I was free now. I didn't do so well on the land as I
didn't have mules and money to live on. I went to Dersa County and
opened up a blacksmith shop. I learned how to do this work when I was
with Dr. Waters. He had me taught by a skilled man. I learned to build
wagons too.
"I made my own tools. Who showed me how? Nobody. When I needed a hack
saw I made it out of a file--that was all I had to make it of. I had to
have it. Once I made a cotton scraper out of a piece of hardwood. I put
a steel edge on it. O yes I made everything. Can I build a wagon--make
all the parts? Every thing but the hubs for the wheels.
"You say I don't seem to see very well. Ha-ha! I don't see nuthin' at
all. I'se been plum blind for 23 years. I can't see nothin'. But I
patches my own clothes. You don't know how I can thread the needle? Look
here." I asked him to let me see his needle threader. He felt around in
a drawer and pulled out a tiny little half arrow which he had made of a
bit of tin with a pair of scissors and fine file. He pushed this through
the eye of the needle, then hooked the thread on it and pulled it back
again threading his needle as fast as if he had good eyesight. "This is
a needle threader. I made it myself. Watch me thread a needle. Can't I
do it as fast as if I had a head full of keen eyes? My wife been gone
twenty years. She went blind too. I had to do something.
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