The first house built in that part of "The Reservation" in the present county of Marshall in Alabama.

The author's parents were living here when he was born. It still serves as a residence and bids fair to endure for another century

No one who knew my father ever doubted his physical or moral courage, for it was of that sublime type that held life as of secondary consideration where duty was involved, but his was the gift of gentle forbearance and kindly remonstrance to those who gave way to ungovernable and passionate word or deed. His was the way of the Nazarene and of that far-reaching wisdom of which the Proverb says: "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.

My mother, too, was a Presbyterian, the daughter of a minister of that faith, tender and true to her convictions of duty. Peter didn't love his Lord any less because he was human enough to lose his temper and smite off the ear of the servant of the high priest. My mother and I chose him for our patron saint, and, turning aside from the path of peace, hand in hand we trod the rougher road which led up the hill Difficulty. Upon its summit we stood at last triumphant, and thence, her beautiful face lighted up with a heavenly smile, an eternal benediction, she left me and passed down into the valley.

Time but the impression stronger makes,

As streams their channels deeper wear.

It was on one of her later birthdays I wrote:

Deal gently with her, Time! These many years
Of life have brought more smiles with them than tears.
Lay not thy hand too harshly on her now,
But trace decline so slowly on her brow
That, like a sunset of the northern clime,
Where twilight lingers in the summer-time,
And fades at last into the silent night,
Ere one may note the passing of the light,
So may she pass-since 'tis the common lot-
As one who, resting, sleeps and knows it not.

-Century Magazine, January, 1902.

III

OUR VILLAGE BOYS

Boys are boys the world over, and we were boys; some good, some bad. None good all the time; none so bad but that if properly handled the germ of good in him could have been cultivated to an aspiration for the ideals of life and for usefulness. It is almost a maxim that children are what their parents make them. Even the influences of heredity may in large measure be eliminated if carefully studied and the value of environment appreciated, for children, like chameleons, take readily the color of that which is about them. A left-handed child, or even an adult with a strongly inherited tendency to use the off-hand, may be made just as clever with the opposite and unpreferred member by persistent training. This has been very frequently demonstrated. It is just as possible to make both members equally useful. This will be done in the years to come, and it will greatly increase both mental and muscular efficiency. What is true of a physical defect or deviation from the normal is just as true of a moral weakness. No one doubts that Ashanti infants transplanted to a Christian civilization and reared with refined and cultivated children would cease to be cannibals and savages. The domestication of wild animals and fowls is complete evidence of the influence of environment.

Among the boys of our village very few turned out bad;

and had these few been surrounded in their homes by better example and received more kindly consideration and encouragement, even they would not have fallen by the way. Fully fifty per cent. of my playmates near my age perished in battle or from wounds or sickness contracted in the military service of the Confederacy. Most of our time up to our fifteenth year, when as a rule we were sent away to one of the well-known colleges, was spent in the long sessions of the village school with its exacting duties. A week at Christmas and the months of July and August made up the vacation period. On holidays in the fall and winter months, when the river and creeks and forests were flush with game, we were hunters and became adepts in woodcraft and the use of firearms. Often on Saturday nights, in the colder season, with the young negro boys, toward whom we white boys were always kind and considerate, with pine torch-lights and our dogs, we would roam the heavily timbered bottom lands hunting possums and coons, and at times on moonlight nights take our shotguns and seek out the wild-turkey roosts. With the full moon on cloudless nights we could even shoot turkeys, coons, and possums from the trees with the rifles, which carried only one ball. It was the practice to get the dark object between the marksman and the bright moon, sight into the moon, and slowly lower the barrel until both sights were darkened by the intervening black object, and at this moment touch the trigger. We were at home on horseback, and in the very warm days of the long summers we almost lived in the river, the temperature of which was several degrees warmer than the cold water which came in from the near-by mountain streams. Few of us could remember when we learned to swim, and the practice was general. No one seemed