the truth. I'd always... Somebody would buy me a sandwich or something, I wished I could buy it back, and I couldn't do it. And I'd had a few meetings; I'd have an offering or two. And I'd say, "Oh, God, how I wish You could lift me up here and let me take that handful of popcorn up to him today. I'd give anything, Lord, anything, if You'd let me give him that handful of popcorn." He died at nineteen years old, when I was out west working on a cattle ranch, and he died calling for me. And they could hear him from the hospital plumb into the streets, saying, "Let me see my brother Bill once more before I go. Tell him to be a good boy."
There he was gone, and I had that stain on me of taking that handful of popcorn from my brother. I think of his grave, when we buried him, oh, we were real brothers. I remember I got one of Mama's blankets when it come the first snow; I went up there and throwed it over his grave, for I thought he'd be cold. That's before I was a Christian. But now I realize he's not there; he's gone on.

L-40 How I begin--I begin to crying, my wife, little girl heard me, and they come over there and said, "Bill, now I thought you come home to rest." And they got me and put the baby up on my shoulder, and I looked back at the old place, and I said,
 Precious memories, how they linger,
 How they ever flood my soul;
 In the stillness of the midnight,
 Precious, sacred scenes unfold.
I looked there, went around, we got in the car and drove on. When I was a lad I was more or less a bashful. There's many of those things I'll just let go. I was more or less bashful, and you might think this strange, but I really didn't like ladies. I haven't... Didn't like the girls at all.
Because, my father, they'd go down on the river where they drink and everything, and I'd see women come up there, married women, their husbands not with them, and see how untrue they could act. I said, "If that's the way they are, I never want nothing to do with any of them." And I made my mind, that I wasn't going to never be married, never have anything to do with women, I was going to be a trapper. I love hunting and trapping.


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