When he was a little boy there were no matches and no kitchen stoves, so that his mother had to cook before an open fireplace, and the clothes for all the family were made at home. His mother spun wool from their sheep and wove it into cloth and dyed it in the great indigo pot that stood when she was not using it just inside the shed door. When they killed a cow for beef they saved the hide, and then in the fall a traveling shoemaker came to the house and made boots for them, right there where they could watch him. When papa was six he secretly learned to milk one of the cows and then with great joy exhibited his prowess, only to be informed that thereafter it was to be his daily chore. Another duty that fell to him about this time was to take care at night of each two year-old whenever its place in the cradle was taken by a new baby. Somehow the oldest child in the family, Francina, managed to escape the usual fate of an oldest daughter, that of secondary mother. The most wonderful hat that papa ever had was made by cutting down a white beaver of his father’s--possibly a “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” campaign hat. Once when it was worn on a berrying expedition he hung it on the limb of a tree for safe-keeping--and then could never find the tree and precious hat again, a tragedy of youth. Papa drew an amusing picture of himself at ten years of age in his “Sunday-go-to-meeting” clothes. His trousers came half way between knee and ankle, his jacket was short and round, his collar so high he could not turn his head, although he could rest his neck during the long service by using his ears as hooks over the top of the collar. A stove-pipe hat completed the outfit. During those evening stories while I was convalescing I learned many things about the boy’s life in the far-away Maine, of his many cousins, of his schooling, and why he elected astronomy in place of French at Bloomfield Academy; of the years when he taught school or worked on a farm and then of his decision to go to California. He told me of the sea voyage and the stay in Panama, of San Francisco, and of the life in Volcano, the little mining town; of the return to Maine and of the journey west across the plains, driving sheep and cattle. He told me the story in detail until he reached Salt Lake City, and then one evening something intervened, I was well again and the absorbing tale was postponed and then again and again, never to be taken up.