The Nashville globe. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1906-193?, 1908-01-31

When l was boy about eight years
OF age, living on farm good many
miles from any church, it was one of
the greatest delights of my heart to
romp the field and forest on Sundays
in search of innocent pleasure. There
were three brothers of us then at ages
that called for these frolics, and other
boys near enough to join us augmented
the number to six or seven. And be-
ing boys we sometimes got into mis-
chief that has not until this day been
reported to our parents. But every
Sunday morning after we had finished
our breakfast, often consisting of
gravy, corn cake and buttermilk, 1t
was a rule of our invalid mother that
we read a chapter in the Bible before
marshalling our forces for our stroll
through the fields and forests. The
Bible was not incased in a morocco or
leather binding, and many years of
service had worn away the binding
that it at one time possessed; if my
memory serves me correctly the books
of Genesis and Revelations were part
ly torn away; but there was enough
left to furnish us a Scripture lesson
for every Sunday in the year. | was
the younger of three brothers still at
home, and neither of us had ever been
in schoolhouse, but by persistent eff
fort, mother had taught us to spell
fairly well from an old Blue Back
Speller," as we styled the spelling
book which was great family asset.
One of our companions, John Smith
by name, had lived in town and had
enjoyed the privilege of school oppor-
tunities, and in him mother found a
ready helper in teaching us to spell
the hard names in the Bible. | re-
member one December we were of
cred "a prize of a whole half moon"
apple pie if we learned to spell
Nebuchadnezzar by Christmas morn
ing l won mine, as did my other
brothers, so we had a great feast that
Christmas morning on fried pies
1t was during those happy days that
the fever to know how a book was
printed came into my mind. Many
hours I would sit and turn leaf after
leaf, trying to solve the mysteries of
the arrangement of the hundreds of
pages in one book. It was clear enough
to me how the letters on the first page
were printed on one side of the leaf,
but the more leaves I turned the deep
er the mystery became as to how the
words were gotten between the remain
ing hundreds of pages. | was anX-
ious to know how any one could get
between the close leaves and put the
letters on The more I thought about
it the less | knew about it; but, nev-
ertheless, | kept on thinking. The
thought grew with me; but not until
September, 1890, did I have an oppOr-
tunity to walk into a printing office
and put my hands on a printing press.
l gained my first knowledge of the
trade in the office of the Nashville
Tribune" a weekly newspaper then
published in Nashville, Tenn The
first day | worked in that place l
"lIicked" off 1900 cards on a job press,
working all day without dinner. Just
at quitting time a band passed which
was a signal for me to strike out for
a march. | forgot I was hungry and
followed that band for over two miles.
1t made no difference whether I had
full stomach or an empty one, the
band was playing and I was working
in a printing office. AS the time
went on day by day the mysteries long
pondered in my mind were little by
little unraveled to me. They even
showed me the type lice remained
with the Tribune Printing Company
about six months and they made about
six weekly payments during that time
But | hung on, hoping that brighter
Gay would Iawn. Many were the cold
wet nights that | would wade through