The youthful Joseph assisted generally, and (it is alleged) was an adept in robbing hen-roosts and orchards. It seems that when quite young he could read, but not write. His two standard volumes were "The Life of Stephen Burroughs," the clerical scoundrel, and the autobiography of Captain Kidd, the pirate. The latter work was eagerly and often perused. At an early age he committed the following lines to memory, which seemed to give him great pleasure: "My name was Robert Kidd, As I sailed, as I sailed; And most wickedly I did, And God's laws I did forbid, As I sailed, as I sailed." A certain superstitious feeling concerning the Smith family existed in the minds of their more ignorant neighbors on account of the reputation which Mrs. Smith had for telling fortunes. She seems to have been a woman full of odd conceits and superstitions, while at the same time she possessed a great deal of natural talent; and Joseph resembled his mother in mental quickness and imaginative power. When he was scarcely fifteen years old, while he was watching the digging of a well, he said that he found a peculiarly shaped stone that resembled a child's foot in its outlines. It must have resembled the stone foot of Buddha at Bangkok, Siam. At any rate, it has well been said that this foot "has left footprints on the sands of time." This little stone, afterward known as the "peek-stone" and the "Palmyra seer-stone," has been called "the acorn of the Mormon oak." For some time Joseph Smith obtained a subsistence by means of that stone. In a kneeling posture, with a bandage over his eyes (so luminous was the sight without it), with the stone in a large, white stove-pipe hat, and this hat in front of his face, he claimed to see very remarkable sights, such as buried treasures of gold and silver. He could trace stolen property, tell where herds of cattle had strayed and where water could be found. With the "peeker" he carried a rod of witch-hazel, which assisted him in the discovery of water. This state of affairs continued for some time. Then he disappeared, and for four years his life is involved in much mystery; but during that time he is known to have been in both Onondaga and Shenango counties, N. Y., since his name appears in the criminal records of both as a vagabond. While he was wandering through the country during those years of mystery, he doubtless heard the theories (as they were a common topic of conversation at the time) that were afloat to account for the peopling of America--the traditions collected from the Indians, the Hebrew traditions among them, the discovery of ruined cities and temples in Central America, the relics of pottery, and the bricks and stumps of axe-cut trees buried far beneath the surface of the Mississippi.