River,
there lived a young couple who could not decide how to name their first
baby. He was a darling child, and as the weeks went by, and he grew
prettier every minute, it was harder and harder to think of a name good
enough for him.

Finally Jesse Grant, the father, told his wife, Hannah, he thought it
would be a good plan to ask the grandparents' advice. So off they rode
from their little cottage, carrying the baby with them.

But at grandpa's it was even worse. In that house there were four people
besides themselves to suit. At last, the father, mother, grandfather,
grandmother, and the two aunts each wrote a favorite name on a bit of
paper. These slips of paper were all put into grandpa's tall, silk hat
which was placed on the spindle-legged table. "Now," said the father to
one of the aunts, "draw from the hat a slip of paper, and whatever name
is written on that slip shall be the name of my son."

The slip she drew had the name "Ulysses" on it.

"Well," murmured the grandfather, "our dear child is named for a great
soldier of the olden days. But I wanted him to be called Hiram, who was
a good king in Bible times."

Then Hannah Grant, who could not bear to have him disappointed,
answered: "Let him have both names!" So the baby was christened Hiram
Ulysses Grant.

While Ulysses was still a baby, his parents moved to Georgetown, Ohio.
There his father built a nice, new, brick house and managed a big farm,
besides his regular work of tanning leather. As Ulysses got old enough
to help at any kind of work, it was plain he would never be a tanner. He
hated the smell of leather. But he was perfectly happy on the farm. He
liked best of all to be around the horses, and before he was six years
old he rode horseback as well as any man in Georgetown. When he was
seven, it was part of his work to drive the span of horses in a heavy
team that carried the cord-wood from the wood-lot to the house and shop.
He must have been a strong boy, for at the age of eleven he used to hold
the plow when his father wanted to break up new land, and it makes the
arms and back ache to hold a heavy plow! He was patient with all animals
and knew just how to manage them. His father and all the neighbors had
Ulysses break their colts.

In the winters Ulysses went to school, but he did not care for it as
much as he did for outdoor life and work with his hands. Still he
usually had his lessons and was decidedly bright in arithmetic. Because
he