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ing and fishing, however, since then, and my boys have both been fond of sports afield.

In the fall of 1858 we sold that place near the landing and bought a place near Niles, then called Vallejo's Mill. It is on the creek half a mile below the bridge and now known as the Clough place. Clough's house stands just where ours did. At that time the place was interspersed with many large sycamores. That was the year of the great comet. The life there was much the same as on the other place, except that a butcher named Donovan jumped our cattle range. Thus being without range the cattle no longer figured.

I went to school a good deal to a schoolhouse about midway between Niles and Centerville, toward Niles from the old Blacow place, on the Centerville-San Jose road. I was taught there by F. P. Dann, Judge Nye, and others. It seems queer; I do not feel old at all and am persuaded by my friends I do not look so; I ride, drive, motor, fish, work and generally enjoy outdoor activities, but of my schoolmates there (about sixty) I think but few are still alive. They must have been unlucky or ailing. Some of course I have lost track of who may be living-probably are-but of those I knew intimately, I only recall two or three girls, and of the boys, J. M. Alviso, Charley Overacker, Billie Blacow and two Threlfalls. Some of these I never see and the others rarely, but they are alive. The teachers are dead.

Two summers I with my own horse bucked straw for threshers. One or two seasons we had a machine and I worked with it, threshing for neighbors. The

season was about sixty days. About 1860 there was a celebration by all the schools, held in Castro Valley. I was fortunate to get the prize for our school in declamation, but as I think of it now there should have been no prize at all, none of us having any training in selection of matter or in elocution. It was all luck.

CHAPTER V

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IN THE fall of 1860 I went to Sacramento. I there lived with my double cousin, Emily Cabanis, and went to the Sacramento High School. In the sum

mer of 1861 I was home again and wanted to go to the war. I trained diligently under a Mr. Eigenbrodt, who lived at Alvarado, and was gathering men for what was called the California Hundred. My parents stopped that and I suppose it was lucky for me, young and very green as I was. A neighbor boy, Fillebrown, did join. Eigenbrodt and Fillebrown were both killed.

That summer we threshed with our machine for farmers. That winter, 1861-2, was very wet. The Alameda at Niles was unfordable for two weeks. I remember swimming it on a mare named Dolly. My father once rode her in a race against me. We ran (I afoot) fifty yards to turn a stake and return. Pa was nearly as big as Dolly, so I thought to beat, but he won easily.

In the spring of 1862 I went to the old Methodist College at Santa Clara, called University of the Pacific. It is in existence yet. I remained there a year, returning home about July, 1863. In that fall I went to the county seat, San Leandro, and began to study law under Judge Noble Hamilton, then county judge.

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1. In Japan (October, 1911); 2. In Egypt (January, 1913)

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