e was sent back to Iowa, where he lived for two very happy years in
the home of Uncle Allan Hoover. To this uncle, and to his wife, Aunt
Millie, the impressionable boy became strongly attached. And there were
some energetic young cousins always on hand to play with. The older
brother Theodore, or Tad, was living at this time with another uncle, a
prosperous Iowa farmer, also much loved by both of the boys. He lived
near enough to permit frequent playings together of the two, and on
another farm, with Grandmother Minthorn, was still the baby sister Mary,
who was, however, too young to be much of a playmate for the brothers.
Indeed, the country all around bristled with the kindly uncles and aunts
and other relatives and playmates, all interested in making life
comfortable and happy for the little orphans.

There was also an especially attractive little black-eyed girl, Mildred
Brook, who lived on a near-by farm, who later went to the same Quaker
academy at Oskaloosa as Theodore, and is now Mrs. Theodore Hoover. In
those days she was known as "Mildred of the berry-patches," as all the
children for miles around associated her in their minds with the
luxuriant vines on the farm of her Uncle Bransome with whom she lived.
Her home was the children's Mecca in the berry season.

Herbert Hoover's memories of those days are filled with lively incidents
and boyish farm adventure. There was the young calf, mutual property of
himself and a cousin of like age, which was fitted out with a boy-made
harness and trained to work, eventually getting out of hand in a corn
field and dragging the single-shovel cultivator wildly across and along
rows of tender growing grain. Later the calf was restored to favor when
it was triumphantly attached to a boy-made sorghum mill, which actually
worked, and pressed out the sweet juice from the sorghum cane.

Winter had its special joys of skates and sled; spring came with
maple-sugaring, and summer with its long days filled with a thousand
enterprises. There were fish in the creek which you might catch if you
could sit still long enough, without too violent wiggling of the hook
when the float gave its first faint indications of a bite. It was two
miles to school, and most of the time the children had to walk. But that
was only good for them, and there was, of course, a good deal of
churchgoing and daily family prayers, but there were always convenient
laps for tired little heads--being in church was th