CHAPTER XXII 



MARSHLAND AND SHULTSHURST 



IT was half-past four o'clock in the morning when 

 I stepped from the train over the Erie Railroad, and 

 walked under the maples to the hotel in Owego. 

 The stillness, the sweetness, and the freshness of the 

 summer morning well repaid me for early rising, and 

 at six o'clock General Benj. F. Tracy met me and 

 drove me to Marshland, where, having the appe- 

 tite of the strenuous cowboy of the plains, I did 

 justice to breakfast. Owego cannot be called a lively 

 place, but it sent into the world men who quickened 

 the pulse of the nation. Senator Thos. C. Platt, 

 the Moores, J. Hobart and William ; the Rockefel- 

 lers, John D., William, and Frank, and B. F. Tracy 

 were boys there at the same time, and all at the foot 

 of the industrial ladder. I recall an evening at 

 Woodburn when Frank Rockefeller told Lucas Brod- 

 head, W. R. Allen, and myself of the strict discip- 

 line of his childhood home at Owego: 



" Mother made us three boys go to bed early, and 

 John D. and William stood in checked aprons at the 

 supper-table, with me, and ate a bowl of porridge 

 before crawling between sheets. She was one of the 

 best of women, and her discipline prepared us to 

 wrestle with the serious problems of life." 



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