cupied by 'half-day' school." Outside of this scanty formal
instruction, there is ample evidence that he developed body and mind in
varied work and play. He bore to the end of life the scars of youthful
escapades, witnessing the adventurous spirit of his boyhood. When only
four years old, he climbed about the framework of a new house, and fell,
head downward, upon an iron kettle, cutting his forehead to the bone.
Later on, he was accidentally cut with a knife in the hands of a
playmate. Later still, he cut himself dangerously with an axe. Again, he
fell from a high tree, holding an iron hook with which he had been
reaching for cherry-bearing branches, and managed to hook out one of his
teeth. At another time he went for the nest of a hanging-bird, and had
the fact that it was a hornet's nest indelibly impressed on his memory.
Of course, he was nearly drowned three times,--such youngsters always
have such escapes. In short, he was a thorough boy, adventuring all
things, daunted by nothing, and protected from the results of his
reckless endeavors by that Providence which watches over small boys.

But such a temperament finds play in useful work also. The boy learned
every department of the hat-making business, beginning, when he was very
young, with pulling the fur from the skins of rabbits. And, while
assisting his mother in doing the family washing, he made what was,
perhaps, his first invention,--a mechanical arrangement for pounding the
soiled linen. Again, after carefully dissecting an old shoe, to learn
how it was put together, he determined to make shoes and slippers for
the family, and succeeded in turning out products of manufacture which
were said to be as good as those to be found, at that day, in the
regular trade.

He constructed a toy wagon, sold it for six dollars, managed to gather
four dollars more, invested the ten dollars in lottery tickets, and drew
only blanks, of which experience he said many years later, "I consider
it one of the best investments of my life; for I then learned that it
was not my _forte_ to make money at games of chance."

When he was between thirteen and fourteen years old, his father built a
large malt-house at Newburg, and the son loaded with his own hands and
carted to the site selected all the stone for the building. Collecting
wild honey and shooting game in the forests around Peekskill were
additional employments which combined pleasure with profit. But this
life did not sat