<TITLE>17. Par 56-59</TITLE>L-56 She said, "If it don't make you sick, it don't do you any good." Maybe this will help you some too, make you right good and sick and you'll stop it then. That's right. All right. She said...
And I--I remember, here set my little girl setting there smoking a cigarette. Oh, my. I kind of... She sure dropped in my estimation then. I said... Now, she said... Begin to blow smoke like that, you know. And I thought, "If the good Lord wanted you to smoke He'd have put a smoke stack on you. See?" And I looked over at her like that, "Uh-huh."
Looked in front, here was Jim's girl setting there doing the same thing. Well, Jim smoked himself. So I looked around.
She said, "Will you--will you have a cigarette, Billy?"
I said, "No, ma'am, thank you. I don't smoke."
She said, "You don't smoke?" Said, "Now, you just got through telling me that you didn't dance."
I said, "No, ma'am."
Said, "That--that you don't smoke?"
"No."
And she said, "Well, what do you like to do?"
I said, "I like to go fishing. I like to hunt." That didn't interest her.
So she--she said, "Well, you big sissy."

L-57 A sissy? My daddy had called me that one time, 'cause I wouldn't take a drink of whiskey. And I wanted to, but there was Something wouldn't let me. So, I--I said, "What was that?"
And she said, "You're a big sissy."
And I said, "Give me them cigarettes."
And I took that cigarette just as intention to smoke it as I am to finish preaching this service this afternoon. I took it in my hand, trembling like that. I said, "Give me the--the material with it." And--and she give me the thing that you light it with, you know. And I got it all fixed like that, and I started to put it in my mouth, shaking like that, and I heard Something going, "Whew." And I stopped, and I looked around; I thought, "Now that wasn't right?"
She said, "What's the matter?"
I said, "Nothing, nothing." I said, I--I'm--I just trying to light it." And I--I started up to my mouth again.
You heard me tell my story the other night, how that whirl in the bush back there. There it was repeating again, "Whew." I dropped the cigarette; I started crying.
She said, "Now I know you are a sissy."

L-58 I was... Closed that little old tin door on the Ford, and started up the road crying. Jim drove along in front, said, "Come on, get in, Bill." I said, "Nope, no."
I started walking up the road; she said, "Why, Billy," she said, "you great big sissy, you." Said, "I thought you was a man."
I said, "I thought I was too." And I just went on up the road like that; walking.
I cut across the fields, went up there and set down in the field, and I said, "Oh, if there was some way that I could die here. Nobody wants me. I'm not fit for nobody." I said, "And the boys, they all like to go to dances and big times, and the girls like to smoke cigarettes, and here I am a slave of circumstance. What--what I--what's the use for me in life? What do I live for?" And I sat there in that field and cried till nearly daylight. On down...

L-59 I have to hurry to get out of here in time that I promised you, just skipping the high places.
I guess you wondered how I ever got married if I was that bashful; backwards. I...
Finally I met a girl was my boys' mother. If there ever was an angel, that was her. I love her yet. She was a lovely girl. I met her; she was going to church. I looked at her, there was something different from anyone else. I knowed nothing about Christianity; I was already about twenty-one years old. I looked at her; she seemed to be every speck of a lady, the way she carried herself, and the respect she had. She was going to a Baptist church.
And I--I went out with her and started going with her. And I was the... Kinda went to work for the public utilities of Indiana. And I--I'd gotten some more little money and I'd bought me an old car, and I thought, "Well, that was the real opportunity."


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