Chit-Chat



   His boyhood was as that of other boys of the city; an
era of happiness and happiness has no history. He was
considered a good boy as boys go; and good boys have
few adventures.
   Although John never attended Sunday School except
when his mother made him-as she was a Presbyterian,
he wore the honor pin for an unbroken three-year at-
tendance.
   School to him was such a delight, that in a spirit of
emulative self-denial, he never started from home, a
block away, until a minute before the tardy bell rang.
He usually made it. If late, lie slipped in, usually walk-
ing backwards, hoping either to escape observation or,
if seen, to be told to retake his seat.
   His vacations were spent on the river where he
learned to handle a canoe and skiff; and before he was
fourteen could swim and dive like a didapper. At that
time his greatest ambition was to run the falls in a canoe;
his next to be a steamboat captain.
   He and two other boys built a camp on Six-Mile Is-
land. There they usually spent the month of August;
during the preceding vacation days working as bank
runners or messenger boys to raise the money to finance
the camping party.
   He was entered in the graded school at seven, in
high school at fifteen, at which time he put on long
trousers and changed from stockings to socks. He in-
sisted on discarding his stockings, as the boys had a way
of lifting the bottoms of trousers to see if the one appear-
ing for his first time in long trousers yet wore his stock-
ings. He graduated from the high school at nineteen;
and after two years at the local law school and in Judge
Marshall's office, was given a position with the Kentucky



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