8 IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA 
Wagnalls, and worked in the basement shop of 
Wallace’s, and a more dreary six months I never had 
spent anywhere. So when Ward came after me to go 
back, saying that his having fired me was all a mistake 
due to erroneous reports that had been given him, I 
went, and stayed three years. During this time I got 
to know Professor Webster of Rochester University, 
who later became president of Union College, and he 
urged me to study to become a professor. In spite 
of the fact that my education had stopped early on 
account of a lack of funds, I set to work to prepare 
myself to go to the Sheffield Scientific School. But 
between working in the daytime and studying at 
night I broke down, and when examination time came 
I wasn’t ready. However, my chances of further 
education, although delayed, seemed improved. At 
the time I was studying for the Sheffield Scientific 
School my friend, William Morton Wheeler, had left 
Ward’s and was teaching in the High School in Mil- 
waukee. He wrote and offered to tutor me if I would 
go out there. So I went to Milwaukee and got a job 
with the museum there, which was to give me food 
and lodging while I prepared for college. It did more 
than that, for it absorbed me so that I gave up all 
thought of abandoning taxidermy. I stayed eight 
years in Milwaukee, working in the museum and ina 
shop of my own. 
Several things happened there which stimulated 
my interest in taxidermy. One of the directors had 
been to Lapland and had collected the skin of a rein- 
deer, a Laplander’s sled, and the driving parapher- 
