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16.

was 71 when she died, and do you know she never rode a train in her
life? She never had but one automobile ride, and that was when she
had to go see about one of our relatives that was sick. Father was 83
when he passed on. If he ever was in an automobile or a train it must
have been when he went to the Civil War or when he was coming back
from there.

''I told you the old check mill was first run with water power.
Well, I fired the first steam engine that was installed in that factory.
That engine was named 'Lizzie' for Mr. Bloomfield's daughter. Mr.
Bunch was the engineer and his health was real bad. I was hanging
around the mill in vacation time and often he would let me help him.
Pretty soon I'd learned to operate it, and then I often had to look
after it for him. He made $1.75 a day, and paid me 40¢ a day out of
his own wages. When school opened up that fall my father told me if I
didn't want to go back to school I could continue helping run the
engine at the mill and he would give me all the money I made to buy
myself a suit of clothes and a watch. I never will forget that gray
suit I bought that year and I still have that old watch. I thought
I was the best dressed dude on the hill, and acted it.

"There is no comparison in the conditions under which mill
hands worked in my young days and the present day conditions. In my
young days the life of a mill worker wasn't very long. The close
confinement, long hours, lint and dust that they had to breathe, all
worked together to shorten their lives. 'Most everybody had a cough.
I've had this cough ever since I can remember. Men and women all had

1771