“Abraham Lincoln?  Well, they’s people born in this world for every occupation and Lincoln was a natural born man for the job he completed.  Just check it back to Pharoah’ time:  There was Moses born to deliver the children of Israel.  And John Brown, he was born for a purpose.  But they said he was cruel all the way th’ough, and they hung him in February, 1859.  That created a great sensation.  And he said, ’Go ahead.  Do your work.  I done mine’.  Then they whipped around till they got the war started.  And that was the start of the Civil War.

“I enlisted April 10, 1865, and was sent to San Diego, Texas; but I never was in a battle.  And they was only one time when I felt anyways skittish.  That was when I was a new recruit on picket duty.  And it was pitch dark, and I heard something comin’ th’ough the bushes, and I thought, ’Let ’em come, whoever it is’.  And I got my bayonet all ready, and waited.  I’se gittin’ sorta nervous, and purty soon the bushes opened, and what you think come out?  A great big ole hog!

“In June ’65, I got a cold one night, and contracted this throat trouble I get—­never did get rid of it.  Still carry it from the war.  Got my first pension on that—­$6 a month.  Ain’t many of us left to get pensions now.  They’s only 11 veterans left in Cincinnati.

“They used to be the Ku Klux Klan organization.  That was the pat-rollers, then they called them the Night Riders, and at one time the Regulators.  The ‘Ole Dragon’, his name was Simons, he had control of it, and that continued on for 50 year till after the war when Garfield was president.  Then it sprung up again, now the King Bee is in prison.

“Well, after the war I was free.  But it didn’t make much difference to me; I just had to work for myself instead of somebody else.  And I just rambled around.  Sort of a floater.  But I always worked, and I always eat regular, and had regular rest.  Work never hurt nobody.  I lived so many places, Cleveland, and ever’place, but I made it here longer than anyplace—­53 year.  I worked on the railroad, bossin’.  Always had men under me.  When the Chesapeake and Ohio put th’ough that extension to White Sulphur, we cut tracks th’ough a tunnel 7 mile long.  And I handled men in ’83 when they put the C & O th’ough here.  But since I was 71, I been doin’ handy work—­just general handy man.  Used to do a lot of carving, too, till I broke my shoulder bone.  Carved that ol’ pipe of mine 25 year ago out of an ol’ umbrella handle, and carved this monkey watch charm.  But the last three year I ain’t done much of anything.

“Go to church sometimes, over here to the Corinthian Baptis’ Church of Walnut Hills.  But church don’t do much good nowadays.  They got too much education for church.  This new-fangled education is just a bunch of ignoramacy.  Everybody’s just looking for a string to pull to get something—­not to help others.  About one-third goes to see what everbody else is wearing, and who’s got the nicest clothes.  And they sit back, and they say, ’What she think she look like with that thing on her haid?’.  The other two-thirds?  Why, they just go for nonsense, I guess.  Those who go for religion are scarce as chicken teeth.  Yes sir, they go more for sight-seein’ than soul-savin’.