Nearly every year father went to Mobile, or Natchez, or
New Orleans. The first time I ever knew my mother had a brother, I was
driving up the cows, and a tall, good-looking man overtook me in the
road and asked where my father lived. I remember I told him, 'At home.'
He thought it was impudence, but it was ignorance. However, he was
quite communicative and friendly.
"That night, after the family had gone to bed, I heard him tell mother
her father was dead, and that he had disinherited her for running off
and marrying father. I did not know what this meant; but the next day
father came and told mother that her brother wanted to be kind to her,
and had proposed to give him a thousand dollars out of the estate of
her father, if he and she would take it and sign off. That was the
word. I shall not forget, so long as I live, my mother's looks as she
walked up to father and said: 'Don't you do it, John. John, I say,
don't you do it.' Uncle had gone down to grandfather's, and when he
came back, mother had his horse saddled at the fence. She met him at
the door, and said: 'You don't come in here.
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