in fact ’most any kind of laborers who got from $1.00 to $1.50 a day thought dey had fine wages den.  Boys was paid from $2.50 to $5.00 a month.  Cooks got $5.00 to $6.00 a month, and of course, dey got deir meals whar dey wuked.  Sometimes odds and ends of old clothes was give to ’em, and dey got along very well, even if most of ’em did have families and big families at dat.  Folks could live on less den ’cause things was cheaper.  You could git meal for 50c a bushel; side meat was 5c to 6c a pound; and you could git a 25-pound sack of flour for 50c.  Wood was 50c a load.  House rent was so cheap dat you didn’t have to pay over $3.00 a month for a 2 or 3 room house, and lots of times you got it cheaper.  Most evvybody wore clothes made out of homespun cloth and jeans, and dey didn’t know nothin’ ’bout ready-made, store-bought clothes.  Dem clothes what dey made at home didn’t cost very much.  Livin’ was cheap, but folks lived mighty well in dem days.

“Us has been married more dan 50 years and dey has all been happy years.  Us has had our troubles and hard luck, but dey come to evvybody.  De Lord has been mighty good to us, ‘specially in lettin’ us be together so long.  It was what you might call a case of love at fust sight wid us.  I was visitin’ down at Camak, Georgia at Christmastime.  She lived at Sparta, and was spendin’ Christmas at Camak too, but I didn’t see her ’til I was ‘bout to leave for Athens.  I jus’ thought I never could go ’way atter I fust seed her, but I did, and I didn’t git to see her again for 12 long months.  Us writ to one another all dat year and got married at Christmastime, one year from de time us fust met.

“Us has still got dat old pen I used when I writ and axed her to marry me; I’d lak to show it to you.  ’Scuse me please whilst I goes in de house to git it.”  Soon Ike returned.  “Ain’t it a sight?” he proudly exclaimed as he displayed the relic.  “I made it up myself in December 1886 and it got her consent to marry me, so I’se kept it ever since.  My wife and me wouldn’t part wid it for nothin’.”  The wooden pen staff is very smooth as though from long usage except at the tip end, where it appears to have been gnawed.  It looks very much as though Ike may have chewed on it as he wrote that all important letter.  The iron pen point, much too large to fit the standard grooves of the ordinary pen staff, was placed on the staff and tightly wrapped.  After 52 years of service the pen point and its staff are still in good condition.  Ike has the Prince Albert coat that he wore on his wedding day and he insists that it looks and fits as well now as it did on the occasion of his marriage.  “I’m keepin’ de coat and pen for our chillun,” he declared.