I was well acquainted with a neighbor, we did some carpenter work together. His name was Jim Gideon. I helped him remodel his house. People liked to tell stories on him. He was easy going and good natured and everyone like him. His wife, Amy, told me some good ones on him.
We jacked his house up about three feet. That night She said he heard something that sounded like a cow out in the yard. He got up out of bed, with just his night clothes on and no shoes. She said he just stepped out the door like he always had, he forgot about the house being raised up. She said he skinned himself up quite a little but no broken bones.

So she said that reminds me of the time the horses got the barn lot gate open, and three horses and two mules got out in the yard, and he got up and went out just in his shorts and no shoes on. He thought he would just walk around the horses and mules and drive the back in a shut the gate. He just kinda started around the and they went a little further, but he thought he almost had them started back, but they wanted to eat grass in the yard, so they just stayed a little ahead of him. Finally they was out in the road, the horses and mules was on the road banks and he was in the road, it was paved and not bad to walk on bare footed. He would almost get the turned back and then they would get ahead of him again. The first thing he knew he was a half mile up the road to a neighbors house. The horses and mules went in the neighbors yard and in behind their house. She said their dogs was barking, and the neighbors was up and out there to see what was going on. She said Jim had to stay back so they couldn’t see him too good, and they helped him get them started back down the road.

Amy told me that their bed would bow a way down when they both got settled down. She said it was a iron bed stead with a cross piece on it about the height of the pillow before any one laid down on it. She said Jim was laying kinda on his stomach and scooted up too far, and got his head fastened under the head board, and she got up to help him, and that just made it tighter on his neck. She had to get back in bed and then help him get turned over so he could get his head out from under the thing.

She said she went to Hurley one day to work in Inmon’s Store, and left him working on the barn. He was working on the Pulley up at the top of the barn, that pulls the hay up in the loft. Somehow he kicked the ladder out from under him, and left him just dangling there, but there was two by four where he kinda take some of the weight off of his arms. She said a neighbor just happened to come up and stop, and Jim hollered at him to come and set the ladder back under him.
Amy told me that she sent Jim to the Spring Creek Mill at Hurley to buy a sack of flour one day. He went down there and loafed awhile and come back home without the flour.
So she said she sent their son John with him next time so he wouldn't forget the sack of flour. They got to the Mill and got the flour loaded in the car,. and thought he would loaf a while longer. Then when he did go home he forgot the boy and left him in Hurley, and had to go back and get him.

I worked with Jim about all of that summer. we built the rock house for Walter Gold. Then we remodeled Ernest Ailshie’s house, then remodeled his house, that's when we raised his house up. Jim was killed in a car wreck at the intersection of Highway 14 and 160 at Nixa, Mo. several years ago, Amy lived at Hurley for several years after his death.
Amy was the daughter of Uncle Tom Hayes, she was a sister to Sack Hayes who lived east of Hurley at the Hayes Cave.

John Gideon married Maxine Gardner, they raised their family near Hurley on the old Gideon Home Place.

Jim Gideon was a good carpenter and I liked to work with him. He was also a good man, and well liked by all who knew him.