r and talk to them very solemnly a little
while about marriage and getting married and then tell them to join
their right hands and ask each a solemn leading question, and if each
said yes, then pronounce them husband and wife, and the thing is
done. So I went away and formulated in my mind the solemn words to
say and the solemn questions to ask. This ceremony proved to be very
acceptable and popular, and during all these fifty years or more I
have been using the same ceremony and asking the same questions, with
but very little variation.

But I must confess when the time came for this first wedding, and I
had arrived at the place and saw the many guests with their wedding
garments on, I began to feel that it was not so easy a job after all.
In fact, I felt a little scared. And then to add embarrassment to
fright, another one of my pupils, a young man both older and taller
than I, came to me while we were in the midst of the crowd, awaiting
the coming of the bride and groom. Stooping over he said in a
whisper to me, "Please stand up." I, thinking that he had some
message that I out to hear, quietly arose at once, (for he was one of
my best friends) when he began to unfold a large, long paper and read
aloud to me some lingo of my duties, responsibilities and procedures.
But just then the bride and groom were coming, and I said to my
friend, "Be seated, sir, you are a little too late with your lingo."
The joke had the effect of remove my embarrassment and fright, and I,
with ease proceeded with the marriage ceremony and the wedding was
most beautiful.

---0---

C H A P T E R E I G H T

First vote. Oldest brother. War. Return to Indiana. In
Tophet again. First Baptism. Clarksburg meeting.

About this time I was, the first time privileged to exercise my right
as a voter.

The question was whether the state of Missouri should secede from the
union. Brother and I voted in the negative. Then during the same
year, 1860, November the 6th, we were privileged to vote for a
President of the United States. The candidates were A. Lincoln, S.
A. Douglas, J. B. Breckenridge and John Bell. Brother voted for Bell
for he thought Bell was the only one that would save the union. I
voted for Douglas because I thought his election would save from the
impending war. The manner of voting was then quite different from
what it is now. The judges of election sat in the school house by a
lower open window and the v