My Boyhood and Youth 



better side of the argument. It then seemed 

 to me that, whatever the final outcome might 

 be, it was at this stage of the fight only an ex- 

 ample of the rule of might with but little or no 

 thought for the right or welfare of the other 

 fellow if he were the weaker; that "they should 

 take who had the power, and they should keep 

 who can," as Wordsworth makes the marauding 

 Scottish Highlanders say. 



Many of our old neighbors toiled and 

 sweated and grubbed themselves into their 

 graves years before their natural dying days, 

 in getting a living on a quarter-section of land 

 and vaguely trying to get rich, while bread 

 and raiment might have been serenely won on 

 less than a fourth of this land, and time gained 

 to get better acquainted with God. 



I was put to the plough at the age of twelve, 

 when my head reached but little above the 

 handles, and for many years I had to do the 

 greater part of the ploughing. It was hard work 

 for so small a boy; nevertheless, as good plough- 

 ing was exacted from me as if I were a man, and 

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