Parents, be careful what example you set before your children. If you set a wrong example, they may rise up and curse you: but if you teach them the good and right way, they will "rise up and call you blessed." If when parents see one of their children entering upon his first temptation to take things that do not belong to him, they would do their duty, there would be more honest children today. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." From my earliest childhood I liked poetry and could readily commit it to memory. I often learned poems that were quite difficult for one of my age. The beautiful poems I learned were like rays of sunshine on my pathway and added much comfort to a life that had but few pleasures. I learned the alphabet at home and so made quite rapid progress after I began attending school, although I was greatly hindered because of stammering. Some of my teachers were very helpful to me in overcoming this difficulty. When Mr. Nutter, who taught our school one winter, saw that I could not recite because of my impediment of speech, he had all the classes recite with me so as to take away the embarrassment. I felt very grateful for his kindness. One day when I was ten years old, I had a fit at school. Father thought that while I was afflicted in this way, it would be hard on my mind for me to study, and it would be best to keep me at home. During my last term at school, I read in McGuffey's Fourth Reader, studied the second part of Arithmetic, had learned to spell fairly well in the old Elementary Speller, and had also begun geography--a study which I liked very much. I was beginning to learn to write; but as I was left-handed, my movements were very slow and awkward. Chapter IV Events During the War I was eight years old when the Civil War began. The first event that I remember in connection with the war was our teacher's dismissing school one day so that we might go over to the public road to see the Union soldiers. I suppose there were at least a regiment of these troops, if not more. As I had never seen soldiers before, their fine appearance as they marched by, dressed in their uniforms, with their guns, bayonets, drums, and full military equipment, made a lasting impression on my childish mind. At the beginning of the war, my father wished to move from the State where we were then living. Missouri was a slave State and he knew that there was trouble ahead. Perhaps father would have had his way, had not God shown mother in a dream that he would protect us, and that we would be as safe in Missouri as in any other place. Subsequent events proved that we did well to obey God, for none of our stock or property was taken. The deaths of my brother and sister were the most severe trials through which we had to pass.