pray and that impressed me. He was indeed a saint and always remained
devout. All sects became to him as agencies for good. He had
discovered that theologies were many, but religion was one. I was
quite satisfied that my father knew better than the minister, who
pictured not the Heavenly Father, but the cruel avenger of the Old
Testament--an "Eternal Torturer" as Andrew D. White ventures to call
him in his autobiography. Fortunately this conception of the Unknown
is now largely of the past.

One of the chief enjoyments of my childhood was the keeping of pigeons
and rabbits. I am grateful every time I think of the trouble my father
took to build a suitable house for these pets. Our home became
headquarters for my young companions. My mother was always looking to
home influences as the best means of keeping her two boys in the right
path. She used to say that the first step in this direction was to
make home pleasant; and there was nothing she and my father would not
do to please us and the neighbors' children who centered about us.

My first business venture was securing my companions' services for a
season as an employer, the compensation being that the young rabbits,
when such came, should be named after them. The Saturday holiday was
generally spent by my flock in gathering food for the rabbits. My
conscience reproves me to-day, looking back, when I think of the hard
bargain I drove with my young playmates, many of whom were content to
gather dandelions and clover for a whole season with me, conditioned
upon this unique reward--the poorest return ever made to labor. Alas!
what else had I to offer them! Not a penny.

I treasure the remembrance of this plan as the earliest evidence of
organizing power upon the development of which my material success in