The place was so bad, that teachers for several years had not been able to teach to the end of the term. The bad boys and girls would run the teacher off. I knew all this. And instead of going with a rod, as other teachers had I went with love and firmness determined to win right in the start the respect and confidence of the big boys and girls. I succeeded. The first death to occur in my father's family was the death of my father himself. In the early fall of 1854 father's health began to fail. The disease was dropsy. Dr. Sam Elmore, the resident physician of Clarksburg did all he could, faithfully attending father all the fall and winter up to the day of his death. But about one week before death, the doctor requested that we send for Dr. McDonald, who lived in Newberry, a town about eight miles away. This we did, and Dr McDonald, a skillful and learned physician, came to see father twice that week. The last time was on the day before Christmas. When he left to go home, he requested us to let him know father's condition the next day after noon. The next day was Christmas. Father seemed much better all afternoon. Many friends and neighbors came in to see him. He talked more than usual. The day was a cold, dark, drizzly one. We had no telephones then, so on horse back in the afternoon, through cold and sleet, I made my way to tell the doctor how father was. The errand was not hard for me, because I loved my father and he was better, I thought, and I wanted to tell the doctor. As soon as I entered the doctor's office, I said, "Father is better." The doctor asked me several questions about him which I answered. He then turned to get some medicine and as he turned I saw him shake his head negatively. He gave me a little phial filled with medicine and told me to give father two or three drops every two or three hours and added, "If your father is better in the morning, let me know." I went home with a sadder heart than I had when I came to the doctor's, for I do not think the doctor thought that father was better. And so it proved for when I returned Mother said father had seemed better all afternoon, so much so that his friends, and even my oldest brother and sister, (who were now married, and lived, the one three miles distant, the other one mile), had returned home to take rest. But now, (it was about dark when I returned) said mother, "he seems to be much worse, you would better go for your brother and sister." So I went at once the one mile and the three miles, and sister and her husband, Mr. Chas. R. Reyton, went at once and not long afterwards brother and his wife and their two little children and I returned, and we all stood around the bed of death. Father said but little, but finally said to all. "Come near." We did so, and he said, "Good bye, it is but a little distance between me and my eternal home, and I can soon step that off." He closed his eyes and was dead.