<TITLE>09. Par 75-85</TITLE>L-75   I remember, as a little boy, or a young man, I walked all those lines at Salem, Indiana, different... I'd go in, buy a--a breakfast, maybe a bowl of oats. In that hot sun and everything, and it'd just make me sick, to eat breakfast. I'd turn in ten cents, on my petty cash. The superintendent come down and said, said, "You know what they said in the--in the meeting? 'Who is that knothead that would turn in ten cents, for breakfast?' Said, "You ought to at least turn in fifty cents." Now, all of you know, fifty cents was a big breakfast in them days.
And I said, "Well, I don't eat that much."
He said, "Well, the rest of them turns in fifty cents. You ought to turn in fifty cents."
I said, "Well, I don't use it."
Said, "Turn it in, anyhow." That was my superintendent.

L-76 Well, I thought, "Well, what can I do? I have to charge fifty cents, and I eat ten cents." So I'd go out on the street and get some little kids that didn't have no breakfast, and get them forty-cents worth of breakfast.
So then I thought, "Well, what could... Maybe that's what He holds against me."

L-77   And I remember, here not long ago, they come through on the patrol, tore up that back yard back there, and said, "Turn in your bill." You know they got patrol rights, but they have to pay for damage.

L-78 I just wrote back and said, "You don't owe nothing." I thought, "That'd pay for them forty-centses. Maybe I've spent twenty or thirty dollars during that time, giving it to kids. Maybe that will do it." Kept on dreaming.

L-79 Then I had a big tree out there, the kids played under it, and the patrol... Now they patrol in a helicopter. And so he come in and said, "Billy, how about cutting that tree?"

L-80 I said, "No, don't cut it. We're going to trim it." I said, "Brother Wood and I are going to trim it."
Said, "Well, I'll just have the man come by and trim it."
I said, "Now, don't cut it."
He said, "I won't cut it."

L-81 I went off on a trip. When I come back, she was cut plumb on the ground. Then I had a lawsuit coming, you see. I said, "Well, Lord, this will clear it up, what I owed." So I struck that off, that was all right, just let it go. Well, I still dreamed it.

L-82   When I got up the other morning, I said, "Well..." The first thing we do of a morning when we get up, is pray together, then pray when we go to bed at night. And then after she went on over to get the kiddies' breakfast, I started to pray. I said, "Lord, I must have been an awful guy. What have I done in life, that I--I can't get away from that Public Service Company.

L-83 I went in and took a bath, and come back out. And something just seemed to say to me, "Maybe I'm ratting on His job." I thought, "Here is about five years I ain't done nothing, just waiting on Him."

L-84   Standing up there the other day. They built us a new home up there, and Brother Mosley come down, was talking about it. I said, "That's just a little gift from my Father." And he started crying. I said, "You see, He said, 'If you will leave your homes, houses, lands, fathers, mothers, I'll give you houses, lands, fathers, mothers, and a hundredfold in this life, and Eternal Life to come.'" I said, "See, I had to leave the Tabernacle that I love so dearly. My home that the Lord give me up there, had to leave it. He just give me this one back." I said, "He is wonderful, you see." [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.] And he started crying.

L-85 Well, I--I said, "I had to come out here and separate myself, come to this desert." And I thought, "Wonder why God would bring me to a desert, out here where there is nothing but scorpions and Gila monsters?"


<A HREF="P10">Next Page</A>