314                 HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY

making daily round trips, which were never deferred because of the
weather. Within this time an Ashhoro correspondent of the county
press said of him: “Oliver Cromwell is the most industrious man on
this side of the equator. Hot or cold, wet or dry, he makes the round
trip daily to Brazil, with the regularity of clock work.” His route to
Brazil lay partly through a mining community, the population of which,
especially the mothers and housekeepers, frequently sent with him to
Brazil to make small purchases for them, which he never declined to do,
seeming to derive a great deal of satisfaction from the rendering of the
service, which was gratuitously done. He kept no memorandum of
their wants and instructions other than that in his head. Sometimes
as many as three or four of them would send with him on the same trip,
all of them, perhaps, wanting several articles, but he never became
confused, every one’s purchases being kept separate, with no mistakes
occurring in the deliveries. Everything was remembered in detail in
all these transactions. And it was substantially so in other relations and
transactions. In this sense of a retentive and always reliable memory
Oliver Cromwell was the one man of a thousand. He had lived in
Clay cotmty sixty—eight years, and was at one time a member of the
state legislature. His recollection of dates and affairs in the history
of the county was a veritable magazine.