Arthur D. Hastings, Sen., had preceded father a few years to the new state, and was ready to greet and assist his brother to make a new home. Uncle Arthur was one of God's noblemen, an honest, leading citizen, and devout Christian. He lived on the place he first settled about sixty years, and died there in 1886 at the advanced age of 85 years. Although I had many uncles, Uncle Arthur was the only one I ever saw.

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C H A P T E R T W O

Indiana. The Stars fall. Move. Texas. The flood of 1844. First School. White River's Pocket. No Nimrod. A Fish Story. Clarksburg.

At the time of father's arrival, Indiana was only 14 years old and contained about 300,000 inhabitants. Its capital city's first Mayor was inaugurated two years before I was born and three years after the stars fell.

In 1842 when I was about four years old my parents sold out and moved down the river five or six miles and bought a new, larger and better farm with a large two story hewed log house and a big double log barn, and a good apple orchard. The farming land was bottom and lay along the river. Here we had some sheep and cattle on a few hills and some hogs in the woods, that got fat in the winter on white oak acorns and beech nuts. And here we had a large "sugar orchard" as the Hosiers called it—hard maple trees by the many from which, in the early spring, flowed the sweet sap by the barrels full which we converted into gallons of maple syrup, and into many cakes of maple sugar.

It was while we lived here, when I was six years old, there was the greatest flood, known to me, since the days of Noah. I remember it well. You too, my boys, will never forget the year when I tell you it was the same year, 1844, in which your best earthly friend was born, your mother. But I did not know anything about her until twenty years afterwards.

The flood was great. All the lower lands were under water. Mr. Greene's, the ferryman, our nearest neighbor's family had to go in a canoe from the door of their kitchen to their smoke house to get meat. All our cattle and hogs were in the stalk fields near the river, and all were drowned, except one large, strong cow which swam more than one half mile, almost in a straight line, and was saved. We could see the cattle huddled together on a small island knoll away down in the field next to the river. The poor creatures would stand there until the rapidly rising waters would crowd them off the knoll, and then they swam until exhausted and overcome by the great distance, and turbulent waters when they would go down to rise no more. I was the first to see the cow which swam out. Looking down through the orchard where the waters were swimming deep, I saw the end of her nose and the tips of her horns above the water. Slowly she came, almost exhausted. But finally she found footing where she could stand and then the poor creature stood and bawled and bawled for quite a while, and then walked to her young calf which was at the barn on the hillside.

About this time I attended my first school and my teacher was my cousin, Arthur D. Hastings, Jr., who lived to a good old age, and died September 15th, 1906 within a little more than a stone's cast of where he taught. My first and only textbook at school for a year or more was Webster's blue back Spelling book. It had both Spelling and Reading in it. I learned all from end to end. The teacher said I ought to have a reader, so farther bought for me, McGuffey's second reader; as soon as I got hold of it I ran with it to the barn loft and sat down on the hay and read all that was in it before I got up. The next day the teacher said I ought to have a higher reader, so father bought for me McGuffey's fourth reader, the highest that was, and these two readers were all the readers that I ever read. Grammar was not so easy. My text-book was Smith's. I would start at the first of the book, and get about half through at the end of the term. This I did for a half dozen years or more. Finally when I started to high school I took up Clark's grammar and finished it.

But, to go back a little, father after the great flood, went down to Texas and bought several hundred acres of land and came back and sold his farm intending to move to Texas, but changed his mind and sold his Texas land for a song in the shape of a beautiful colt. This colt grew into one of the prettiest and best horses your grandfather ever had. But remember it cost hundreds of acres of land which are worth thousands of dollars now. It was like paying too much for your whistle.

If we had gone to Texas, boys, I do not know what might have been but I do know now that you are and that you have one of the best mothers that lives. Often have I heard her pray with tears in her eyes that you and all the boys might be saved from the use of tobacco and strong drink.

Father next turned his attention towards securing a home in the pocket of the White River, which he did by buying a farm in Daviers County on the border of Clark's Prairie and adjoining the village of Clarksburg, which is now the city of Oden. At the time of our removal to Clarksburg I was about nine years old. We liked our new home. At this time Daviers County was a wilderness of brush, trees and swamps, with plenty of wild game,—deer, coons, opossums, squirrels, turkeys, ducks, quails, snowbirds, and of wild fruits, grapes, plums, crab-apples and strawberries. And of fish of all kinds, nearly.

I never was much of a Nimrod. Many times I saw deer, and once when I had a gun upon my shoulder, but I did not take it off. Early one morning a flock of thirty or forty wild turkeys came within a rod or two of the kitchen window, but when we opened the door instead of coming in, they flew away. Some days after that I heard turkeys gobbling in the woods, and I took the gun and went where they were and shot one dead. Happened to hit it in the head. Once I shot a crow and killed it.

One day I shot and killed four or five squirrels. Often I trapped quails and snow birds. The biggest fish I ever saw caught I did not catch. Brother Henry, who was nine years older than I, caught it. It was a cat-fish, and Henry and a boy named Billy James, who was less than six feet tall, ran a pole through the fish's gills and carried the fish between them suspended from the pole which was rested upon the boys shoulders, and the fish was so long that its tail tipped the ground as the boys walked. Now, this is the biggest fist story I ever tell, except the Jonah story, and I believe both.

We liked Clarksburg because it was a good place for schools, Sunday Schools and churches. I hardly remember the time when I was not in school, Sunday School and church. I think to this day these are good places for boys to be.

My parents were always anxious to have their children in school and made many sacrifices to this end; as a result their five boys all were public school teachers before they were out of their teens.

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C H A P T E R T H R E E

Certificate. School. Tophet. Father's death.
Spirit Rappings.

At the age of seventeen, I sought the county school examiner that I might procure a license to teach. I found him at his school teaching. He had me wait until noon, then we went to the woods close by. It was a warm beautiful day, and the examiner sat on one end of the log and I on the other. Then the questioning commenced. Why he even asked what reading was, and although I had been reading for ten years I could hardly tell. He asked me how far it was from Dan to BeerSheba, and then laughed at me because I did not know. He asked me if I had never heard the phrase "from Dan to BeerSheba." I told him it seemed to