tell you
something that will surprise you. I got it straight from Hammond
himself, and he and I are close friends, as I have helped him
financially out of some hard places. Several times he has made me a
confidant. Only one or two in Orangeville know what I am going to tell
you.

"It seems that about four years after Mr. and Mrs. Hammond were married,
Mrs. Hammond received a letter from her cousin, Mrs. Featherstone,
saying that Nat Harrison, a mutual friend, had been shot dead in a
dispute over a faro game. He was under the influence of liquor at the
time of the trouble. He left a wife and a girl baby eighteen months old,
without any means of support, the mother being incompetent to take care
of either herself or the child, and the letter asked would Mrs. Hammond
like to adopt the baby. If so, Mrs. Featherstone was coming to San Diego
in about a month's time and would bring the child (the Hammonds lived at
San Diego then). The mother would make her home with her aunt.

"Mrs. Hammond said, after reading the letter, 'Poor Annie Harrison. Only
think. I sat beside her at the graduating exercises of Nat Harrison's
class, and remember how pleased she was at the applause which greeted
the oration delivered by Nat, "American Commerce." So many
congratulated him on his talent and thought he would become a rising
member of the bar, and his voice would be heard in the halls of
legislation of the nation.

"'Annie looked so pretty and sweet that day, you could not have bought
her prospects in life for a million dollars. She thought she had a jewel
of a lover, poor thing, she was so innocent of the nature of men. She
knew nothing of the world, for her mother always treated her as a baby,
never teaching her any self-reliance, and had kept her as a hot-house
plant. She grew up with no higher ideal in life for herself than to be
some rich man's toy and pet, under marriage. She was more adapted to be
a flower in the "Garden of Eden" than to fight the battle of life in the
present state of society.'

"Nat Harrison had money and was doing well when he married Annie, but
being a man of strong passions and appetites, Annie's freshness and
bloom soon wilted. Then he sought other pastures for his carnal
pleasures, and with that came drinking and gambling. When his estate was
settled up after his death they found he was in debt.

"Mr. and Mrs. Hammond talked the matter over and decided to adopt the
child. They were both much pleased when