Page 36 - MFM Aug Sept 2019

He had several favorites among them, who were often to think less of play and more of books. I promised him and
the recipients of kindnesses at his hands. I can call to my resolved in my own mind that I would do better in the future,
remembrance one young friend-John Houston-whom he took but my good resolutions soon took fl ight, and my fondness for
to his offi ce and clothed; giving him the benefi t of his law play, after a while, got the better of me again.
library. In the course of time, Mr. Houston was admitted to
the bar and was an honor to his profession. He was for many Still, I think at this time that I acquired a knowledge of my
years a prominent lawyer in Millersburg, Holmes County, studies quite rapidly, and had I continued at school, in a short
Ohio. time would have mastered all the common school branches
of education, but our removal to Missouri brought my school
Early in the spring of the year 1840, under the auspices of days nearly to an end.
my father, money was subscribed and musical instruments
purchased for Whig Band in Mt. Eaton. To myself was assigned
an instrument called the French Horn, but I don’t believe
Apollo himself could have produced from it a melodious
sound. I never could tell the benefi t it conferred upon a band
of music unless to show the diff erence between inharmonious
sounds and those which strike the tympanum of the ear with
pleasure and delight. In time I learned to play very basely
upon a bass instrument called the ophicleide and could beat
time on the bass drum, but I soon ascertained that music was
not my forte, and leaving it to the more favored of the Muses,
resigned all pretensions to musical celebrity.

The time intervening between my eleventh and fi fteenth
birthdays was not well employed by me. I attended school but
did not apply myself as closely to my books as I should have
done, and was more given to play than profi table study. At
that period, too, I had my little troubles and annoyances - the
common inheritances of all mortals - and they were then as
harassing to my mind as were those of more magnitude in the
afterlife.
This story will be continued in the next issue of the
Montana Freemason Magazine.
I can vividly recall one instance - that of breaking the leg
of a schoolmate. The schoolhouse was octagonal in form,
and during the hour of noon one day, in running around the
house, I accidentally collided with a boy about one year my
junior, knocked him down and falling with him - my knee
upon his leg - caused a simple fracture of that limb.

His father was a poor German tinner, a man of good ideas
in his sober days, but dissipation had ruined his fortune as
well as his mind. The accident-related above occurred to
Conrad Bowman, the youngest of three sons. He was one of
my particular schoolboy friends, and I felt the most poignant
grief for his suff erings. He was carried home, and my father
employed the most skillful physician in the place to set his leg
and give him all necessary attention.
On the evening of this occurrence, I did not go home till
late and fi rst sought out my mother in the family room. She
told accident-related to go to my father and give him a correct
account of the whole aff air. I did as she told me, for I had
magnifi ed the accident into something awful.

I shall never forget the kindness with which my father
received me. At his request, I related all the circumstances
attending the occurrence. He spoke kindly to me and took
occasion to remind me of my duty to myself, of the anxiety he
felt for my future welfare, and of the great desire he had that
I should improve in my studies at school, and admonished me
Montana Freemason Page 36 Aug/Sept 2019 Volume 95 No .6