CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 21 
As we know, the child was named Spencer Fullerton. 
The only record of his early years is that contained 
in the memoranda left by Miss Lucy Baird for the use 
of the biographer of her father. One can hardly do better 
than to adopt almost literally her own words: 
‘“‘As far as I know all the persons who would recollect 
my father’s early childhood are dead, and I remember 
but little of what I have heard in regard to it. His aunt, 
Mrs. Blaney, told me once that he was one of the most 
beautiful children she ever saw when he was about two 
or three years old. Whether he was handsome as an 
older child, I do not know. An old servant of the family 
who lived with my grandmother when he was very little, 
described him as a very active child, full of fun and inno- 
cent baby mischief, as she described it, ‘he was the biggest 
little mischeef I ever saw.’ His own account of himself 
tallies with this. When he was still a very little child, he 
was sent to a sort of a dame’s school, where one of the 
punishments was to put the offending infant in a large 
bag with the string drawn about his neck (not painfully 
tight, of course), the supposition being that the culprit 
when put in the corner in this condition was comfortably 
and painlessly manacled in such a way as to need no 
further watching. This particular infant, however (as 
one of his school mates told me a great many years ago), 
used to manage to roll himself all over the school room 
floor in spite of his bag, to the great detriment of the 
gravity and discipline of the rest of the youngsters. My 
grandmother said that as a little child he had a violent 
temper; but he must have got it under control when he 
was very young, as the testimony of his contemporaries 
in youth points to the same sweetness of disposition which 
was characteristic of him in his later years. There are, 
