never exceeded five hundred dollars a year. I left school at fifteen,
with a fair hold on the three R's, and beyond this my education in
"manual training" had been good. I knew all the forest-trees, all wild
animals thereabout, every kind of fish, frog, fowl or bird that swam, ran
or flew. I knew every kind of grain or vegetable, and its comparative
value. I knew the different breeds of cattle, horses, sheep and swine.

I could teach wild cows to stand while being milked; break horses to
saddle or harness; could sow, plow and reap; knew the mysteries of
apple-butter, pumpkin pie pickled beef, smoked side-meat, and could make
lye at a leach and formulate soft soap.

That is to say, I was a bright, strong, active country boy who had been
brought up to help his father and mother get a living for a large
family.

I was not so densely ignorant--don't feel sorry for country boys: God is
often on their side.

At fifteen I worked on a farm and did a man's work for a boy's pay. I did
not like it and told the man so. He replied, "You know what you can do."

And I replied, "Yes." I went westward like the course of empire and
became a cowboy; tired of this and went to Chicago; worked in a
printing-office; peddled soap from house to house; shoved lumber on the
docks; read all the books I could find; wrote letters back to country
newspapers and became a reporter; next got a job as traveling salesman;
taught in a district school; read Emerson, Carlyle and Macaulay; worked
in a soap factory; read Shakespeare and committed most of "Hamlet" to
memory with an eye on the stage; became manager of the soap-factory, then