It would almost seem as if the deprivations and hardships of his youthful days must have thrown an unhappy spell about his early home, and as though the memories that came up to him from the long vista of years would be laden with recollections of want and severe trial, of personal endurance, of scanty food and more scanty clothing; in short, of all the stern realities of his childhood's home. But this was very far from being the case with him. He has often said to us, in relation to this subject, that he deemed his life at that time anything but unhappy,--that what now appeared to be so great hardships, by comparison, were then but trifling discomforts, and matters of course. He was never inclined to set up for a martyr, or to gather any credit for having endured patiently, and risen in time above the fortunes of his youth. He could only recall this period of his life with feelings of pleasure. Such feelings as these force upon us the conviction that there is ever about the place of one's birth a spell that hardship seems only the more closely to bind about the heart,--that deprivation and want but the more strongly cement. The cheerful allusion to the affectionate regard of his brothers and sisters, and the remark that contentment ever smiled upon his early home, show the true spirit of the man, and the natural trait which ever influenced him to make the best of everything. "How I used to cherish a kind word from my father, when I was a boy!" says Mr. Ballou. "He was in some respects an austere man; and when I was born, being the youngest of our large family, he had got to be advanced in years, and looked with a more serious and practical eye on the events of life and all things about us. He was Puritanic, strictly religious, as he interpreted the meaning of that word, and his mind was ever engrossed upon serious matters. But when he put his hand sometimes upon my head, and told me I had done well, that the labor I had performed might have been more poorly done by older hands, or that I was a good and faithful boy, my heart was electrified beyond measure; and I remember his words and smile, even now, with delight." How the simplicity and purity of the man shine forth in this little paragraph!