14

14.

at the time of father's death. I got to drinking harder than ever.
I couldn't have blamed the family I was boarding with if they had
driven me off for all I done was drink and lay around. My mind was
so crazed with whiskey I didn't have sense enough to take care of my
money. I never let anybody down that came along asking for money, and
everybody came. Why, on Sunday mornings they would come to my room
even before day, for liquor and money.

"My landlady used to say, 'Hal Hunt, you're crazy. Why do you
let 'em ride you?' I'd tell her, they're not getting much out of me.
I didn't realize how much I was spending. I let one man have two
hundred dollars. I thought he was honest and didn't make him give me
a note of any kind. When all I had was gone I begged him to pay me
back a little at a time, and he wouldn't do it. He always argued that
he was hard up and couldn't pay me. I went away for awhile and
since I came back he won't hardly speak to me, and won't even give me
a mouthful of victuals. If I had money today I'd remember that it's
safer to lend money to a stranger than to your best friend. Yes, dear
lady, when you have money you have friends, and when your money is
gone you can't find 'em.

"Back in the early times that I can remember there was no
public relief in regard to sickness, death, or want. There was no
such thing as public relief. When someone died in a mill family and
that family was not able to bury their dead a collection was taken up
in the mill among the hands. This is the way they handled it. A

1769