“Of course my mother wasn’t a Bradley fore she married, she was a Murphy.

“I had one brother four years older than I was.  He was my half-brother and I had a whole brother was two years older than I.

“First place I lived in Arkansas was near Blytheville.  I lived there four years.  I was married and farmin’ for myself.

“I went from Hardin County, Tennessee to Blytheville, Arkansas by land.  Drove a team and two cows.  I think we was on the road four days.  My wife went by train.  You know that was too wearisome for her to go by land.

“I had been runnin a five-horse crop in Tennessee and I carried three boys that I used to work with me.

“The last year I was there I cleared $1660.44.  I never will forget it.  I made a hundred and ten bales of cotton and left 2000 pounds of seed cotton in the field cause I was goin’ to move.

“My folks was sick all the time.  Wasn’t any canals in that country, and my wife had malaria every year.

“After I got my crop finished I’d get out and log.  I was raised in a poor county and you take a man like that, he’s always a good worker.  I rented the land—­365 acres and I had seven families workin for me.  I was responsible for everything.  I told ’em that last year that if I cleared over a $1000, I’d give ’em ten dollars a piece.  And I give it to ’em too.  You see they was under my jurisdiction.

“Next place I lived was Forrest City.  They all went with me.  Had to charter a car to move ’em.  It was loaded too.

“I had 55 hogs, 17 head of cattle, 13 head of mules and horses.  And I had killed 1500 pounds of hogs.  You see besides my family I had two-month-hands—­worked by the month.

“I own a home in Forrest City now.  I’m goin back right after Christmas.  My children had it fixed up.  Had the waterworks and electric lights put in.

“Two of my daughters married big school teachers.  One handles a big school in Augusta and the other in Forrest City.  One of ’em is in the Smith-Hughes work too.

“I’ve done something no other man has done.  I’ve educated four of my brothers and sisters after my father died and four of my wife’s brothers and sisters and one adopted boy and my own six children—­fifteen in all.  A man said to me once, “Why any man that’s done that much for education ought to get a pension from the educator people.”

“I never went to school six months in my life but I can read and write.  I’m not extra good in spelling—­that’s my hindrance, but I can figger very well.

“We always got our children started ’fore they went to school and then I could help ’em in school till they got to United States money.

“Another thing I always would do, I would buy these block A, B, C’s.  Everyone learned their A, B, C’s fore they went to school.

“I reckon I’m a self-made man in a lot of things.  I learnt my own self how to blacksmith.  I worked for a man for nothin’ just so I could learn and after that for about a year I was the best plow sharpener.  And then I learned how to carpenter.