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collector.  One of these exploits was a raid on the watermelon patch when the melons were about the size of goose eggs.  When discovered he had nearly the whole prospective crop gathered into a heap.  What happened to him on that occasion is not recorded.  The collecting habit, however, grew on him and today various Museums are burdened with accumulations in geology, archeology and art as the result of his enterprise.

His first day at school, in the little schoolhouse in the edge of an oak forest, is distinctly remembered.  His two brothers ^[[older than himself]] had brought home terrible stories of the whippings administered to unruly pupils by the teacher, and when they got him to the top of the hill where the first glimpse of the schoolhouse was obtained, he promptly "bucked," refusing to go further, but was forced along, and in his later years has no recollection of the administration of corrective treatment by the teacher.

His art career, indeed his entire career in the outer world, was foreshadowed and begun while in the first and second school readers.  With his seat mate, Alexander Hammond, he took to tracing the little illustrations in their readers with sharp points and soon ^[[they]] had them partially cut out of the books.  He imagined that he excelled in this work, and pride of his skill led him to other graphic ventures, which are not ended after the lapse of three-quarters of a century.  Joseph Thomas, one of his school mates some years older, was quite artistic in his turn and had acquired a small box of colors, of which the incipient