The Use and Need of the Life of Carrie A. Nation | Page 5

I had made and put on my building in
Topeka. The oil being poured on the wounded heart a prohibition
ballot.}

The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation.

CHAPTER I
.
MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME AND WHAT I REMEMBER OF MY
LIFE UP TO THE TENTH YEAR.
I was born in Garrard County, Kentucky. My father's farm was on
Dick's River, where the cliffs rose to hundreds of feet, with great ledges
of rocks, where under which I used to sit. There were many large rocks
scattered around, some as much as fifteen feet across, with holes that
held water, where my father salted his stock, and I, a little toddler, used
to follow him. On the side of the house next to the cliffs was what we
called the "Long House," where the negro women would spin and
weave. There were wheels, little and big, and a loom or two, and swifts
and reels, and winders, and everything for making linen for the summer,
and woolen cloth for the winter, both linsey and jeans. The flax was
raised on the place, and so were the sheep. When a child 5 years old, I
used to bother the other spinners. I was so anxious to learn to spin. My

father had a small wheel made for me by a wright in the neighborhood.
I was very jealous of my wheel, and would spin on it for hours. The
colored women were always indulgent to me, and made the proper
sized rolls, so I could spin them. I would double the yarn, and then
twist it, and knit it into suspenders, which was a great source of pride to
my father, who would display my work to visitors on every occasion.
The dwelling house had ten rooms, all on the ground floor, except one.
I have heard my father say that it was a hewed-log house,
weather-boarded and plastered as I remember it. The room that
possessed the most attraction for me was the parlor, because I was very
seldom allowed to go in it. I remember the large gold-leaf paper on the
walls, its bright brass dogirons, as tall as myself, and the furniture of
red plush, some of which is in a good state of preservation, and the
property of my half-brother, Tom Moore, who lives on "Camp Dick
Robinson" in Garrard County, this Dick Robinson was a cousin of my
father's. There were two sets of negro cabins; one in which Betsey and
Henry lived, who were man and wife, Betsey being the nurse of all the
children. Then there was aunt Mary and her large family, aunt Judy and
her family and aunt Eliza and her's. There was a water mill behind and
almost a quarter of a mile from the house, where the corn was ground,
and near that was the overseer's house.
Standing on the front porch, we looked through a row of althea bushes,
white and purple, and there were on each side cedar trees that were
quite large in my day. There was an old-fashioned stile, instead of a
gate, and a long avenue, as wide as Kansas Avenue, in Topeka, with
forest trees on either side, that led down to the big road, across which
uncle Isaac Dunn lived, who was a widower with two children, Dave
and Sallie, and I remember that Sallie had all kinds of dolls; it was a
great delight of mine to play with these.
To the left of our house was the garden. I have read of the old-
fashioned garden; the gardens written about and the gardens sung about,
but I have never seen a garden that could surpass the garden of my old
home. Just inside the pickets were bunches of bear grass. Then, there
was the purple flag, that bordered the walks; the thyme, coriander,
calamus and sweet Mary; the jasmine climbing over the picket fence;
the syringa and bridal wreath; roses black, red, yellow and pink; and
many other kinds of roses and shrubs. There, too, were strawberries,

raspberries, gooseberries and currants; damson and greengages, and
apricots, that grew on vines. I could take some time in describing this
beautiful spot.
At the side of the garden was the family burying ground, where the
gravestones were laid flat on masonry, bringing them about three feet
from the ground. These stones were large, flat slabs of marble, and I
used to climb up on top and sit or lie down, and trace the letters or
figures with my fingers. I visited this graveyard in 1903. The eight
graves were there in a good state of preservation, with not a slab broken,
although my grandfather was buried there, ninety years ago. My father
had a stone wall built around these graves