It was the simple act of an entire
stranger that changed the course of my whole life.
When I was a boy, my father moved to the Far West--Ohio. It was before
the days of steam, and no great mills thundered on her river banks, but
occasionally there was a little gristmill by the side of some small
stream.
To these little mills, the surrounding neighborhood flocked with their
sacks of corn. Sometimes we had to wait two or three days for our turn.
I was generally the one sent from our house, for, while I was too small
to be of much account on the farm, I was as good as a man to carry a
grist to mill. So I was not at all surprised one morning when my father
said, "Henry, you must take the horse and go to mill to-day."
But I found so many of the neighboring farmers there ahead of me, that I
knew there was no hope of getting home that day; but I was not at all
sorry, for my basket was well filled with provisions, and Mr. Saunders
always opened his big barn for us to sleep in.
That day there was an addition to the number who had been in the habit
of gathering, from time to time, in the old Saunders barn,--a young
fellow about my own age. His name was Charley Allen, and his father had
bought a farm over on the Brush Creek road. He was sociable and
friendly, but somehow I felt that he had "more manners" than the rest of
us.
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