12 FIFTY YEARS A^IONG THE BEES 



■denominations, three to each ( there were six of us — my- 

 self and five sisters). 



Two years were taken out of my school life to. clerk 

 in a country store three miles away. For the first year 

 I get twenty-four dollars and board, my mother doing 

 Tny washing. The second year I was advanced to fifty 

 dollars. 



BEGINS STUDY OF MEDICINE. 



Then I undertook the study of medicine under the 

 trtelage of the leading — I am not sure but he was the 

 only — village physician. The Latin terms met in my 

 reading tripped me badly, and by some means I got it 

 into my head that if I could spend three months at the 

 village academy I might be so good a Latin scholar that 

 my troubles w^ould be overcome. Dr. Cummins was 

 very insistent that it was vital for my strength of charac- 

 ter that having begun to read medicine I should not be 

 v\'eak enough to be dissuaded from my purpose by a lit- 

 tle thing like the lack of Latin, and if I must have the 

 Latin I could work half time at it, spending the other 

 half in his office. Possiblv he needed an office bov. 



ATTENDS ACADEMY. 



But I was equally insistent that I must have one 

 uninterrupted term at the academy, and at it I went, tak- 

 ing up other studies as well as Latin. When the term 

 ■was completed I felt pretty certain that two more terms 

 were needed to make a complete scholar of me, and by the 

 time I had finished the two mere terms I had settled into 

 tne determination that I would not stop short of a college 

 ■course. A college course, however, took money, little of 

 which I had. At my father's death it was supposed he 

 had left a fair property, but it was in the hands of others, 

 and by some means it soon melted away. I kept on at 

 'the academy, making part of my college course there. 



