OLD HOMESTEAD 



FIRST MONEY — TOWN MEETING 



Like most boys, my first money was that saved penny by 

 penny in anticipation of the coming of the circus. It was earned, 

 mostly, as rewards for various kinds of service which might be 

 called special or extra — a sort of non-competitive system of 

 stimulating ambition and thrift, legitimate and fair, but not cal- 

 culated to develop unholy avarice. One source of my income 

 was to be the first to discover and report the advent of a new- 

 born calf, for which the reward was one cent. This meant being 

 the first up and at the barn or in the pasture. 



From this source I secured twenty cents with which to attend 

 my first circus. It was the old Dan Rice circus, then new on 

 the road — twenty-five cents admission; boys under ten years of 

 age, half price. I was almost too big, but got in and had enough 

 left to buy boiled eggs and peanuts. It was not a menagerie 

 and moral show, but just a plain circus, and there has never 

 been another circus equal to it. No one ever said such funny 

 things as that old clown, and no one ever sang "Jordan is a hard 

 road to travel," or 



" I'll never kiss my love again behind the kitchen door, 

 I'll never squeeze her darling little fingers any more — 

 Where has Rosanna gone ? " 

 as did Dan Rice. 



One spring, when I was about twelve years old, father gave 

 me a half-acre of half-plowed, tough, cradle-knoll ground above 

 the old orchard to cultivate as my own. It was very late in the 

 season, but, after much anxious labor, I succeeded in securing 

 twenty-four bushels of small potatoes. The next spring they were 

 high in price, and a whining old hypocrite who wouldn't use 

 the hoe, but was very unctious in prayer and earnest in exhorta- 



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