on some hapless scholar's back. It was his boast
that he often used up a whole bunch in a single day. However, his
school was no different from many another of the time. Beatings were
taken as a matter of course. "Spare the rod and spoil the child!"

Ulysses went to this school until he was fourteen, and mastered the
elementary studies. Between whiles he helped his father at the tannery
or on the farm. The tannery work he always hated. But outdoor work,
particularly with horses, he delighted in. At seven years of age he
drove a team with all the skill of a man; and it was said that when he
could scarcely walk he could ride horseback. The story is told of him
that at a county fair, where a prize of five dollars was offered to any
one who could stick on a trick pony, Ulysses won it after several other
boys had got thrown helter-skelter. He flung his arms around the
pony's fat neck, and stuck on, though as he afterward said: "That pony
was as round as an apple."

He tells another amusing story of himself, in these early days. He
greatly coveted a young colt owned by a neighboring farmer, and after
teasing his father, the latter tried to buy it for him. But he offered
only twenty dollars for the colt, and the owner wanted twenty-five.
After some dickering without any result, the boy went to the owner with
this message, which he delivered all in a breath:

"Father says I may offer you twenty dollars; and if you won't take
that, I am to offer you twenty-two and a half; and if you won't take
that for your colt, I am to pay you twenty-five dollars."

"It would not take a Connecticut farmer to tell what was the price paid
for the colt," he added afterward when telling the story.

This little incident, while amusing, reveals a trait in his character
which persisted all through life. He was the soul of candor. He
called a spade a spade. And he never could bargain.

Another early trait revealing itself in later years was something that,
in his Memoirs, he calls a superstition. It was a dislike to turn back
when once started on a journey. If he found himself on the wrong road,
he would keep going until he came to some branching road rather than
turn aside. This habit was destined to make some of the generals on
the other side, in the Civil War, somewhat uncomfortable. They found
that he never quit.

Thus grew up the boy, Ulysses Grant. He was not considered
particularly bright at school, but he was a plod