Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DAYS 159
belfry calling to chaptl and recitations could be heard dis-
tinctly as we sat beneath our shade trees. As I write there is
recalled to me most forcibly those care-free years in the old
home with mother and father. Speaking of myself, I was
slow in developing; my mother was not strong and the hard
work of the farm was always too much for her delicate organi-
zation. Being of a vigorous constitution, I early came forward
to lift a part of the burden from her precious shoulders.
I cannot but think, from the vantage point of more than seventy
years, that my choice was wise, even though I missed some
things that might have broadened my social influence.
Father was fond of ancient languages, and since William
showed real talent for the classics he desired his eldest-born
to give a large share of his attention to language, though
mathematics were not to be neglected. Father's idea was
that after William had solid foundations laid in Greek and
mathematics, then would come the time when he could take
up German and French. Professor Klund, who had the chair
of modern languages, was a fine teacher, speaking both German
and French with great fluency, and altogether a scholar of
marked ability. William was early drawn to him, and was
dreaming with such anticipation of becoming his pupil that
he bought a second-hand German grammar and started to
study it before he had really entered the class in modern languages.
One morning when called to breakfast we heard him
spring out of bed reciting a lesson in German grammar. Thus
we discovered that he was already engaged, with all the
mental powers he possessed, in acquiring that language and
its literature, which he learned to love and in time mastered.
On Saturdays the boys would haul wood either to the
Cincinnati wood market or to some of father's personal friends
in the city. In this way they added considerably to their
fund of experience, as well as something to the family income.
The great mathematician. Dr. Joseph Ray, was one of father's
friends. His namesake, our younger brother, used to deliver
wood at the home of the mathematician. One day the doctor
noticed a young lad throwing off a load of wood on his grounds
and asked if his name were not Joseph Ray Watkins. On