<TITLE>05. Par 17-20</TITLE>L-17 Here sometime ago, I was standing in a museum, and when he had to cross the river, in Illinois... I seen an old colored man with a little white rim of hair around his head, looking around, watching for something. He looked into a little box, and he stopped real quick and got back. It just looked like it just froze him. And the tears dropping of his cheeks, he raised up his eyes like that towards God, and he had a prayer. I just stood off, watched him for a little bit. I walked over to where he was at, and I said, "How do you do, uncle?"
He said, "How do you do, sir."
I said, "What excited you so?"
He said, "You don't understand?"
I said, "No."
Said, "Come, look here."

L-18 And I looked in there; under a glass was a little old dress, just a little dress folded up laying there. I said, "Well, I only see a dress."
He said, "But that spot on the corner is the blood of Abraham Lincoln." He said, "I got a mark across here as a slave belt, and the blood of that man took a slave belt off of me. Wouldn't that excite you?"
I stood there. I couldn't answer him. I thought, "If a colored man, by taking a slave belt off of him, how much more ought a Christian to be excited of the Blood of Jesus Christ, that taken sin from his life and made him a new creature in Christ Jesus?" Down his life went.

L-19 We had a hard time, very hard. I remember going to school with no clothes hardly. Went to school one year without even a--a shirt. My dad was a good man, but it was drinking that ruined him. I put my coat up like this, buttoned it with a... Or, pinned it with a pin. A rich woman, Mrs. Watham had give me the coat. And I, knowing how it made us go without something to eat... It made us go without shoes, and I would never got an education, all because of drinking that drove my daddy to it, a habit. That's the reason I'm against it today, to fight it with everything I got. It's wrong. And brethren or women, if you're here, and do such, God have mercy, don't do it no more. Don't let it boss you. You boss it.
And I remember going to school one day... This kinda sounds like a joke. Got summertime, and I didn't have no--no shirt to put on. I was still wearing this great, big, heavy coat. I had a pair of tennis shoes on, the toes out of them, wet all the time. It's a wonder, if God hadn't been with me, I'd have had pneumonia and died.

L-20 So the teacher said... It was real warm... The trees, the maples was all blooming out like. And the teacher said, "Well..." I--been... had just a little bit of fire in the old school room, one--one room of school, and she just said, "William, why don't you take that coat off?" I couldn't take that coat off. I didn't have no shirt on.
I said, "Thank you, teacher. I--I'm just a bit cold."
She said, "Well, you better come over here to the stove." Said, "You got a cold." And me just about to smoother anyhow, and she build up the fire and set me behind the stove.
I was setting there, and the perspiration running off my face, she said, "Can't you take that coat off yet?"
I said, "No, ma'am."
I couldn't take it off because I didn't have on any shirt. And so I just had to sit there and just suffer it out.


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