Grandpa was an inveterate tobacco chewer.  Once he heard a sermon against

chewing tobacco.  He told us afterward that that idiot preacher didn't know the 

difference between an evil and a foible.

        Grandpa was a strong, likeable character.  I have no doubt but that his boys
 
got as much learning about life and men from him as Parker and I did.  He was 

always an adversary of double dealing and disloyalty of every kind.  He believed 

in fairness and honesty in all things.  He admonished Parker and me never to run

away from a fight, yet not to provoke one, and that once in it to stick to each 

other and fight with tooth and toe-nail, as he literally did on occasion.  He had no 

use for treachery or unfaithfulness, or cowardice.
        
        My father, a very neat, well dressed man, always wore a Prince Albert coat.

Like most elderly men he wanted me as a young man to do the same.  I was a

great trial to him because I would not keep my shoes shined.  In Grandpa's old age 

my father finally prevailed on him to wear a long Prince Albert coat.  He looked 

exactly like a gamecock seeking an opponent to spur, but with all he was a 

handsome man, and wore gracefully his unaccustomed, and somewhat incongruous 

habiliments.  I was greatly benefited by my association with him,  and received 

more strength from this environment than by inheritance.

        
effective men with their hands and their heads, everywhere standing head and 

shoulders above the crowd.  Bill Arp, in the Atlanta Constitution, once said that 

the Howells were once kings and chieftains, natural leaders among men.  None 

of them were "lewd fellows of the baser sort", but were of the nobility, "to the 

manner born".

My father was much like him, though not so vehement.  His mother's blood 

strain acted as a deterrent to his argumentativeness, yet he taught me much.  He 

was a great lawyer, and a friend of men.  He was a student, though not highly 

schooled, and gathered together a fine library which he and I too  read, to my 

great advantage.  I can truthfully say that all I am has been due  to the influence 

on my life of my father and grandfather.  My mother was a quiet, though proud