The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1918-05-28

Having been invited in, and not
caring to discuss worldly affairs on
account of the day, they merely
passed the time of the day on the
growing cotton, the goat business
and fishing, and settled down to
serious matters. Col. Roche having
the floor naturally directed the
conversation towards the good old
times before the war when people
kept salt and soap and other house
hold necessities in gourds etc. He
rambled around awhile among the
old grave yards and here and there
he stopped to drop a flower on the
grave of some hero Of times past,
whose memory has all but faded eX-
cept with those who linger a little
while after their generation has
passed.
He told us also Of an incident
which he learned of from his old
friend Col. Hiram Tusten. 1t seems
that over in Georgia or somewhere
else a family had a pet goat. 1t
was about the gin house at ginning
time and after the ginning was
over the goat was nowhere to be
i found. The little children cried for
days for the goat but it failed to
return. Nothing was ever heard of
it until the next spring when the
cotton seed house was opened to
get out the planting seed and there
stood the goat eating cotton seed.
| Col. Tusten didn't tell; it seems,
where the goat got water all this
time, which puzzled Col. Roche
somewhat, but Col. Sondley solved
this by telling that the same thing
happened with Wilson Caldwell in
Newberry County, only there were
five goats instead of one, and by
explaining that cattle can live with
out water and that they fatten bet
ter without it, advancing the state
ment that Col. Aug. w. Smith, when
he lived in Abbeville, was accustom-
ed to stall-feed cattle for months
without ever giving them a drop of
water.
During the course of his remarks,
however, Col. Roche happened to
mention a snake. While speaking
of snakes he told us of the bad
habits his friend Sondley formerly
had Of coming up town every Sat-
urday evening, walking around his
old friends Gene Mcmillan and
Mike Cassidy and slipping his hand
in their pockets and getting out a
few of the parched COOLERS which
they were always eating. Knowing
that the Colonel was somewhat
afraid of snakes old man Mcmillan
one day put e. pet king snake in his
pocket on top of the goober bag
and walked around where Col. Sond-
ley was sitting all the time cracking
the brittle shells and rafting hum
ger into Colonel Sondley's makeup
with every crack. Finally, the
Colonel took a circuit around the
old gentleman and quietly slipped
his hand into the pocket and hit the
snake, whereupon as Rev. John l..
Reynolds, c~olored, said in his suit
against the railroad, "the panorama
lit up"
The snake subject having gotten
a firm hold on all hearers Col. Sond-
ley advanced to the front of the
rostrum and made a few remarks
on snakes he had seen. One of the
longest to be remembered by him
was the one he saw down in the
Haskell woods when he and Col. l..
C. Haskell went down there to go
cate a corner. Both wore boots
for fear Of snakes, and they were
making diligent search for the cor
ner, when Col. Sondley all at once
stepped on something soft which
he took for the corner. Looking
around, however, he saw that it was