These school days were only during winter, after the crop was all gathered in and before spring work began. After I got large enough to help in winter work, my attendance was only "semi-occasional." After a while a better school-house was built, a mile further away, and it was every way more comfortable, save that we had still the backless slab seats. Here I went at odd times in winter for several years. I had acquired a great fondness for reading, devouring everything in the way of books I could lay my hands upon. Especially I had a great passion for history, biography, geography, natural philosophy, and the like, and I let nothing escape me that the country afforded. I had no money to buy books, and had to depend on borrowing them. I soon went through arithmetic, grammar, and the history of the United States. This was more than my paterfamilias recognized as essential to a practical education, and hence he was not disposed to let me go to school as much as the other children, who gave themselves no concern about books out of school. The idea of one's going through grammar, philosophy, or more than half the arithmetic, "unless he was going to teach," he regarded as a waste of time. His conception of life and mine were so different that there was frequently more or less friction. It was decidedly unpleasant from youth to manhood to be discouraged and opposed in my one absorbing passion for obtaining an education. My mother sympathized with me, but could not help me. The first dollar I ever made I spent for a book, and for this purpose I saved my hard-earned pennies. Midnight often found me poring over this book by the light of kindling prepared for the purpose. This was opposed; and thus the struggle went on during my minority. I can not forbear, before closing this short chapter upon my school life, to allude to the great improvement in the matter of common schools since I was a boy. My native State, though sadly behind many of her younger sisters, has made some progress in this direction, and I can but hope this is only an earnest of what is to come. In a few favored localities, chiefly the cities, there is ample provision made for the education of the children of the people, but in the country districts much remains to be done before we are up with the demands of the age in regard to the comfort of the pupils as well as the facilities for the prosecution of their studies. We need more and better school-houses, better furniture, and more attractive surroundings. Well qualified and earnest teachers are not yet as thick as blackberries in Kentucky. When as much attention is bestowed on these as on jockeys, and on our boys as on our horses, we shall be both richer and better. CHAPTER III. His Religious Experience. Tries to be a Methodist. Hopes to become a Preacher. Boy Preaching. Attends a Sunday-school. "Chaws" Tobacco. Goes to Love Feast. Mourners' Bench Experience. Is Puzzled and Disgusted.