n those days, rejoicing in their abounding
vigor. With them reaping was a game, husking corn a test of endurance
and skill, threshing a "bee." It was a Dudley against a McClintock, a
Gilfillan against a Garland, and my father's laughing descriptions of
the barn-raisings, harvestings and railsplittings of the valley filled
my mind with vivid pictures of manly deeds. Every phase of farm work was
carried on by hand. Strength and skill counted high and I had good
reason for my idolatry of David and William. With the hearts of woodsmen
and fists of sailors they were precisely the type to appeal to the
imagination of a boy. Hunters, athletes, skilled horsemen--everything
they did was to me heroic.

Frank, smallest of all these sons of Hugh, was not what an observer
would call puny. He weighed nearly one hundred and eighty pounds and
never met his match except in his brothers. William could outlift him,
David could out-run him and outleap him, but he was more, agile than
either--was indeed a skilled acrobat.

His muscles were prodigious. The calves of his legs would not go into
his top boots, and I have heard my father say that once when the
"tumbling" in the little country "show" seemed not to his liking, Frank
sprang over the ropes into the arena and went around the ring in a
series of professional flip-flaps, to the unrestrained delight of the
spectators. I did not witness this performance, I am sorry to say, but I
have seen him do somersaults and turn cart-wheels in the door-yard just
from the pure joy of living. He could have been a professional
acrobat--and he came near to being a professional ball-player.

He was always smiling, but his temper was fickle. Anybody could get a
fight out of Frank McClintock at any time, simply by expressing a desire
for it. To call him a liar was equivalent to contracting a doctor's
bill. He loved hunting, as did all his brothers, but was too excitable
to be a highly successful shot--whereas William and David were veritable
Leather-stockings in their mastery of the heavy, old-fashioned rifle.
David was especially dreaded at the turkey shoots of the county.

William was over six feet in height, weighed two hundred and forty
pounds, and stood "straight as an Injun." He was one of the most
formidable men of the valley--even at fifty as I first recollect him, he
walked with a quick lift of his foot like that of a young Chippewa. To
me he was a huge gentle black bear, but I firmly believed h