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Yet he would flash out a bit of humor during some of his lonely moments:
“The best way to scatter news: telegraph, telephone, and tell a woman. Dec. 17, 1915.”
Envelope marked “To Do”
There was long envelope in his private desk marked, “To Do.” When the home was silent in sleep, his habit was to sit at his desk, and plan every day for the morrow. Often he would not sleep more than a few hours. He was often up at 4 or 5 o'clock to deliver to the person desired the work that had been planned specially for him.
Inside of this envelope were several single sheets folded neatly and endorsed. Some of them were about clearing brush with the name of the man. And another was something to be done and the range of these notes covered the whole community, and often referred to business matters. Here is one of the slips among the many found in the envelope:
“Let him have credit of $500 any day.”
The slip was endorsed with the name of one of his friends and referred to the bank of Rutherfordton, of which he was president.
But he did not forget the old folks, those who were “out of commission,” so to say. Mrs. R.B. Watkins is in charge of the “Home Department for Mothers”—the department of the poor and the sick. There are 140 on the roll and Mrs. Watkins is an enthusiast in her uplift work. There are eight classes with a teacher to each class that meets on different days. Mrs. Watkins has been at Cliffside 16 years, and becomes almost intense as she tells of her great work. One of these old mothers is Mrs. Scott Goode who, too, has known “Raleigh” all her life. She says she has picked peas with him in the same field many a day, and one day she tells of the boy, “Raleigh,” who, stopping suddenly, said to her, “I wonder if there isn't some way to make a living besides picking peas.” He was always planning one step ahead.
The husband of Mrs. Watkins is in charge of the telephone system of Cliffside; also the cotton buying for Cliffside Mills.As stated above, Mr. Haynes had been a great sufferer for some 30 years having had to limit himself to the strictest diets at times in order to proceed with his manifold activities. Yet he did not complain. It was known that he suffered, but he did so in silence, and was cheerful and kind to friend and family. Still the afternoon shadows seemed somehow, to be gathering.
He was near the scriptural limit of life. Last Summer, an illness overtook him, which left him in a greatly weakened condition. He was taken to the modernly equipped hospital at Rutherfordton where he had every attention that skill could give him. He saw friends, went out in his car often, and made visits to sister Letitia Carpenter and other old friends of the old days. The Autumn found him back at Cliffside much improved, but he was not “come back” to his old self. If he heard in the dim sacred chamber of his own heart the last long distance “call” he did not speak of it. His life was the answer handed back to the Voice up yonder. The weeks went by into Christmas, the time of the glad gathering of his children and grandchildren. They were all there. After the greeting of joy and love, he sat apart as usual in the loneliness and quiet of his old armchair at his desk under the log cabin face of his Lincoln.
Copyright © 2008 The Cliffside Historical Society
