<TITLE>08. Par 57-64</TITLE>L-57 Now, I know you think I could not think and remember that. But the Lord God Who's Judge, the earth and the heavens and all there is, knows that I'm telling the truth.

L-58   That bird, when it flew away, a Voice came from where the bird was in the tree, like a wind caught in the bush, and It said, "You'll live near a city called New Albany." And I've lived, from the time I was three years old until this time, within three miles of New Albany, Indiana.

L-59 I went in and told my mother about it. Well, she thought I was just dreaming or something.

L-60 Later we moved to Indiana and Father went to work for a man, Mr. Wathen, a rich man. He owns the Wathen Distilleries. And he owned a great shares; he's a multimillionaire, and the Louisville Colonels, and--and baseball, and so forth. And then we lived near there. And Dad being a poor man, yet he could not do without his drinking, so he--he went to making whiskey in a--in a still.

L-61 And then it worked a hardship on me because I was the oldest of the children. I had to come and pack water to this still, to keep those coils cool while they were making the whiskey. Then he got to selling it, and then he got two or three of those stills. Now, that's the part I don't like to tell, but it's the truth.

L-62   And I remember one day, from the barn, coming up to the house, crying. Because out at the back of the place was a pond, it... where they used to cut ice. Many of you remember when they used to cut ice and put it in sawdust. Well, that's the way Mr. Wathen kept ice out there in the country. And Father was a--a chauffeur for him, a private chauffeur. And when the... this pond was full of fish and when they would go to cutting the ice and bring it in and put it in the sawdust, then when the ice melted in the summertime as it went down, it was kind of clean I suppose, more like a lake ice, and they could use it, not to drink, but to keep water cold, put it around their buckets and their milk, and so forth.

L-63   And one day packing water from back out at this pump, which was about a city block. I was squalling to who wouldn't have it, because I had come from school and all the boys had went out to the pond, fishing. I just loved to fish. And so they all got to go fishing but me, and I had to pack water for this still. Of course, my, that had to be mum, it was prohibition. And I... It was such a hardship. And I remember coming along there with a stumped toe, and I had a corn cob wrapped under my toe to keep it out of the dust. Did you ever do that? Just put a corn cob under your toe like this and wrap a string around it. It holds your toe right up like a turtle head almost, you know, sticking up. You could track me everywhere I went, with this corn cob under my toe; where I'd stump it, you know. I didn't have any shoes to wear. So we never wore shoes, sometime half the winter. If we did, we... it was just what we could pick up, somebody would give us. And clothes to what somebody, charity would give us.

L-64   And I stopped under this tree, and I was sitting there just squalling (it was in September) because I wanted to go fishing, I had to pack several tubs of water with little molassey buckets, just about that high, half a gallon, 'cause I was just a little lad of about seven years old. And I'd pour them in a big tub and then go back and get another two buckets and come back, pumping it. That's the water we had. And they was going to run off a batch of that corn whiskey that night, these men with Daddy, up at the house.


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