With my brothers and sisters my life was much the same. We never said anything about our love for each other, and our nearness seemed to bring out our antagonism more than our love. Still, I am sure that I really cared for them, for I recall that once when a brother was very ill I was wretched with fear and grief. I remember how I went over every circumstance of our relations with each other, and how I vowed that I would always be kind and loving to him if his life were saved. Fortunately, he got well; but I cannot recall that I treated him any better after this sickness than before. I remember how happy all of us used to be when cousins or friends came to stay a few days in our house, and how much more we liked to be with them than with our own family. I remember, too, that I had the same feeling when I visited other houses; and I have found it so to this day. True it is, that in great trouble or in a crisis of life we seem to cling to our kindred, and stand by them, and expect them to stand by us; and yet, in the little things, day by day, we look for our comradeship and affection somewhere else. So I think that in all of this neither I nor the rest of my people were different from the other families about us, and that the stories of the ideal life of brothers and sisters, of parents and children, are largely myths. CHAPTER IV MY FATHER My father was a great believer in education,—that is, in the learning that is found in books. He was doubtful of any other sort, if indeed he believed there could be any other sort. His strong faith in books, together with the fact that there were so many of us children around the house in my mother’s way, early drove me to the district school. Before this time I had learned to read simple sentences; for I cannot remember when my father began telling me how important and necessary it was to study books. By some strange trick of fortune, he was born with a quenchless thirst for learning. This love of books was the one great passion of his life; but his large family began to arrive when he was at such an early age that he never had time to prepare himself to make a living from his learning. He always felt the hardship and irony of a life of labor to one who loved study and contemplation; so he resolved that his children should have a better chance. Poor man! I can see him now as plainly as if it were yesterday. I can see him with his books,—English, Latin, Greek, and even Hebrew,—carrying them back and forth to the dusty mill, and snatching the smallest chance, even when the water was spilling over the dam, to learn more of the wonders that were held between the covers of these books.