I was born in the mountains of Tennessee in the very lowest depthsof poverty in an old log cabin without any chimney to it, only a mudchimney about half way to the top, a dirt floor and one room in thehouse and hut little furniture; no cook stove, no sewing machine init, nothing of the kind; no bookcase nor wardrobe. No carpets of anykind, but simply the face of the earth, but that is net a bad place to be born, especially if a fellow does not intend to do anything afterhe is born. There is where I was born in that log cabin. Such a thingas schools and churches were unknown there on the mountains where Iwas born.It matters little how my life starts, if it ends with a chariot andsome angels. I started out in poverty, and my father was unfortunatelyin the whisky business. When a man gives his time to ruining men, itdon't take long to go to the bottom, I was hungry and cold, and slepton a sheepskin with a dog often. I didn't know there was such a thingas a church or school house in the world. I've had people to make funof me all my life, but why didn't you come and help me?My baby buggy was not a carriage but a hollow log, about four feetlong, split open, making a nice little trough, with an old quilt in itand a pillow, I spent several months as happy as a lark. My mother sat by me and carded wool and cotton rolls to spin her thread. As mothersat there by the old log fire and sung the sweetest old songs in theworld, I had nothing to do but lie there in the little cradle -- as itwas called -- and listen to mother sing, play with my hands, suck mythumb and go to sleep. As mother carded she rocked the cradle with herfoot, looked down into the trough and talked all kinds of baby talk to me and said many a time that Little Buddie was sure to make his markin the world.Well, my friends, I want to stop long enough to tell you. I madethe mark; it was a long, black, crooked one. The hope of the race isthe confidence a mother puts in her children. Every true mother cansee something in her boy that other people can't see. The reason wecan't see something in them is because they are not our boys. Thereason she does is because he is her boy. She looks beyond his misfortunes and sees in him great possibilities and in her heart fullof love she knows that success is sure to come -- with the smile ofhope on her face she sees fortune just ahead.By this time you are anxious to know whether or not the baby boyever got out of the hollow log. Of course he did; don't you know thatyou can't keep a boy forever in a hollow log? I told you at the startthat the log was only four feet long. I soon outgrew it and mother hadto put breeches on me and turn me loose with the other children. Aboutthis time in life recollection came into use; the first thing Iremember was the soldiers going by with blue coats on, the next thingwas my mother coming through the cornfield shouting. She was comingfrom the spring that was over at the back of the little cornfield --it was one of those beautiful springs flowing out from under the great mountain, as clear as crystal and so cold it would make your teethache, just running over the white sand and gravel, sun-perch, red bassand speckled trout playing under the rocks that stuck out over the branch all covered with ferns and mountain moss. Surely that was oneof the prettiest places in the world, and while mother was over theregetting water, the same Christ that met the woman at the well, met mother, and while she was filling her bucket with water, the Lordfilled her soul with grace, and she came through the field with her bucket in one hand, waving the other over her head, praising the Lord.
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