FUN AND FINANCE OF BOYHOOD 13 



tences, and banishment when they persisted in 

 preaching the faith that was in them? 



My earliest recollections are of New England 

 villages where my father preached. I remem- 

 ber how munificent the salary of three hundred 

 dollars a year and a donation party seemed to 

 me. Ah, those donation parties! I shudder 

 now at my memory of them. They were occa- 

 sions of feasting and festivity, when the larder 

 overflowed with pies and pumpkins, cakes and 

 cabbages. Often clothing was given, not too 

 much worn, and before any one got away the 

 hat was passed amid exhortations to liberality. 

 I recall the patronizing pleasure with which my 

 playmates showed me their pennies as they 

 dropped them into the hat, and that an hour 

 later I was found in the dark closet, where I had 

 sobbed myself to sleep. 



While yet little more than a child, I contrib- 

 uted a trifle to the family purse, and could to- 

 day seat a cane-bottomed chair, or braid and 

 bleach a palm leaf hat, finishing it on the water- 

 driven, steam-heated machinery for pressing it. 



