I was born January 6, 1877, to Alanson Norton and Maren Jensen Norton, in a log house about two and one-half miles north of Brigham City, Utah. The house was about 16 by 28 feet, built among the first in the neighborhood. The logs had been split at the saw mill, and were laid up with the sawed surface on the inside so as to give the walls an approach to evenness. In spite of this, they were out of line by an inch or more in many places, but still they made an interior much improved over the rough, unsplit logs of many cabins I knew. The cracks between the logs were chinked with wood fillings cut to fit, and the openings still left were closed with lime plaster inside and out to make the walls tight.

The floor-was of rough pine lumber, wom and scrubbed smooth, though the knots resisted the wear so as to give the whole surface the appearance of miniature hills and valleys. The ceiling was arched over with cloth, or "factory" as we called it, tacked to the logs that ran lengthwise of the building to support the roof. The interior was divided into two rooms by an inch-board partition. The ceiling and walls, including the board partition, received their annual whitewashing, which added much to the general tone of things.

The partition of upright boards divided the house into bedroom and kitchen. In the bedroom was a bedstead, a wooden lounge, and a plain wooden chest. The bedstead was made with heavy posts at the comer, joined across the ends with heavy rails and ornamental tops. These head and foot pieces were connected by substantial side rails mortised into the posts. The whole structure was firmly held together with a bed cord woven over wooden buttons or knobs deeply embedded into the side and end rails at intervals of eight or ten inches.

I remember the artistic effect of the tightly drawn bed cord dividing the space into squares and forming a safe support for the bed tick of corn shucks or straw, and the feather bed and homemade blankets, quilts, and pillows placed on top. The lounge, like the bedstead, was made by some neighborhood carpenter. It was only half as wide as the bedstead, and could not be taken apart. Instead of a bed cord, it had fixed wooden slats to support the bedding. It made a comfortable bed for one grown-up. Sometimes two children slept on it, one at either end, their feet tangling more or less according to the size and disposition of the bedfellows. In the daytime, the lounge was a convenient resting place, and made it easier to resist the temptation to disturb the fluffy feather bed on the other side of the room. The chest was a plain wooden box, with a lid hinged on the top and fitted with a lock to assure privacy. The corners were dovetailed. The outside was painted a dark brown, which contrasted with the light natural wood of the inside.

Included in the bedroom furnishings were two or three shelves made of inch boards mounted on triangular supports cut from other inch boards and nailed to the walls. On these shelves were placed such articles of occasional use as could not find room in the chest and could not be hung on the nails driven part way into the walls for hanging clothes and hats. Clothes closets we knew nothing of, and so we did not miss them. Each member of the family had his own nails, which we respected with more or less care. I do not recall ever seeing a clothes closet in my childhood, although my grandmother’s home enjoyed the luxury of a moveable wardrobe.

The kitchen was the room of action and variety. Here went on the cooking and eating, the washing and ironing, the sewing and mending, the spinning and weaving, the playing and laughing and crying. Near the south side of the room was the cook stove, with its stove pipe leading straight up through the ceiling and roof to the atmosphere, protected from the wood and cloth with tin shields cut from flattened oil cans. Back of the stove was the spacious wood box.

At one side of the stove was the carpet loom and at the other side was the all-purpose table. In the corner back of the table was the cupboard, with its shelves for dishes above and its closed cabinet below for food storage. A large flour bin was conveniently near, while the Howe sewing machine stood between the door and the window. The churn nestled at the side of the flour bin. Stools near the back door held the water bucket and the wash basin. In the floor near the stove, three or four loose boards could be raised from between joists to give access to the cellar below, which was a small excavation in the earth for potatoes and other vegetables in winter storage.

The kitchen walls had even more nails than the bedroom. One great convenience of the log house with board partitions, was the inexhaustible space for nails. Not only clothes, but pictures, almanacs, scissors, powder horns, match boxes, tools, and many more things, useful or otherwise, could be kept off the floor, and out of the children’s reach by hanging them on nails; and if the nails were all occupied, we had only to drive in more. The outside doors were made of dressed boards matched with tongue and groove and fastened to cross pieces, with a diagonal brace to prevent sagging. The partition between the rooms had no door, though in later years a curtain hung over a cord in the door space to afford privacy in the bedroom. Each window had nine small panes of glass, six in the upper sash and three in the lower.

During the winter time the kitchen floor was partly covered with homemade carpet, which extended across the room in one direction, and from the stove to the bedroom door in the other. The cellar boards, of course, had to be left uncovered, and the floor under the loom and the stove was bare. I remember how we enjoyed laying the carpet each fall. A good supply of clean straw was brought in from the straw stack, and spread over the floor space to be covered. The carpet was laid on the straw and tacked to the floor on two sides. then we pulled and tugged and tacked it down on the other two sides. The newly laid carpet, bulging like a cushion over the fresh straw, gave me a wonderful place to tumble and play, and I made the most of it. When spring came, the straw was flattened and lifeless; we were glad to take the carpet up and hang it over the clothesline where we could beat out the dust. The straw, now broken and dusty, was piled at a safe distance and burned. The floor was swept and scrubbed, and the house set in order for the summer.

The ends and back of the house were banked up with loose stones and soil to shut out the wind from under the floor. This embankment made a ledge about a foot wide, like a dugway on a hill side. At the front the embankment was not needed, because the first log touched the ground. A large flat stone served as a doorstep. A good layer of gravel placed next to the stone helped to keep mud out of the house in stormy weather. Our log house at one time really had three rooms. Before I was born, but after the original structure was built, a third room was added at the south end. It, too, was built of logs, but the logs were not split to give a smooth interior wall, and the workmanship with which they were put together was of a rather inferior quality. The addition served as a sort of anteroom for general storage in the winter, and afforded space for the loom and cook stove in the summer. Later, for some reason, this extra room was torn down and rebuilt at the back of the house as a lean-to, where it served the same purpose as before. Finally it was moved again to the area of sheds and outbuildings to be used as a chicken coop, thus leaving the two-room house as originally built.

I could climb any corner of the house and be on the roof in no time. The roof was not steep and I could run back and forth without danger. The eaves were low and I could drop from them anywhere, if I did not wish to go down the way I climbed up. To me as a child the outside of the house was wonderfully in harmony with the surroundings. The pine shingles and logs were weathered to a mellow gray or drab, which matched the brown soil, the dull green of the sage brush, the stones in the rock wall, and the dust which I kicked up in the wagon road nearby. Years of wind and storm had smoothed out every trace of ax and saw, and removed all vestiges of bark, leaving a kind of velvety surface, which seemed to me just as it should be.

It was a part of the very ground on which it stood; I could not imagine a time when it was not there. I knew of many log cabins up and down the road, but not one of them would compare with ours. Its proportions were just right; the door in the center with a window on each side faced the road as any well-ordered log house should do. From a distance I would often gaze upon it with great satisfaction. I wondered how anyone could live in a house with a door and only one window. Such a house was like a face with only one eye. It was true this house had only one window at the back, but that was good enough for the back of a house; no one with a true sense of fitness would content himself with only one front window.

Such was my home until I was nearly ten years old. At that time my Grandfather Jensen gave Mother a set of house logs. This was a great event in our family history. A young man was employed to help my father, and the two of them built the new house. I watched every step in the progress of the work, and was enthusiastic over the modern features of the new house as compared with the old one. The matched logs were sawed off at the comers flush with the walls, leaving no projecting ends for climbing up. The roof had real rafters, and was toe steep to run on. The logs were of even thickness, having been sawed on both sides, so that the 1-walls were even, both outside and inside. The spaces between the logs were filled in th 1 gong established way with wooden chinks and lime mortar. The new house had one room, 10 by 18 feet. The doors were standard size, paneled and finished at the machine shop. 

There were three windows, one at each side of the door in front, and one at the south, all much larger than those in the old house. The ceiling was of standard height, with "factory" tacked to the joists and white-washed. The space between the ground and the first tier of logs was closed with an embankment of rocks and soil. There was no cellar hole under the floor, as we could still use the cellar in the old house. After a few years, a cellar was excavated on the west side, walled up with rock and mortar, and above it was built an addition which provided two back rooms. By way of further improvement, the original log room was lined with lath and plaster and covered outside with rustic siding. The temporary embankment under the bottom logs was taken out and replaced with rock and mortar. Brick chimneys displaced the old stovepipes projecting through the roof, and a double coat of paint finished off our wonderful new house. Before all of these improvements were made, I was able to do much of the work myself. I was as proud of the new house as I had been of the old one. Ten years here with Mother and Joseph deepened my affection for the little farm. Here my interests widened, and I felt myself a part of the community.

When I left the old home as a young man, I had made some important changes. Beyond the rock wall I had built a barbed-wire fence, enlarging the enclosure above the water ditch. The rock wall itself I had moved and used in building a new corral at the north boundary of our place. Next to the corral I had erected a combined barn and hay shed. A substantial part of this structure was the old log house, which I had taken apart and moved, log by log, and then built up again, like putting together a set of puzzle blocks. At that time the actual handling of the logs was a youthful adventure; since then, the memory of them, as they nestled together to form my first home, has been a charming picture, receding with the passing years.

Mother’s little farm came to her as part of the property of her first husband, Sheldon B. Cutler, who died in 1870. His death left her with three boys, John, Parley, and Andrew, the oldest under eight years of age. Their farm consisted of about twenty acres, half of which was dry land on the mountainside and unusable. Just a few yards below the house was a water ditch carrying a small stream for irrigation. Below the water ditch she had about ten acres, two thirds of which was meadow and swamp land.

There was a small orchard of about two dozen trees. As I remember them, they were valuable more for the summer shade they furnished than the fruit they produced, although there were three or four good apple trees and perhaps as many that grew fair peaches. Mother dried most of her fruit and then sold what she did not wish to keep for her own use. Next to the orchard was a small piece of land used to raise garden vegetables. Then there were about three acres devoted to rotated crops of wheat, corn, potatoes and squash. The remainder was meadow and springs and swamps, with clumps of willow and brush. On part of the meadow we cut a few loads of wild hay each year. The remainder we used for pasture and staking. Above the ditch were the house, sheds, and corral, where the land without water would grow nothing but sage brush and a few dry land weeds. The farm was about twenty rods wide and extended about a quarter of a mile below the house. For five hours every eleventh day we had the use of irrigation water from the ditch.

Such was the home where Mother and her boys lived. Until the boys were able to take care of themselves, Mother had to supplement her farm production with earnings at her carpet loom and in the woolen factory, and such were Mother’s circumstances when my father and she were married in 1872. It was no doubt expected that life would be less difficult after that; but for various reasons there was not much improvement. At the same time that his family responsibilities were increasing, Father found it necessary S to give up his trade of wool manufacturing, in which he had been engaged since boyhood, and seek a livelihood in farming, in which he was not experienced. So, except for two or three short periods, Mother stayed on her farm as her safest security. Here I was bom in 1877, and my brother Joseph in 1882.

Early in life my Cutler brothers found it necessary to seek employment away from home. My memory does not extend back to the time when they were at home, except for short periods. But I can remember their coming to visit and help us, and how proud I was of my big brothers! John was the oldest of them, and his visits were the least frequent of all. I remember how calm and quiet and kind he was. I admired his dark hair and brows and his manly bearing. He was married when I was about five years old, and I think of him mostly in connection with his wife and their children. Soon after he was married he rented part of the Hunsaker farm near our home, and he and his wife lived in a little one-room log cabin on the rented land. One night a strong eastem wind blew the roof off his cabin, and he and his wife moved in with us while their cabin was being repaired.

Two or three years later Father took Mother and Joseph and me to visit John and his family in Peoa, and I recall what a pleasure it was. About 1886 he moved his family to Snake River in Idaho, which seemed to me so far away. There I visited him twice, once with Mother and Joseph and about two years later alone. I shall never forget his bringing me to Idaho Falls when my visit was over, and putting me on the night train for home. While he held my hand he told me to give his love to Mother and the rest of the family, and to come and see him again as soon as I could. To me he seemed the right kind of man to be Mother’s oldest son. I remember an affectionate letter he wrote me soon after that. Then one day the next spring, some one called me from my work in the garden. I went to the house and found Mother in tears. She told me John was dead. I was stunned for a moment, and then wept with her.

Parley was different from John, but just as wonderful and kind. He sang and whistled and kept things lively. As a child I was with him more than with either John or Andrew, after I was old enough to remember. Before he was married, Parley would come home in the fall and take me to the mountains for wood. Those were wonderful days for me.

At the time Parley was married, he and his wife were living in the  next house south of us. John was there also with a party of families on their way through to Snake River, and was stopping over for a short time. Parley had decided to stay where he was through the winter, and to go to Snake River the next spring. I had just started to school in Brigham and was living with my grandfather in town. On a Friday afternoon, soon after the canyon experience when I accidentally cut my wrist with an ax when I fell on the mountain side, I was on my way home for the weekend. I knew that John and his family had planned to leave early that week, but I expected to drop in for a pleasant call on Parley and his wife on my way home. When I reached the house I found that it was empty. In the yard I saw where they had emptied their straw bed-tick. An empty box or two gave further evidence of their departure. At the last moment they had decided to go on with John. I cried in my disappointment all the rest of the way home.

These are some of the experiences that attached me to Parley in my childhood. It is no wonder that I was happy beyond expression the next summer when he and his wife came back and visited us; no wonder that through the years that followed I was so glad to visit him and his family in their home.

After the passing of many years, we had our last canyon experience together, getting out logs and building them into a raft, and then guiding the raft down Snake River to a point convenient to his home. A few years ago I stood beside his bier. I was grateful then, as I am now, for our loving companionship, so marked with his goodness to me.

Although Andrew was the youngest of my older Cutler brothers, he left home about the same time, and did not return so often as Parley did. But his life fired my imagination. His experiences were mostly in striking contrast with mine. We had no horse on our place; where he was, every man and boy had a saddle pony. We lived on a farm of ten acres; he worked on ranches miles in extent. Our largest streams were mere brooks compared with the Snake River.

We had two or three cows to take care of; he worked for men whose cattle ranged the hills in unknown numbers. I usually walked where I wanted to go; he saddled a horse and rode like the wind. His cowboy and ranchhand stories glorified the Lower Snake River for me. I am sure he did not exaggerate what he told me, but my imagination probably colored it all beyond the reality. When he came home, it was always on horseback. He let me ride with him behind his saddle, or go alone if the horse was safe. He taught me the fine points about saddling and bridling a horse. I marveled at his lariat, his chaps, his horse-hair quirt and bridle. I surely wanted to be like him, although I think he did not encourage my ambition. His visits were all too short, and I was sorry to see him leave.

An early adventure with Andrew was one day during the summer my father was running the Jones farm, about a mile north of our home. I was five years old. Andrew went to the Jones house in a wagon and took me with him. We stopped near the south door, the team facing down-hill towards the road. I remember sitting in the springseat, picking and eating skunk-berries from a spray that had been broken from a bush with the fruit on it. Suddenly the team started. I jumped from the spring-seat and pulled on one line, which turned the horses towards home. In a moment they were on the road, running at full speed with the wagon.

I remember creeping into the bottom of the wagon bed towards the rear end. The wagon swung and bumped over rocks and ruts; and then suddenly I realized that I was lying on the ground beside the overturned wagon-bed, while the team dashed on with the running-gear. Andrew, who had missed catching the team when it started, came running behind. He picked me up and carried me back to the house. Blood was streaming out of my chin. I had received a deep cut just under the point of my chin, which they said reached into my mouth. I remember Aunt Julia dressed my wound, and comforted me with a lump of sugar.

Andrew told me he would send me a pony when I was big enough to ride and take care of it, and how I longed for that time to come. And even before I expected it, the pony came, saddle and bridle and all. I think there was nothing that could have pleased me so much. A year or so later, Andrew went to Willow Creek in the Snake River valley, where John and Parley were living. I visited my three Cutler brothers there, the only time I remember seeing the three of them together. One night Andrew took me to Idaho Falls, not riding behind his saddle, but with a horse and saddle for myself, which he had borrowed for me. I was glad to show him that I could ride.

Since then my associations with Andrew have been close and more frequent. He has extended many kindnesses to me, which I do not have space to mention here. In Idaho we have been side by side in haying, harvesting, plowing, ditching, land-clearing, and practically every operation of farm work. We have fished and hunted and camped together; we have met in family gatherings both joyous and sad. With the passing of Mother and her boys, I feel that Andrew and I are closer than ever. I hope we shall be spared to meet many times in the years to come.

But I must go back again to the little farm. It was on the morning of February l4, 1882. I had slept on the lounge in the kitchen, and was awake bright and early. Aunt Julia came up to the lounge and told me to come into the other room and see what my mother had in bed with her. I knew they sometimes put warm flat-irons in bed with me, and I could think of nothing else my mother might have. But when I reached Mother’s bed I saw the pink-skinned face of a baby. I was then a month past five years old, and I do not remember events in any sequence. But I know I was proud of my baby brother.

I remember uncertainties about what his name should be, and that he was finally called Joseph Asa. I am told that we were sufferers together with both whooping cough and measles while he was only a few weeks old. I remember the measles but not the whooping cough. I entertained him on the floor and rocked him to sleep in the cradle. I helped teach him to walk and proudly demonstrated his progress with much pride. He was somewhat slow in sounding his r’s, I thought; but suddenly he achieved mastery, thanks to his fondness for our dog, Ring whose name was the first word with an "r" sound that he learned to say correctly.

Mother often left Joseph in my care so that she could attend to her work. One day we were playing on a narrow foot bridge that crossed the ditch at a place where the water was rather deep and ran slowly. The water filled the ditch and almost reached the upper surface of the bridge. Suddenly Joseph went head first into the water on the upper side of the bridge. I tried to pull him back, but the current drew him under the bridge. I was terribly frightened, but all I could do was to wait for him to appear on the other side. In a moment he came out and I drew him up by the dress. That was his first dive.

I sometimes forgot there were five years between us, and tried to teach him things that were beyond his age. I undertook to impose my will upon him, but as he grew older I found that he had a will of his own. The result was that we were often in sharp disagreement. He resented my dictatorship, and I sometimes inflicted punishment. Mother sternly forbade this, and instructed me to inform her when Joseph did wrong, and let her decide on the matter of punishment. But even during this period of quarrels and clashes, we were loyal to each other, and our attachment grew stronger as the years passed.

One controversy of our later childhood was over a crippled dog which some one in town had given him. It was of that spindle-legged, diminutive sort. I was disgusted, and tried to persuade Joseph to give it away; I challenged him to find a single farm where such an animal would be tolerated. But he insisted on keeping the animal, even in spite of its having to go on three legs. Then one evening when I came home from somewhere, he met me with the calm announcement that the dog was gone. It was of no use to us, he said, and so he had disposed of it. His change of heart was so sudden that I suspect Mother had something to do with the affair.

I remember that politics came in to disturb us in the campaign of 1892. It was common for children to wear caps with the names of national candidates printed on the bands. I wanted to do something for my favorite candidates but I felt that I was too old to wear a campaign cap. I suggested to Joseph, therefore, that he buy a Grover Cleveland cap. He was enthusiastic with the thought, and went to town with Mother to buy one. When he returned he displayed the cap with pride; but to my consternation, it bore the names of Harrison and Reid. I demanded an explanation of his reason for not buying the other cap. He had some trivial reason, such as the appearance of the cap, or the way it fit him. I tried  desperately to argue him out of it, but he had no appreciation for my partisanship. He wore the cap through the campaign.

But as a rule we were in full accord. I was now the man at the plow or the cultivator and he rode the horse. He helped weed the garden and hoe the corn and do the chores. He followed pretty closely the pattern I had set in games and pastimes. He was especially gifted in recitations and dramatics, and I was happy rather than jealous when I found occasionally that he was rated in these things higher than I. He was devoted to his parents and his family and made a friend of everybody. I was proud of his achievements, and his promise of leadership; but I did not realize the place he held in my affections until he was stricken and taken away in early manhood.

My mother’s small farm was a tract which consisted of a little more than twenty acres, half of which was on the mountain side and not suitable for use. A wagon road went along the foot of the mountain and passed our house only a few steps away. Between the road and the house was a wall about four feet high, built of loose rocks. An entrance way was provided by a break in the wall, where a panel of poles or bars took the place of a gate. The bars were removed when we wished to drive through. They were held in place at each end by cross-pieces nailed to double posts. The wall extended the entire width of the farm and at each boundary line it joined onto a similar wall across the adjoining farm on either side of us, and so extended on indefinitely as far as the farms lay next to the mountains, except occasionally where a better-to-do owner could afford a pole or board fence.

Our farm equipment was very meager, consisting of less than a dozen hand tools, such as hoe, rake, shovel, scythe, pitch-fork, ax, and saw. For plow, harrow, cultivator, mower, and other horse-drawn implements and vehicles, we had to make special arrangements. When my father lived reasonably near, he would assist with the plowing, seeding, and harvesting. Mother’s older sons, the Cutler boys, did most of the farm work as long as they were at home. Their own work took them to distant places, but until they were married they would manage to return when they could help to advantage on the farm and in getting out fire-wood for the winter. When none of the family was available, we had to arrange with the neighbors for necessary team work. From my earliest recollection until I was about nine years old, we had no horse on the place, except when an older brother or my father happened to be with us.

The limitations of this place made it necessary for the older boys to leave home in my early childhood. On this little farm, however, stocked with two or three cows, a few chickens, and a pig or two, Mother undertook to make a living for herself and Joseph and me. Except a few eggs, an occasional pound of butter, and a little dried fruit in the fall, we produced nothing that was not consumed on the place; for money to buy clothing and other necessities not grown on the farm, Mother depended upon her work at the carpet-loom. With her farm, her loom, and her house work, Mother had her hands more than full; and it is not difficult to imagine the kinds of work I leamed to do as soon as I was old enough.

Beginning with the simple chores of gathering chips at the wood-pile, feeding the chickens, and carrying water, I soon found myself peeling apples or cutting peaches for drying, running errands, and riding the horse when some one came to cultivate our corn or potatoes. And so it went on through progressing steps of hoeing, weeding, milking, stock-feeding, fence-building and other things too numerous to mention, until I found myself undertaking whatever work there was to do, and even accepting work for the neighbors as opportunity to earn a little money.

Within the house I learned to do a number of things which I probably should not have learned if there had been daughters in the home. While Mother was busy at her loom, I helped her with the sweeping and dish washing, and even made some headway with cooking. I wanted to help her with the weaving, but she did not give much encouragement beyond sewing carpet rags and winding shuttles. A little later I was permitted to spool the warp from the skeins. But my interest persisted, and she reluctantly trusted me with more technical parts of the work.

At last, after I had learned to name every part of the loom and knew the carpet weaving process from beginning to end, she thought it best to let me work under her supervision. She cautioned me about all the fine points necessary to be watched in good carpet weaving. I followed her directions closely, and my work passed her most critical inspection. After that she was glad to have my help. Perhaps my weaving was not entirely up to hers in quality, but I heard no complaints. One thing I proved was that I could work faster than she. She used both hands in the stroke of the lathe, while I learned to strike with one hand. In this way I gained time.

A while later Mother made good use of my craftsmanship. In stepping down from her light wagon one day, she fell and broke her arm. I finished a piece of carpet that was already in the loom. Mother had also accepted an order for another carpet, which I carried through the whole process of warping, drawing, drawing in, and weaving. Besides weaving, I did most of our housework while her arm was in the sling.

Another kind of work in which I had considerable experience as a child was helping my brothers get fire wood from the canyons, usually with Parley. With team hitched to the running gear of a wagon, we would drive as near as possible to the supply of wood. On the running gear we had ax, chains, sack of food for ourselves, and a bundle of hay for the team. If we were to stay overnight we had also a roll of bedding. After we had driven the wagon as far as it would go, the horses were unhitched, Parley would put me on one horse, with chain and single-tree hung on the hames, and start me up the drag-road. He followed, riding or leading the other horse with another chain and single-tree and an ax besides. We single-filed up the drag-road until we came to where we wanted to turn into the timber for our wood. 

Here we had to work our way up the canyon side, often through underbrush and other obstacles, to where the trees stood. Parley felled and trimmed the trees, which were pulled one or two at a time down the steep incline to the drag-road, then down the drag-road to the loading place. I rode or led one horse while Parley the other. He had the additional responsibility of releasing the drag when it was stopped by some protruding stump or rock. At the loading place the wood was put onto the wagon, the logs being cut in two if necessary. If we were on a two-day trip, we would then prepare for the night. We had to find water for the horses and then feed them their hay. Sometimes there were a number of outfits together. In the fall of the year the mountain air was rather cold after sundown and after the strenuous work of getting our drags down to the loading place it was wonderful to gather round a big camp fire with our grub boxes or sacks and eat and rest and visit as the night came on.

Then we made our bed on the ground and slept under the stars. I made one trip of this kind when both John and Parley were in the group. As we came into the loading place with our wood, my brothers had the horses with the drags and I followed behind with one of the axes. Just before reaching the loading place I slipped and fell, but I picked up the ax and went on down to the wagon. One of my brothers asked for the ax, which I had leaned against a wagon wheel. When I went to get it I saw that the handle was covered with blood. Then I noticed a bad cut on my wrist made with the ax when I had fallen down a few moments before. I had not felt the pain, but I began to feel it now when I saw the blood flowing. They put tobacco on the cut and bound my wrist tight with a handkerchief. Then we went on with our loading and camp work. The scar on my left wrist has kept the incident vividly in my mind for more than fifty years.

At another time Parley and I were in a canyon nearer home. We took the wagon far up the canyon, and Parley decided he could get a load nearby up a steep incline. We took one horse up the canyon side, leaving the other tied to the wagon. When the drag was ready, we hitched the horse to it and started down. The drag caught on something and the horse fell. At that point the incline was so steep that the horse was almost suspended by the tugs. It was impossible for him to get up. Parley decided to unhitch the tugs and let the horse slide to where he could get his footing. But when the horse was loosened, he started to roll, and then went end-over-end to the bottom of the canyon. We hastened down,  expecting to find our horse either dead or hopelessly crippled with shattered bones; but when we reached the wagon, he was on his feet, calmly nibbling at the green grass at the side of the small canyon stream.

When I compare my early life with that of my own children, I realize how limited my associations were with others of my age. This is due partly to the fact that our nearest neighbors lived half a mile away, and even at that distance there was only one boy of my age, and partly to the fact that Mother and Joseph and I lived alone most of the time, with not even a riding pony until I was eight or nine years old. Perhaps I should mention too the rigid economy of our home, giving me few toys except those my older brothers made for me, or those I made myself when I was old enough. Thus in a twisted string tied round a half blueing box, a resilient wooden tongue was set in such a way as to make a sharp rat-tat when played upon with the fingers. Spinning tops were made from empty thread spools.

After we had eaten a wild duck, we made what we called deer by fitting the wish-bone into the breastbone for horns. If we wanted to make our deer jump we would make a spring by twisting a small bone or piece of wood in a string tied across the bottom of the skeleton. Miniature railroad cars were made from inverted match boxes mounted on empty spools. I became expert in making these and many other playthings. I learned to make my spools run more smoothly by placing them on wire instead of wooden shafts. I learned to mount spools on top of my toy cars, and to transmit motion to them by passing a string or belt from them to the base spools. I generally had a windmill or two humming on vanes set at the peak of the roof or on a high post. I made whistles and flutes from green willows in the spring time. My older brothers were home often enough to see that I always had a hand sleigh, heavy and somewhat crude, but none the less essential. It was a thrill for one of them to take me for a ride in the winter, pulling me with a long rope as he rode a horse ahead of me; or better still, as he skated over the wide frozen lake near our home.

My father had a good supply of folk rhymes. These were supplemented by our picture book jingles and with numerous sing-song ballads that came into our family from somewhere, whenever we were in the mood to recite or tell stories. This pastime was common in the winter evenings when I was with Aunt J ulia’s children, or with cousins Wilfred and Nettie Wilde. We entertained one another with the innocent "Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, where have you been?" and "When I was a little man and lived by myself", as well as with the tragic, "Have you come to see me hanged upon this golden apple tree?" and "My mother killed me, my father ate me, my sister took my bones and buried them under the marble stones." Later, of course, we learned pieces more suitable for general use. My interest in these home recitals led me later into school and neighborhood readings and dramatics.

There was no water near our home deep enough for swimming, and I did not learn to swim until after I was grown. This was not because opportunity was entirely lacking. I sometimes went into the water with Wilford and other boys in Brigham when we could slip into a mill race somewhere without being observed. Also, while Aunt Julia’s family lived at the warm springs north of Honeyville, Charlie and I went into the water frequently in the summer time. The same circumstances which limited my opportunity for swimming kept me from doing very much fishing. There were some trout in Box Elder creek above Brigham City, but I do not remember that I ever fished there.

Occasionally I went to Bear River, a few miles west of us, and fished for chubs. I caught my first fish in Bear River, and it was a thrilling experience. The water was too muddy for us to see how deep it was at any point and so I had a floater on my line to keep my hook from sinking to the bottom. My brother Parley told me to watch the floater and when I saw it bob under the water to pull up my line. For a few minutes I watched the cork on the surface of the quiet, sluggish stream. Then I saw it dance, and I gripped my pole with both hands, feeling my heart beat in wild excitement. A moment later the cork dived out of sight and I swung my pole up quickly and landed my six-inch chub as far back of me as my pole and line would reach. The fun of catching the chubs took me back to the river once in a while; but when it came to the eating, none of us cared much for them. Most of my fishing experience, therefore, was years later in Idaho streams.

In my childhood I was sometimes told of places where no mountains could be seen. How such places could be was beyond my comprehension. One day a young man, passing through as a tramp, told me he had never seen a mountain or even climbed a hill, until after he was eighteen years old. It was difficult for me to imagine such a place. I could not see how the sun could rise and set without mountains.