Thirty-Nine

            I started taking rides with my Uncle Melvin again. He was back at it again after staying at the reform school. He got a year but was so good while was there they let him out at the end of ten months. They really didn't know what they turned loose.

            The money was so good in the bootlegging he just couldn't stay away from it, but they never did catch him again. I don't think he bought a gallon of gas the whole three or four years he was doing it, he was always draining it out of the other crooks' cars.

            My Uncle Paul never did go in for cars. He always had his horse and buggy. He used to tell me how him and some of the other fellows used to race with their horses and buggies on the way home from town. The big buggy horse he had at that time was all white and was pretty fast but Paul would never let anyone else go near her as she was what they called a kicker and we could hear her kicking at the side of the stall anytime during the night. Paul was the only one that could go into the stall to take care of her, like feeding her or cleaning the stall or to put the harness on her. Sometimes she would kick at him and he had a lot of near hits as he called her Babe.

            Then he had one heavy workhorse he called Dan. He weighed 2,200lbs. I used to lead him out to the field, sometimes to ride him. I don't know why Paul had him. He had no work for him to do. I guess he just liked him and kept him for a pet. I know he was quiet and easy going and didn't care what we did around him.

            I used to watch the blacksmith put the shoes on them. The big horse would just stand there while the blacksmith picked each foot up and done the job. But Babe the buggy horse, he tie her hind up real high then had Paul put a rope around one back leg near the foot, then he'd pull it way back and up and tie it to a tree so she wouldn't kick. I asked him why he did that. He just said he didn't want to get killed.

            One night Uncle Melvin asked me if I wanted to take a ride with him, wouldn't say where, just said, "You'll see". We went over the state line into Maryland where he always got whiskey but he stopped off the road in the woods and said we walk from here. It turned out one of the fellows he was mad at just bought four live turkeys two days before and Melvin found out.

            So this was the night Melvin cleaned him out. He carried two and I half carried and half dragged my two. I asked him what he was going to do with so much turkey. He said they were sold the day before so all he had to do was deliver them. He kept one to take home for us.

            We got to bed around four in the morning and Melvin just said, "There, I can sleep now that I got even with that guy. At least he owned them two days."

            I never seen such fellows. They'd go sell anything somebody had then go steal it and deliver the goods. I think I was glad when I did get away from him. I got so everywhere I went with him I found myself looking over my shoulder to see if the Police was following me. It was an awful feeling sometimes, just wondering if I was going back home or be in jail that night and I got so I didn't like being afraid all the time.

            I stopped going with him so much but he soon met a girl and began seeing her pretty steady and he soon stopped doing so many of those crazy things and soon decided to get married and really straightened out and settles down.