My Boyhood and Youth 



skill. I used to cut and split a hundred a day 

 from our short, knotty oak timber, swinging 

 the axe and heavy mallet, often with sore hands, 

 from early morning to night. Father was not 

 successful as a rail-splitter. After trying the 

 work with me a day or two, he in despair left 

 it all to me. I rather liked it, for I was proud of 

 my skill, and tried to believe that I was as 

 tough as the timber I mauled, though this and 

 other heavy jobs stopped my growth and earned 

 for me the title "Runt of the family." 



In those early days, long before the great 

 labor-saving machines came to our help, al- 

 most everything connected with wheat-raising 

 abounded in trying work, cradling in the 

 long, sweaty dog-days, raking and binding, 

 stacking, thrashing, and it often seemed to 

 me that our fierce, over-industrious way of get- 

 ting the grain from the ground was too closely 

 connected with grave-digging. The staff of life, 

 naturally beautiful, oftentimes suggested the 

 grave-digger's spade. Men and boys, and in 

 those days even women and girls, were cut 

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