Rev. A.J. Ogden

It seems like only yesterday that Junious (June) Lewis, my best childhood friend, and I played, fished, and hunted along the creek banks of Wilkinson County, Mississippi. June was about four years older than I, and therefore he watched after me pretty closely. He taught me how to shoot a squirrel, catch a fish, trap for mink, and many other useful things. We were very poor in the 1930s, and without June I don’t know how I would have made it.

One day while fishing, the thing we dreaded the most happened. June got snake bitten by a huge moccasin and we were a long way from his house. I was not much help to him at all because I told him he was going to die, which wasn’t much encouragement to a poor suffering friend. He quickly pulled out his knife and made a big cut in that foot and it bled like a river. June said that would get rid of some of the poison. Then he told me he was going to look for a frog, cut him open, and put half of him on his bleeding food as a poultice. He said he could find one and the miracle really happened. He found one in less than three minutes. I could not have caught one in a month. I don’t know whether frogs have any medical value or not, but I do know June lived to tell about it.

He swelled and suffered for days and was so very sick, but survived to fish with me again. He never even went to a doctor, but the great physician up above helped him to heal. Later, on another fishing trip, June saved my life when I was drowning. A good friend is better than money.

Years later I married and my wife and I moved to New Orleans. Little did we know that years later we would move back to Woodville,Mississippi, June’s home town, and renew our friendship. At this time June was old and feeble. He now had cancer and would not live much longer.