e track I made or the town. Kansas City, Missouri
was not big enough to stop at then, but it is the big dot of the West
now. At Leavenworth and everywhere the yards, gardens, road-sides,
fields, all looked barren and dead as if a fire had ran over them.
The grass-hoppers had just left.

My brother Henry lived west of Leavenworth city in what was called
the Nine Mile House. My brother, younger brother, Rufus, and two
sisters, Mrs. Dotson, and Mrs. Sears, lived near Grasshopper Falls
known now as Valley Falls.

Of course I had not been in Kansas very long until it was known that
I was a young preacher. And I was called upon to preach the funeral
of a most excellent lady, Mrs. Roach, who had died in the
neighborhood of the Nine Mile House. This was the first time I ever
preached in Kansas. It was only a few days after this that I
attended a meeting held by Brethren Dibble and McCleary, a few miles
west of the Nine Mile House at a place called NO. 6 and here I was
invited to preach. I did do it, taking for a subject, "Growth." I
remember saying in order to growth there must be union, for
separation is death. Even rocks grow, but, separated into stones,
they ceased to grow. Good, old, devout, scholarly brother Humber was
there, and kindly criticized my sermon by saying he did not believe
that rocks grow. I have never preached that sermon since, but I
still think rocks do grow.

From that time, 1867, I was a faithful Sunday preacher, more or less
in Kansas until I was nearly sixty years old, when I became so infirm
that I submitted to a place on the shelf, where I am still waiting
for transportation to the skies.

But I am not dead yet, so I will go back and tell the rest of my
story. So many new friends in Kansas came about me soliciting me to
stay, and teach and preach, that I agreed to do so for one year at
least. Among these friends there were none better than Mr. Charley
Spencer of Round Prairie. He secured for me the school at a larger
salary than I had been getting in Indiana. I also had the privilege
of preaching in the lower room of the Masonic building. To Mr.
Spencer I preached the gospel, and taught his children to read.

He believed and was baptized, and his children grew up to be wise
and good. His son, Hon. Dick Spencer now a leading lawyer of St.
Joseph, Mo. learned his A. B. C. at my knees. It was also here
during this year that I had the great pleasure and joy of baptizing
my younges