The first five years of his life were spent in the house with the “two front doors” and differed in no wise from the early childhood of the other children of the wilderness community except that he had more of the comforts than fell to the lot of many others. The only picture of the future senator of that period that is preserved is in the memory of the venerable sister--a picture of the boy in his favorite amusement, sitting astride an old discarded saddle on a carpenter horse with a pair of saddle bags filled with powders and bottles, going to visit an imaginary patient, and solemnly giving instructions to “give him one powder every hour till Monday, and if he ’plains of it give it to him agin.” In 1854 Doctor Kern moved with his family to Warren county, Iowa, where the next nine years were spent near Indianola in pleasant surroundings, with congenial neighbors, and in the midst of plenty. Here we get our first glimpse of the future partisan in an incident connected with the Lincoln-Douglas campaign of 1860. From his earliest boyhood he knew he was a Democrat and he took no pains to conceal the fact. During the dramatic campaign of 1860 he frequently drove to Indianola with a load of wood, and on these expeditions he attracted attention by his vociferous yelling for Douglas. On going to town after the election, he was accosted by a friend of his father’s with the query as to how he felt over the result. “Like Lazarus,” snapped the eleven-year-old partisan. “Why, how is that?” he was asked. “Like I’d been licked by the dogs,” was the quick retort. After the death of Mrs. Kern the doctor soon lost his taste for far western life and in 1865 he returned with his two children to Alto, which was to remain the home of the family until after the only son commenced his professional career.