AUTOBIOGRAPHY 13 



hood were passed, until my boyhood's days were 

 over, and my fifteenth year of life was reached. 



My father owned the farm on which we lived, 

 besides being the proprietor of several mills, and, 

 like many other purely practical men, he had a 

 higher appreciation of material than of intel- 

 lectual advantages. As a consequence, he was 

 more desirous that I should early engage in the 

 active business of the farm, than that I should 

 employ hours, which might be made profitable 

 in work, in studies which paid no immediate 

 profit. 



At the age of eight years I was often sent 

 after the cows, barefooted, and a distance of 

 nearly a mile through the woods, coming home 

 after the shades of night had fallen, and being 

 obliged to trace my way by following the cows 

 in the narrow path made by them. Day after 

 day, in my great desire to secure an education, 

 I would beg my father to send me to school, but 

 always he had work for me to do, and thus my 

 endeavors were foiled. But such was my deter- 

 mination to secure an education, that I resolved, 



