When I was about eight years old, an unusual occurrence took place in our village—the arrival of an itinerant photographer. He was a man apparently suffering from some slight lameness, and gladly accepted my offer to act as his errand boy, and in payment for my services he was to execute for me a likeness of myself. One morning upon going to his office I found the door still locked. It was immediately opened, however, by the artist, sufficiently for him to hand to me a small wooden block broken in two pieces. He instructed me to take them to our village wagon maker and have him make a new one, which I was to return to him. I did this, and upon entering the office again, I found the artist partially clothed and sitting near the door, which he at once locked. He then proceeded to remove the greater portion of one of his legs, and not having known until then what was the cause of his lameness, in fact, not ever having seen or even known that such a thing as artificial limbs existed, my consternation can better be imagined than described. Had he next proceeded to remove his head in the same mysterious way I should not have been further surprised. He must have noticed my discomfiture, for as soon as his mending process had sufficiently progressed, he quickly placed me in a dim light, and standing upon his whole leg, and meantime waving the other at me, he took my picture, which in a few days he gave to me. I kept it for many years, and the thin terror-stricken face of that bare footed, home-spun clad boy I can yet see. In those days in our quiet village, so remote from the outside world, that even a locomotive whistle could scarcely be heard, daily newspapers were rare and almost unknown, our usual source of information being the weekly papers and a few periodicals; and in one of these I saw a glowing offer, emphasized by a fine illustration of a gold watch and chain, a few of which would be sold at a comparatively trifling sum. Surely this was for me the one opportunity of my life, and although my entire wealth at that time consisted mostly of pennies and other small coins, almost every one having for me its own peculiar history, all of which I converted into more transferable shape by exchanging them with our shoemaker, who was also my confidant in the matter, was hardly more than sufficient to buy the watch.