g from Antwerp. Through some strange freak of atavism the
father of the boy bred back, and was more or less of a stone-age
cave-dweller. He was a butcher by trade, in the little town of
Waldorf, a few miles from Heidelberg. A butcher's business then was to
travel around and kill the pet pig, or sheep, or cow that the
tender-hearted owners dare not harm. The butcher was a pariah, a sort
of unofficial, industrial hangman.

At the same time he was more or less of a genius, for he climbed
steeples, dug wells, and did all kinds of disagreeable jobs that needed
to be done, and from which sober and cautious men shrank like unwashed
wool.

One such man--a German, too--lives in East Aurora. I joined him,
accidentally, in walking along a country road the other day. He
carried a big basket on his arm, and was peacefully smoking a big Dutch
pipe. We talked of music and he was regretting the decline of a taste
for Bach, when he shifted the basket to the other arm.

"What have you in the basket?" I asked.

And here is the answer, "Noddings--but dynamite. I vas going up on der
hill, already, to blow me oud some stumps oud." And I suddenly
bethought me of an engagement I had at the village.

John Jacob Astor was the youngest of four sons, and as many daughters.
The brothers ran away early in life, and went to sea or joined the
army. One of these boys came to America, and followed his father's
trade of butcher.

Jacob Astor, the happy father of John Jacob, used to take the boy with
him on his pig-killing expeditions. This for two reasons--one, so the
lad would learn a trade, and the other to make sure that the boy did
not run away.

Parents who hold their children by force have a very slender claim upon
them. The pastor of the local Lutheran Church took pity on this boy,
who had such disgust for his father's trade and hired him to work in
his garden and run errands.

The intelligence and alertness of the lad made him look like good
timber for a minister.

He learned to read and was duly confirmed as a member of the church.

Under the kindly care of the village parson John Jacob grew in mind and
body--his estate was to come later. When he was seventeen, his father
came and made a formal demand for his services. The young man must
take up his father's work of butchering.

That night John Jacob walked out of Waldorf by the wan light of the
moon, headed for Antwerp. He carried a big red handkerchief in which