leader of men. He operated his farm with efficiency and precision, doing his own blacksmith work (not for the public), and specialized in fruit culture. He had the best fruit orchard I ever saw, plums, peaches, grapes, and all sorts of native and exotic fruits. He kept a "cooler" of grape wine on his back porch for the use of the family and visitors at will. He raised chickens and let them run at large. I remember he went into the back yard when he wanted chicken for dinner, and shot one with his muzzle loading musket. While I visited him, my father would pass on the Southern Railway going to Columbia (he was then Senator from Colleton County), and would throw bags of bananas, and so forth, out of the train window for us. This was a great delight to us. Grandfather operated a water mill about a mile in front of his home. The mill pond is still there, known as Howell's Old Mill. All his boys learned to fish and to swim there, and they were great experts in both arts. Uncle David was famed as a swimmer and as a fisherman, as was my father. Uncle Dave was the only man extant who could swim straight across the swift current of the Edisto River. And when he could not catch a mess of fish they couldn't be caught. He was the fighter of the family. Few men were willing or able to stand up against his fistic skill. Grandfather was a very positive, vehement and often argumentative man. He was of deeply religious tendency, though not much of a church man. He held family prayer at daylight every morning, and woe unto the boy who slept too late or was figety at prayers. He studied his Bible and knew it well. But he had little patience with superficial rules of church, or with men who could quote scripture, but who always acted to the contrary. He was rather intolerant. He
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