The Missouri herald., 1922-05-05

contracts and helped with the cook.
ing and care of the camps.
After that time George Merrill
taught me how to clear land, make
rails and farm, and was always kind
and good to me, giving me two sup
pers in one night, and making 1t i'm
possible for my shoes to get cold
for all had to do was to pull them
off, throw them under the bed, crawl
over the bed myself, and then it was
time to get up, thereby making ii
impossible for my shoes to get cold
Then my uncle, H. P. Coleman,
who is now living in California
thought that l would make good
clerk in his store, which position !
accepted with delight, for I now felt
that I was earning real money and
on the highway to a successful ca.
reer.
My active and strenuous outdoor
life had given me strong and
healthy body, and l was prepared for
| the severe demands Of my new du-
| ties, which were as follows: In the
| morning / got up at four o'clock,
built the fires, fed the mules, horses,
hogs and cows, and milked about five
cows, and then prepared myself for
| breakfast After breakfast I would
To hn Of
fires and then got the team ready to
haul cotton to Tyler and bring back
load of freight. Saturday being a
busy day in the store, / would get tc
exercise my duties as clerk, for you
know had job clerking, and these
side things 1 mentioned were just
part of that clerking. ),
/ would hesitate to tell the amount
of salary allowed me for these little
duties-you might suspect me of
having bought gold mine with my
savings. l once mentioned the
amount in describing my early life
to a friend, and he made the signifi-
cant remark, "That wouldn't keep
me in chewing tobacco, and 1 don't
chew, either"
l finally awoke to the fact that
this sort of life was not getting me
anywhere in particular, and l got a
job as janitor of the Blytheville
school, and attended that school two
years. From there I went to Cape
Girardeau, then to Quincy, where ]
attended school two more years, and
when | left I thought l was an ac-
countant, but later learned that
there were few things I had yet
to learn about accountancy.
About that time l reached my
twenty-first year and finding anoth-
er Elizabeth, which name seemed to
run in our family, l persuaded her
to join her fortunes with mine and
taking Horace Greeley's advice to go
west and grow up with the country. |
This we did, but we found that coun- |
try already grown up, and after |
many years of hard work and burn
ing the midnight oil, I in some way
fooled the Board of Bar Examiners
in 1917, and got license to prac-
tice law. | might name some Of the
law schools l attended, and the one
from which I got my Bachelor of
7 n 1,,n Il Col
talk about degrees and fraternity af-
fliations in my college career, and
upon this subject it will suffice to
say that l will qualify for the posi-
ton that I am asking for.
This brings me down to recent
times, but you may naturally ask,
what can you do-how do you
tackle job, and what are your quail
ifications for the office of prosecuting
Attorney" 1 am young and full of
pep, and I think / have told you
enough of my early life to show that
have had some training in the
school of hard knocks.
/ once went through foundry
and l remember that there, for the
first time, saw the way in which
iron was polished. Hearing vast
creakings and groanings, l looked
into great wheel, into which cast
ings were thrown, ton at a time
This wheel was revolved, and inside
Of it these castings crashed and
ground against one another, and
the result was that they finally
ground each other smooth, rubbing
off all the rough edges, so that they
were taken out clean and bright.
This is the training of the worlds
rough hand, the method by which
The race has been developed up to
is present condition. 1t is through
trial and conflict that manhood is
made.