supposed to be very highly educated. If children were taught to read and write indifferently and something of arithmetic, at least as far as the single rule of three, their education was supposed to be sufficient for the practical purposes of life. My father has related to me that when he first commenced teaching in the village, in the presence of such a company as usually assembles around a country store, a wise man of the village explained to his admiring hearers that the cause of the changes of the moon resulted from the fact that the earth came between the sun and the moon and hence obstructed the light in such a way as to produce the new moon and the various changes until the full moon. My father rashly attempted to suggest that the wise man was mistaken, for the obvious reason that the moon in its first quarter could be seen in the heavens at the same time as the sun could be observed, and it was impossible that the moon could be partially darkened by the shadow of the earth. The wise man was rather mortified by this exposure of his ignorance, but did not acknowledge his error, but angrily reproved a young man for presuming to differ with him.

In this stone building also my grandfather, Gabriel, died in April, 1839, and was buried in the village churchyard. This stone house is still standing at the date of this writing, and the basement room where my father taught school is occupied as a store-room for vending relics and curiosities gathered from the battle-fields of the neighborhood.

Three miles from the village of Sharpsburg, on the Virginia side of the Potomac river, there is another quaint, old fashioned village called Shepherdstown. Here my mother, Susan Cameron, was born October 25, 1803, and was married to my father, Charles Nourse, June 10, 1825. Here in this village my mother died October 10, 1835. There is still standing in this town the old Methodist church, surrounded by a village churchyard, where will be found modest tombstones marking the graves of my mother, and of many of her brothers and sisters, and also her mother, Susan Cameron, who died at Shepherdstown, Virginia, July 20, 1855. My mother's father's name was Daniel Cameron, born in Scotland, October, 1753. His wife was also of Scotch descent. Her family name was Clinton, which name was bestowed upon me, and in honor of my grandmother and to please her I have always been known in the family by the name of Clinton, my first name being Charles, so named after my father. My father, Charles Nourse, was born at Frankfort, Kentucky, April 15, 1801.

Several years before my mother's death my father had removed from Sharpsburg to Frederick City, Maryland, where he taught school for several years, and while living there, to-wit, August 9, 1833, your mother's mother was born.

My recollections of my mother are not very distinct, as I was only six years old at the time of her death. Only one incident of my early childhood I call to mind very clearly. I had been induced by my older brothers and some neighbor boys, whilst playing in the market square at Frederick City, to attempt to imitate them in the use of chewing tobacco, which resulted in making me very sick. Whilst lying upon the trundle bed in the room upstairs of the house where we resided, I vomited very freely, and as I lay back upon my pillow, pale and weak from the effort, I remember a kind face of one stooping over me and sympathizing deeply, not knowing the cause of my illness, and I remember how guilty I felt at being the object of so much undeserved sympathy.

The last two years of our residence in Maryland we lived at a little village at the foot of the Blue Ridge mountains called Burkettsville, and during part of these two years my grandmother Cameron kept house for us and had charge of her four grandchildren. I remember her very distinctly, the most affectionate and patient woman it was ever my fortune to know.

In February, 1841, my father, with his four children then living, took the old fashioned stage-coach at Boonesboro, Maryland, crossing the Allegheny mountains, coming on to Wheeling, crossing the Ohio river, and thence via Zanesville and Somerset, Ohio, to the little village of East Rushville in Fairfield county, Ohio. After teaching school in East Rushville during the summer of that year, my father with myself and sister Susan removed to Lancaster, the county seat of Fairfield county, Ohio, leaving my two older brothers as heavy clerks in country stores—my brother Joseph with a man named Clayton and my brother John with a man named Paden, in two separate villages in the county of Fairfield. My father taught school in Lancaster, Ohio, for four years, I think most of the time for a compensation of $300 a year. As this sum was hardly sufficient to support him and his two children at a respectable boarding house, it became necessary for me to relieve the situation and to start out in the world for myself. My first attempt was in a country store at East Rushville with a man by the name of Coulson. After four months heavy clerking with this man, he failed in business and sold out his stock of remnants, and I returned to Lancaster to my father. After a few months I again attempted to do business in support of myself, and I hired out to another village store-keeper, without any fixed compensation further than that I was to have my board and clothes for my services. My duties consisted of weighing out groceries, taking in eggs, butter, and feathers, and packing and preparing for shipment the butter and eggs, for which there was not sufficient local market. I also sold goods through business hours, made fires both in the store and for the family, sawed wood, milked the cow, and in the fall and winter fed, curried, and cared for a half dozen horses that were shipped in the spring for the eastern market. At the end of sixteen months of this kind of service my employer advised me and also my father that I would never make a merchant. I had positively refused to conform to his instructions in doing business in the manner in which he thought was most for his interest. He was engaged also at that time in buying leaf tobacco that was raised in the Hocking hills, for which he paid about one-third cash, one-third on short time, and one-third in goods out of the store. He had three prices or more for nearly everything he had to sell, depending, of course, on the character of his customer and the kind of pay he was to receive. For instance: his cash customers, of whom there were very few, received four pounds of coffee for a dollar. His long credit customers, of whom there were many, received three pounds of coffee for a dollar, whilst his trade customers, especially those who took goods out of the store for tobacco, received two and a half pounds of coffee for a dollar. It was not easy for a young boy, or as young a boy as I was at that time, always to understand the exact standing of the customers, and it was necessary to watch carefully the old man who was proprietor of the store, who indicated by signs upon his fingers, which I too frequently misunderstood, just exactly how much coffee for a dollar a customer was entitled to. One remarkable incident of the manner in which my employer did business I remember very distinctly. During the day our little store was crowded with customers who had sold tobacco to our employer and had to take their pay in part out of the store. A young man by the name of Johnnie, who was a year or two older than myself and a favorite with the proprietor of the store, had during the day sold to a German woman a large red and yellow cotton handkerchief for the sum of thirty-seven and a half cents that was marked twelve and a half cents and had cost us eight and a third cents. The next day she returned with one of her neighbors who also had to take her pay out of the store for tobacco, and she wanted another of those red and yellow cotton handkerchiefs, which Johnnie sold her of course at the same price. In the evening Johnnie and myself had to go over to the old gentleman's residence before we retired for the night and attend family prayers. During