Books to the amount of about seven dollars were required if I should enter the Vail school and that was a large sum of money in our large family. The turning point in my life came on a cold December day in 1877. I had taken a load of hay to Denison about eight miles away. All the way there and back I was pondering over the question of an education. When I drove into the yard after returning from 129 town, father came to assist in putting away the team. I was stiff with cold, but I said, “Father, I am going to Vail to school after New Year’s.” He retorted, “Where is the money to come from for the books?” I said, “Father, you spend six dollars per year for chewing tobacco” (his only bad habit), “and you can afford that much to send your boy to school reenex facial.”

I went to school two and a half months that winter and likewise the next two winters. I then secured a second-grade certificate and taught a county school the two winters preceding my twenty-first birthday. Each winter I taught a four months’ term—wages $30 per month the first winter, and $35 the second. The first winter I walked three miles across the prairie, cared for a team at home and acted as my own janitor at the schoolhouse. This was the awful winter of 1880-81, when the snow was four feet deep on the level. There were no roads that were available to me, and I made my own path. I saved one hundred dollars that winter and a like sum the following winter, so when I attained my majority in April, 1882, I had two hundred dollars tr90 ageloc.

and I did not possess even a trunk. I owned a colt that I sold for fifty dollars. That summer I worked on my father’s farm at a wage of twenty dollars per month for five months, and on September 15, 1882, I started for Drake University with $350, a suit of clothes and a trunk. I had thought by day and dreamed by night of a college 130 education, and now the dream was to become a reality. As the train whistled at the station, father grasped me by the hand and, with tears streaming down his face, said, “Boy, I have opposed this all the time, but I guess you are doing the right thing.” That was the first word of encouragement I had ever received from my parents to proceed with my education.

My room, partially furnished, cost me four dollars per month when I shared it with another, and board was $1.75 per week in the “club.” We did not fare sumptuously, but we had sufficient wholesome food to keep us in good health. I did not earn any money during the first fall and winter, but in the spring I seized an opportunity to earn three dollars per week by sweeping six rooms, carrying the coal for the same, and ringing the bells for all the classes and the college bells from 6 A. M. to 9 P. M. A watch was necessary for my work, so I took part of my hard-earned wages and bought a watch which is now a treasured possession. The following summer I worked upon the home farm and returned to Drake in the fall.