HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY                              467

The Nimrod and Astor of Clay County.
    It is said of Obadiah B. Decker, a pioneer of Posey township, by
those who knew him best, that in characteristics he displayed a marked
degree of singularity, in both childhood and manhood. At the tender
age of four years, the only child, he was left an orphan by the death of
his father, when his mother, in needy circumstances, had a hard time of
providing for the comfort of herself and little son. Redundant with the
life and activity of early boyhood, he was disposed to play pranks and
cut “didoes” which sometimes brought tears to his poor mother’s eyes.
One day, when at the age of five years, having been out of his mother’s
sight longer than usual, becoming solicitous about him, she began the
search to locate him, finding him in the flour barrel, “bobbing up and
down,” to see the fine particles of flour float about in the surrounding
atmosphere, rendering useless the only supply of breadstuff about the
house. At the age of ten or twelve years he evinced a strong natural
inclination to the chase and, by the aid of the house dog, indulged enthusi-
astically in rabbit-hunting when there was snow enough on the ground
to follow a track and the weather not too severe, as he was all the while
barefooted. In the spring he sold the skins, for which he got two cents
apiece, and on selling the product of his first winter’s chase, bought a cap,
having previously been bareheaded. But as he was not used to wearing
anything on his crown, much of the time he did not know where his cap
was. In the early summer time he dropped it in the weeds and did not
find it until the late summer or fall, when it was badly mildewed and
spoiled.
    When a couple of years older, closely observant of what transpired
around him and brim-full of projects, however impracticable, he one day
conceived the idea that all he lacked of being able to fly was a pair of
wings. On first opportunity he procured a pair of turkey wings, which,
in those days, were cut from the fowl before scalding and used as dusting
brushes. These he attached to his arms in his own ideal way, then
mounted a high gate-post and vigorously flapped his wings as he made
the leap out into space, when, as the sequel, the ground struck him so
convincingly hard that he abandoned all further notion of navigating
the air.
    As he grew to manhood the bent of mind to follow the chase became
the more ardent, when he acquired possession of two packs of hounds,
which he used alternately, hunting every night during the season for fur-
bearing game. As he regarded it easier to climb a tree than to cut it
down, he bagged much of his game in this way, and to overcome obstacles
and be prepared for all occasions, he invented a climbing outfit, which is
preserved in the family as a relic of pioneer life and times—quite different
in design and construction from the modern appliance for climbing tele-
graph and telephone poles. On one occasion, however, this appliance did
not wholly serve its purpose, when he had the experience of being “up a
tree,” sure enough. Having gone up and shaken the coons from the
limbs, the dogs taking care of them when they fell to the ground, in the
descent he encountered an obstacle in the way of a protuberance, or bulge,
in the trunk of the tree, which, in the eagerness of the ascent, he had
scaled with but little difficulty. But in contacting with this bulge on going
down he could not adjust his legs to the trunk below so as to get any
hold. Confronted with the intricacy of the situation, he made up his
mind to go out on one of the large, protruding limbs projecting over the