The autobiography of William Price Magee, the son of Jacob Wood Magee (1863-1901) and wife Mary Alice Bateman Magee (1871-1901), continued with his recollection of church, labor, and love. With no icebreaker necessary - the portions of it relayed are verbatim:
Aunt Ella had me in school. I was a very poor student and spent two years in the fourth grade, so I dropped out and got a job as water boy at the saw mill which was on the river. The logs were dumped in the river three miles up river and floated down to the mill. The logs were hauled In from seven miles out by a narrow gauge railroad. These kind of trains were known as "Dummys." The engine was to me a thing of beauty. It was a "shay." The four pistons were set vertical and drove a caged shaft, said to be most powerful of all types for their size. The office would send me with a letter of instructions to a Mr. Jenkins, the man in charge of logging. What a day for me! If the train was out on the line, I would walk to the train and get to ride it in with the logs. Being water boy put me all over the mill. This job paid five cents an hour-one-half a man's pay-eleven hours a day, 55[cents]. The reward for this labor gave me an edge on other boys at school. The mill was very large and modern for its day….I was 12 or 13 years old and working with men. I was to never know how to play as other boys did. I was a dropout. The word was not known then as now for if you drop out in one place you drop in in another, and being water boy was quite wonderful for me as I was exposed to mature people and my conduct was that of maturity.
Uncle Dave, Aunt Ella's husband, bought a saw mill at Sheridan, and I was given the job hauling freight. This was in 1912. I was fourteen years old. This hauling freight for the saw mill store was a job I liked because it was nine miles to Franklinton and a man's job which gave me more maturity and not playing around as a boy. With the saw mill were three saw mill houses. A saw mill house was a rough lumber affair-no glass windows, no screens, no electricity, no well in yard. A very bleak, and a four room, shack was what they were. Poor Aunt Ella who had lived in town all her life as good as other middle class people lived was shocked to move into one of these shacks. In the year we lived there she changed it to a home. The fire place was a dirt chimney affair, not much warming without a very big fire. I had my first lesson on a big scale as to what self-sacrifice meant, what was meant by character, what real people did under strain, and I can tell you my Aunt Ella Emily Bateman Self was Christ-like and made us all very happy.
The Baptist had a church about one mile away, with meetings once a month. They were backwoods people who used foot washing as one of their Christian rituals. This was something new to me, copying the action of Christ, and seeing these people belittled by the sophisticated members of the Franklinton Baptist was quite a shock to me. Several years later I was to see the same facial expression in the big cathedrals of France, and I am glad I saw all this.
Uncle Dave Self was what was known then as "Hard Shell Baptist" and narrowed his life to it. He was over-religious, but a very good man and was very literate. He was very good to me. He got a phonograph, about the only luxury we had. One of the records was by the infidel Robert Engersall, who was quite a challenge in his day. The record was "Bob Ingersall at the Tomb of Napoleon," as I remember it. It went like this: "As I gazed on the ashes of this restless man, I thought of all the orphans he had made, of all the tears shed for his glory. He/I had rather lived unnoted and unknown in a hut, worn wooden shoes, with my wife by my side and my children on my knee than be that imperial imposter and murderer who covered Europe with blood and tears."
The lumber was hauled to railroads in Franklinton by oxen using five yoke. These teams would leave Sheridan before daylight. They would move along on plain dirt road at three miles per hour. The ox drivers were a special breed, proud as the devil but could not write their names but proud of their skill. Much know-how was needed handling the then famous eight wheel wagon. The highest grade of long leaf pine sold for from Ten to Twelve per thousand board foot.
The saw mill went broke and we moved back to Franklinton. Uncle Dave went back to the drug store job and I to school - back in the fourth grade. I was much too big a boy for this, so I was back at work for the drug store as soda jerk and delivery boy. Again I was ahead of the boys at school. I had the job collecting overdue accounts, and one old man, a lawyer, was a special challenge to me.
The owner of the drug store was Thomas McCauley Babington, a wonderful man. He was the highest educated man in town and from him my education was started. He taught me salesmanship, about the profit structure of a business and about cost and manners of personality. The maturity was developing for a drop out. I was no longer narrowed to the fourth grade.
The first thing happened to me was meeting a wonderful, beautiful girl. Her name was Willie Mae Dunlap. She was it, and now at seventy years, she is still it, more beautiful and more wonderful. I needed her for up to this time I was very lonely.
