events--Memory of them vivid--Bitter desolation--An active but uneasy
life--Breaking colts for amusement--Amount of sleep--Temperament has much
to do in the matter of drink--The author to blame for his misspent
life--Inheritances--The excellences of my father and mother--The road to
ruin not wilfully trodden--The people's indifference to a great danger--My
associates--What became of them--The customs of twenty years ago--What
might have been.


As to my birth, parentage and education, I am the last but one of a family
of nine children, seven of whom were boys, and all of whom, excepting one
brother, are now living. Both brothers and sisters are, without an
exception, sober, industrious and honest. I was born in Rush county,
Indiana, on the 9th day of September, 1847.

If there is one spot in all the black waste of desolation about which I
cling with fond memory it is in my early childhood, and there is no part of
my life that is so fresh and vivid as that embraced in those first early
years. I can remember distinctly events which transpired when I was but two
years old, while I have forgotten thousands of incidents which have
occurred within the past two years. While it is true that in early
childhood a dark shadow fell athwart my pathway, making everything sombre
and painful with an impression of desolation, yet was my condition happy in
comparison with the rayless and pitchy blackness which subsequently folded
its curtains close about my very being, seeming to make respiration
impossible at times and life a nightmare of mockery. Seeming, do I say?
Nay, it did, for nothing can be more real than our feelings, no matter how
falsely they may be created. The agony of a dream is as keen while it lasts
as any other--more so, because there is a helplessness about it which makes
it harder to resist.