The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-10-26
Howard Realizes Dream By
 Building "Master Schools"
Friend Writes Of Former Alabama Congressman
 And Distinguished Southern Author

rescued more QeAu tudu dhNSs DAe hlS teachers finger and ran home to be brought back by a stern father and whipped in the presence Of the school' Learns To "Cuss."
 q also remember that when my , uncle, Captain Milford Howard, for . whom I was named, came home from the war he had accumulated choice ' vocabulary of 'cuss' words, aRd l. thought him the finest man in the world so I tried few of them on my mother. She was mortified and under took to punish me, for the first and last time in her life. l fought, bit and scratched until she called in a , neighbor and they "hog-tied' me to bed post.
 ."He said, T thank God that it was the only time in my life that l ever gave my mother an unkind word or look A few days later. my father and uncle went fishing and wanted to go with them. My uncle wanted me to TO but my father sternly said no. q felt outraged. There was murder . in my heart, and I proceeded to the orchard down back of the garden, broke 7 off the biggest limb I could handle, and , proceeded to whip my legs until the 2 blood trickled off my ankles. T wanted l to kill something or somebody. l dld B not feel the cruel strokes, for each one : was laid on my father and gioated over his pain. My mother found me 6 thus and she was frightened, she could . not understand this wild, rebellious : spirit in her five year old boy. "She finally soothed the raging spirit
 led me to the house and told me the l sweet story of the gentle Jesus. 7 "Ah, mother, mother, where should r I have been today, but for your sweet - influence? My mother was the inspira' e tion, the master, passion of my life s and to her owe more than to all the
 world beside. 0 Well, as say, we went to Arkansas n and them my mother became an invalid
 and I, the eldest of the family took III S the duty of washing, ironing, scrubbinl D cooking, and doing everything l could i to shield my precious mother. Becomes Blacksmith "When I was eleven years of age made my first crop, and in the wlnte months worked in the blacksmith shol
 with my father, blowing the bellows and swinging the sledge hammer. 'We lived in the swamps of Arkansa | and in the fall of the year we all had | seize of sore eyes, chills and fever, last | ing until frost. Then the traVelln evangelist would come along and hol A protracted meeting. It wasunde such conditions that I heard the nov | we'll nigh forgotten songs. They move, | my little soul at this time, and in al 1 these years I have heard no other musi i that so inspires me. My favorate IS 
 | "How tedious and tasteless the hours, | When Jesus no longer see,
 | Sweet prospects, sweet birds and swee flowers
 | Have lost all their sweetness for me, | The midsummer sun shines but dim, l The fields strive in vain to look gay But when I am happy in Him, | December's as pleasant as May" | "It was under the bewitching spel i of these old songs that went to tn | "mourners bench" and there foun l @something" that transformed my life. | "No matter how far I have wandere | in sin through the dreary years, tha | Flight has never gone out. This wa | when I was about twelve years or agt | ''This was an epoch making time fo me. for it was shortly after this tha two lawyers came out from Pocahontas | the county seat of the county in whlc | we lived, and tried a case before m | father who was a justice of the peace | They had on "store clothes" and to m | they were demi-gods. | 'Their speeches thrilled me as moth | ing else ever had. I ran home an | threw myself into my mothers arm | weeping. Between my sobs told he | I was going to be a lawyer. Sh | mingled her tears with mine and sait | God bless you my boy"
 | Everybody but her laughed at mi | so soon quit talking to anyone exceT | my mother about my dream. FroI l that moment never doubted shoul | become a lawyer. Working, eatinl | sleeping, always l was a lawyer, an | I tried ten thousand cases in m imagination, before I ever heard ( Blackstone, Chitty or Greenleaf. | "At the age of IS I borrowed m
 first laf book and began reading {
 night, while working in the field
 the day time. Let me pass over tn
 period lightly for I can hardly tell
 without weeping. Suffice it to say thu
 at 10 years of age was admitted to tl
 bar, wearing the first and only su
 of 'store' clothes" I had ever worn.
 "Yes, had made my dreams con
 true, but little did l realibe at tn;
 time what long, rough road lay ahea
 of me.
 And now" he said, q am a Col
 gressman, and you are proud of m
 but there is an unsatisfied longing l'I my soul that the world can never fill
 This was the story fired my girls
 imagination, and I stood in awe befo
 this unusual man with the sad ligl
 in his eyes.
 I wanted to ask him about the "u
 satisfied longing but dared not. Tn
 realization came in later years, and h
 to do with the now romatic life of n
 noted kinsman.
 l BehOIds Herself
 When his book, Peggy Ware" W
 published he sent me copy, and as
 read it I think I must have dropper
 tear on each page for in "Peggy War
 I beheld myself as a girl. In her, gre
 work I found the thing that for fl
 years had filled my waking thought
 my nightly dreams.
 For five years I had planned jul
 such school as Peggy Ware built
 Bucks Pocket, and when had finish
 this great masterpiece l sat down al
 poured out my heart to my cousin In
 letter. l told him was Peggy War
 and that God had laid it on my heart
 start just such a school as his Peg
 Ware had buiI:. And then 1 tore t
 letter up and did not send it.
 I knew of no understanding soul
 the world to whom I dare tell my drea
 and was fearful that my cousin mig
 be like the rest, fail to understand [
 and either patronize me or laugh
 me. But I did write him after ma
 days, a commonplace little letter, b