During one summer vacation, a boy, one Johnnie Gray, a brother of L. D.
C. Gray of this city, was visiting me. We took a load of vegetables to
Marysville. After selling it, getting our lunch, paying for the shoeing
of our horse (which in those days cost four dollars), and buying some
ammunition for the gun, we had $1.50 left. We quarreled as to how we
should spend this remnant. Not being able to agree, we started home
without buying anything. On the outskirts of Marysville was a brewery.
The price of a five-gallon keg of beer was $1.50. We concluded to take a
keg home with us. It was an awfully hot summer day, and the brewer was
afraid to tap the keg, thinking that the faucet would blow out under the
influence of the heat before we got home. He gave us a wooden faucet,
and told us how to use it. "Hold it so," he said, showing us, "hit it
with a heavy hammer, watch the bung, and when you have driven it in
pretty well, then send it home with a hard blow." We were sure we could
do it. We drove home, put the beer in the shade by the well, spread a
wet cloth over it, and then put our horse away. My parents chided us for
throwing our money away on beer. In the cool of the evening we concluded
to tap the keg. One of us held the faucet and the other did the driving,
but we did not have the success predicted for us by the brewer.

At the critical moment we drove in the bung, but not with sufficient
momentum to fasten the faucet. It flew out of our hands into the air,
followed by the beer. In about a minute the keg was entirely empty. We
were overwhelmingly drenched and drowned by the escaping beer, but never
got a single drop of it to drink.

On another occasion some of us children were coming home from
Marysville. We were driving an old white horse, named "Jake," who knew
us and loved us as only a good horse can. He submitted to our abuses,
shared in our pleasure and would not willingly have hurt any of us. We