and like the coward it is went into hiding and stayed hidden until long after the war was over. Then at the most critical time in this country’s history came the greenback, the paper dollar that saved us from humiliation and defeat; the dollar that was always worth one hundred cents, the dollar that paid all debts, public and private, and always was at par with the gold dollar until our vicious money power succeeded in putting the exception clause on it in order to create a strong demand for their hoarded gold and silver. This is the only dollar, before which I take off my hat, the dollar that never had to have a redeemer back of it! The coming of the greenback brought back prosperity to all the working people. Every man, woman or child that wanted to work had steady employment at good wages, and everybody felt happy.
During the war my father tried to enlist in the army, but was rejected on account of valgus in both feet. Later on he was drafted into service but again rejected. At that period we were living in the city of Milwaukee, where I attended the ninth ward public school from my sixth to my twelfth year. Then, against the advice of my teacher, for I was an apt and obedient pupil, my father took me out of school and set me to work in the large boot and shoe factory of Bradley & Metcalf, where I started in at a wage of $3.50 a week and worked there steadily for three years. At the end of that time I was getting $1.25 per day. But the confinement at my work in the shop told on my health and I yearned for outdoor work and exercise, so my parents allowed me to apprentice myself to a house carpenter to learn that trade. Just about that time my father got a chance to sell his house and lot and invested the money in a small truck farm of eighteen acres four miles north of the city, for he too was getting very tired of working in the factory. Although I had a great liking for my trade I soon learned that the work was not at all steady and some seasons there were long periods of idleness; therefore I began taking up with any kind of outdoor work during those dull spells in the building trade, for I had regained my former health and strength.
When I reached my twenty-first year my parents allowed me to keep my savings; up to that time they had gone into the family savings bank. It was then that I conceived the idea of saving up eight hundred or a thousand dollars to start farming for myself. Having always been in a great measure self-reliant, I sailed in and worked and saved, which after all was not difficult, for my health and appetite during outdoor work have always been rugged, and I had never acquired any bad habits. After a while it struck me that by watching for chances to get free transportation on railways I would be enabled to reach other states and sections of the country, which would help me to find a choice location for my farm, as land was altogether too high priced near Milwaukee. Accordingly I hunted up jobs of railway construction and bridge building, whereby I was enabled to view and study the lay of the land and the character of the soil, besides other features pertaining to farming, in the states of Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota. Thus time passed and things moved along in proper order, until I bumped up against it on a railroad construction job in the extreme southeast corner of Missouri, at New Madrid, in the winter of 1876. I, with a bunch of others, had been sent there by an employment agency in Chicago under promise of good wages and an all winter's job. We arrived there the last day in November, and found the contractor, E. P. Sweeney, a little humpbacked Irishman who looked more like a pack peddler than a railroad
