It  seemed  that Satan was determined my  father  would  not 
        fulfill the place to which God had appointed him.  Dad once  told 
        me:    
        
               "I  was  about six years old, or I might have been  seven,
             when  I  nearly  missed death again.  It was  out  near  our 
             schoolhouse,  which stood in the woods, and all around  were 
             saplings--tall, slender saplings.   We boys would  climb  up 
             high  in them, grab the top and jump down.  They would  just 
             swing you to the ground and let you down real easy.  It  was 
             good sport.
        
               "Well,  one day Daddy had left Uncle Pete to work back  in 
             the  creek  bottom and my brother, another boy, and  I  were 
             sent  to help.  While we were there, I thought I would  show 
             this other boy how we would swing from the saplings.   There 
             were  some  tall, young trees there; so I started up one of 
             them.   Of course, I didn't know one tree from  another.   I 
             didn't realize that I was climbing up a white sycamore  that 
             wouldn't bend.
        
               "I  remember  yet how I took hold of the top of  the  tree 
             with my hands, my feet on the lower limb, and just swung out 
             into the air.  I was already looking forward to the exciting  
             glide  and easy touch to the ground some twenty feet  below.  
             But  instead, when I swung out, the top of that little  tree 
             broke  off  and down I came.  I hit the ground  hard  on  my 
             neck,  my  head, and my back, just missing a fallen  log  by 
             inches.   It could have broken my back or just plain  killed 
             me.  By God's grace it only stunned me.  After a few minutes 
             I was able to get up and walk around.
        
               "Pete didn't think I was going to be worth much for  work, 
             however, and he said, `Now you go to the house
        
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             and  ask  Addie  (my older sister) how soon  she  will  have 
             dinner  ready  for us."  So I headed for the house.   I  can 
             remember  going up through the fields, then  stopping  about 
             halfway and returning to the creek.  `What did you come back 
             for?' Pete asked.
        
               "I said, `Where was I going?'
        
               " `I  told  you  to go  tell  Addie  to  get  dinner,'  he  
             answered.   "Why  didn't I know it?"  I replied.   But  Pete 
             urged me, `You go ask Addie how soon she will have  dinner.'  
             So I turned and again made my way through the fields to  the 
             house.   Going in I asked Addie when she was going  to  have 
             dinner.   (Now this is what she told me afterwards.  I  knew 
             nothing about it at the time  because I didn't know  what  I 
             was doing.)  She told me the time dinner should be ready. 
        
               "Then I went into the room where my other sister, Flo, was 
             asked  her  the same question:  `When are we going  to  have 
             dinner?'   And she answered me.  Pretty soon I was out  with 
             Addie  again  asking, `When are we going  to  have  dinner?'  
             Then I was back to Flo with the same question.
        
               "It  wasn't long before they recognized that I was out  of 
             my  head  and didn't know what I was  saying.   They  became 
             pretty  alarmed and had me lie down fast.  That  was  around 
             ten  in the morning.  I never came to my senses until  about 
             four in the afternoon.  It is a miracle that my mind  worked 
             well afterward, let alone that I wasn't killed on the log at 
             the bottom of that sycamore tree."
        
             When  he was about twelve to fourteen, Dad had another close 
        brush  with death.  For some reason he and his brother were  left 
        alone on a Sunday afternoon, and, as boys do when they are alone, 
        they  thought they would do something exciting.  They decided  to 
        go to the creek and skate.
        
               "It was bitter cold,"  Dad relates, "but George and I  had 
             on  warm clothes and our half-soled felt boots.   We  didn't 
             have  regular ice-skates, but you could slide on your  boots      
             almost as well as you could on real skates.  We were  having   
             a time skidding up and down that creek on our boots. 
        
               "There was one sharp bend in the creek where the
        
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             water  had  rushed fast enough to keep  washing  the  bottom 
             deeper and deeper.  It must have been a couple feet or  more 
             over my head.  I didn't think about it, but, of course,  the 
             ice would be thinner where the water was moving faster.   As 
             I  was skating around that bend, the ice gave way under  me.  
             Before  I knew it I was clear to the bottom  underneath  the 
             ice in freezing water.
        
               "Here  I had on heavy winter clothing and those  big  felt 
             boots.   As soon as I hit the water my clothes were  soaking 
             wet,  and  I weighed an awful lot more  than  normal.   With 
             current  as swift as that was there, and as heavy as  I  was 
             with all that water-logged clothing, one would have expected 
             me  to  be swept downstream.  By all rights, I  should  have 
             died a prisoner under the ice.
        
               "But, by a miracle of God, I managed to come back up right 
             where  the ice had broken.  Think of that!  If I would  have 
             been swept just a short distance down stream, I never  would 
             have  been able to find the hole in the ice even if I  could 
             have fought the current.  It was a marvel, I know.
        
               "Somehow George managed to get a long stick to me while  I 
             hung  onto the ice.  It's not easy to get out of a  hole  in 
             the  ice.  The sides generally keep breaking away and,  more 
             often  than  not, someone else gets dragged into  the  water 
             before  the whole thing is over.  But he managed to haul  me 
             out.  As soon as I hit that cold air, my clothes were frozen 
             stiff as a poker.  That was a very close call with death."
        
             Upon  another occasion, Dad was home alone with Uncle  Pete.  
        As  Pete  cleaned  his 32-caliber pistol,  he  was  snapping  the
        hammer,  unaware  that  a cartridge was  in  the  cylinder.   Dad 
        happened to be walking past him when the pistol discharged with a 
        tremendous bang.  It frightened them both nearly to pieces.   The  
        bullet  shot behind my dad and splintered the casing  across  the 
        room.   My  father stated, "If it had been a  little  sooner,  he 
        would  have shot a hole right through me."  The incident was  not 
        mentioned  by  either of them until much  later.   Dad's  parents 
        never knew how close he came to death that time.
        
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             The  horse  and buggy era was not without its  own  peculiar 
        type of dangers, as well.  Dad told me:
        
               "I was out riding around in a rig with two other young men 
             when three fellows in another buggy came up besides us.  Ray 
             Pond, the one driving our rig, thought he would just let our 
             horse out to  keep them from going around us.  He nudged the 
             horse and it took off.  When our horse began to run  faster, 
             the  other  driver  said, `Oh no,  Wendy!  (that  was  Ray's 
             nickname)--you will  never see the day that you  can  outrun 
             me!'  And he urged his horse into a run to pass us.
        
               "About  that  time  our horse made a  sudden  jump,  which 
             startled  all  of us.  I mean it made  a  tremendous  lurch!  
             When  it jumped, it tore loose the belly band, and  the  two 
             buggy  shafts flew up into the air. There we were  with  our 
             horse  running madly off and the buggy shafts flying up  and 
             then  smacking  down  on the horse's back.   The  more  they 
             slammed, the harder it galloped.
        
               "Now  unless  you have been in one of those  frail  little 
             rigs  with  the  horse running out  of  control,  you  can't 
             imagine what it was like.  That horse wasn't just running  a 
             race;  he was madly out of control and running berserk.   If 
             we had hit a rough road or come to a sharp turn, we wouldn't 
             have had a chance.  Getting thrown from an open rig at  that 
             speed  would  have  meant permanent,  crippling  injury,  or 
             death,  one or the other.  It was only a miracle that we got 
             him stopped.  We all could have been killed."
        
             Death  continued to stalk my father on the Fourth  of  July, 
        just  before  he  started  courting my mother.   At  the  age  of 
        eighteen he was helping extract pipe from abandoned oil wells.  A 
        block  and tackle was being used to exert the force necessary  to 
        pull the pipe from the ground.  In order to begin the process  of 
        extracting the pipe from one of the oil derricks, Dad was on  the 
        platform  helping to pull the huge pulley block into the  top  of 
        the  derrick and fix it securely.  This large block weighed  over 
        two  hundred  pounds.  Connected by ropes to this  was  a  second 
        pulley block weighing some one-hundred-fifty pounds in itself.
        
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             As  this  apparatus was being hoisted to the top  by  a  big 
        horse team, it became entangled or lodged in some manner that was 
        unsatisfactory.  The boss yelled, "Grab that bottom block, Eldon, 
        to  keep  her from going up too far."  When my Dad  grabbed  that 
        lower  pulley block as it started up past him, it  simply  lifted 
        him right off the platform, leaving him several feet in the  air, 
        his feet dangling.
        
             Just  at  that moment, high in the top of the  derrick,  the 
        rope  supporting Dad and the pulley blocks suddenly  broke.   Dad 
        fell  to the oil-soaked platform below with a two  hundred  pound 
        weight hurtling from the top of the derrick onto his head!
        
             By  a miracle of Jesus, when his feet hit the oily platform, 
        he  skidded sideways just little.  That huge block came  crashing 
        into the wood less than two inches from his body, nearly  grazing 
        his  head.  Just a little closer and that heavy block would  have 
        crushed him.  Once again, God had spared my father.
        
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