as a lad to-day
might read "The Three Guardsmen," or "The Hound of the Baskervilles." He
made notes of what he read with his turkey-buzzard pen and brier-root
ink. If he did not have these handy, he would write with a piece of
charcoal or the charred end of a stick, on a board, or on the under side
of a chair or bench. He used the wooden fire shovel for a slate, shaving
it off clean when both sides were full of figures. When he got hold of
paper enough to make a copy-book he would go about transferring his
notes from boards, beams, under sides of the chairs and the table, and
from all the queer places he had put them down, on the spur of the
moment.

Besides the books he had at hand, he borrowed all he could get, often
walking many miles for a book, until, as he once told a friend, he "read
through every book he had ever heard of in that country, for a circuit
of fifty miles"--quite a circulating library!

"THE BEGINNING OF LOVE"

"The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." It must have been about
this time that the lad had the following experience, which he himself
related to a legal friend, with his chair tilted back and his knees
"cocked up" in the manner described by Cousin John Hanks:

"Did you ever write out a story in your mind? I did when I was little
codger. One day a wagon with a lady and two girls and a man broke down
near us, and while they were fixing up, they cooked in our kitchen. The
woman had books and read us stories, and they were the first of the kind
I ever heard. I took a great fancy to one of the girls; and when they
were gone I thought of her a good deal, and one day, when I was sitting
out in the sun by the house, I wrote out a story in my mind.

"I thought I took my father's horse and followed the wagon, and finally
I found it, and they were surprised to see me.

"I talked with the girl and persuaded her to elope with me; and that
night I put her on my horse and we started off across the prairie. After
several hours we came to a camp; and when we rode up we found it was one
we had left a few hours before and went in.

"The next night we tried again, and the same thing happened--the horse
came back to the same place; and then we concluded we ought not to
elope. I stayed until I had persuaded her father that he ought to give
her to me.

"I always meant to write that story out and publish it, and I began
once; but I concluded it was not much of a story.

"But I think that was the