CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 21 



As we know, the child was named Spencer Fullerton. 



The only record of his early years is that contained 

 in the memoranda left by Miss Lucy Baird for the use 

 of the biographer of her father. One can hardly do better 

 than to adopt almost literally her own words: 



"As far as I know all the persons who would recollect 

 my father's early childhood are dead, and I remember 

 but little of what I have heard in regard to it. His aunt, 

 Mrs. Blaney, told me once that he was one of the most 

 beautiful children she ever saw when he was about two 

 or three years old. Whether he was handsome as an 

 older child, I do not know. An old servant of the family 

 who lived with my grandmother when he was very little, 

 described him as a very active child, full of fun and inno- 

 cent baby mischief, as she described it, 'he was the biggest 

 little mischeef I ever saw.' His own account of himself 

 tallies with this. When he was still a very little child, he 

 was sent to a sort of a dame's school, where one of the 

 punishments was to put the offending infant in a large 

 bag with the string drawn about his neck (not painfully 

 tight, of course), the supposition being that the culprit 

 when put in the corner in this condition was comfortably 

 and painlessly manacled in such a way as to need no 

 further watching. This particular infant, however (as 

 one of his school mates told me a great many years ago), 

 used to manage to roll himself all over the school room 

 floor in spite of his bag, to the great detriment of the 

 gravity and discipline of the rest of the youngsters. My 

 grandmother said that as a little child he had a violent 

 temper; but he must have got it under control when he 

 was very young, as the testimony of his contemporaries 

 in youth points to the same sweetness of disposition which 

 was characteristic of him in his later years. There 



