Again it returned and this
time was taken clear to the river.
Once a much loved aunt came to visit at his home bringing the
little sister a beautiful, new doll. That night she trotted off to
bed hugging the new treasure close. The boy did not love dolls;
but when he saw the old, rag baby left lonely and forsaken be
quietly picked it up and carried it to bed with him.
Years afterwards, when on a canoe trip on the Moose River, a
disconsolate looking little Indian dog came and sat shyly watching
us while we broke camp. We learned that the Indian owners had gone
to the bush leaving him to fare as he might through the coming
winter. When our canoe pushed out into the river there was an
extra passenger. We brought him home to Congers, where he
immediately carried consternation into the neighbouring chicken
yards, convinced that he had found the finest partridge country on
earth.
When sixteen the boy went to attend the Angola (Indiana) Normal
School. Here his decision for Christ was made. He was baptized
and united with the Church of Christ. Three years later his
teaching took him to Northern Michigan where be found a wider range
than he had yet known, and in the great pine forests of that
country he did his first real exploring. Here were clear, cold
streams with their trout and grayling, and here, when his work
admitted, he hunted and fished and dreamed out his plans, his
thoughts turning ever more insistently to the big, outside world
where his heroes did their work.
He entered the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1893. High
strung and sensitive, with a driving energy and ambition to have
part in the larger work of the world, be suffered during the early
part of his course all the agonies that come to those of such a
nature while they grope in the dark for that which they are fitted
to do. He reached out in many directions in his effort to provide
the needful money to enable him to take his course, but without a
sense of special fitness in any. It came however with his earliest
attempts in journalistic work. The discovery with its measure of
self-recognition brought a thrill that compensated for all the dark
hours. He now felt assured of success.
His life in the University was one of varied and unceasing
activity. In his studies history, literature, psychology claimed
his special interest. He was an enthusiast in athletics, and found
his field in running and boxing. The contest was as the wine of
life to him. He was active in the literary and debating societies,
and prominent in the Student's Christian Association, attending and
taking part in the work of the local branch of the Church of
Christ. His first newspaper work was done as an amateur on the
college press. Then came assignments from the local dailies and
correspondence for the Detroit papers.
