James J. Hill - Page 2

road, between his father's farm and the village. For this labor his father promised him a two-year-old colt. The boy built the road all right. It took him six months, but the grades were easy and the curves so-so. The Tom Sawyer plan came in handy, otherwise it is probable there would have been a default on the time-limit. And Jim got the colt. He rode the animal for half a year, back and forth all Winter from the farm to the village, where he attended the famous Rockwood Academy. Then some one to whom the elder Hill was indebted, signified a desire for the colt, and the father turned the horse over to the creditor. When little Jim went out and found that the stall was empty he had a good cry, all by himself.

Three years after this, when his father died, he cried again, and that was the last time he ever wept over any of his own troubles.

* * * * * * *

From his seventh to his fourteenth year young Jim Hill attended the Rockford Academy. This "Academy" had about thirty boarding boys and a dozen day-scholars. Jim Hill was a "day-scholar," and the pride of the master. The boy was studious, appreciative, grateful. He wasn't so awfully clever, but he was true.

The master of the Academy was Professor William Wetherald, stern to view, but very gentle of heart. His wife was of the family of Balls. The Ball family moved from Virginia two generations before, to Western New York, and then when the Revolutionary War was on, slid over to Ontario for political reasons best known to themselves.

There was quite an emigration to Canada about then, including those worthy Mohawk Indians whose descendants, including Longboat the runner and the Princess Viroqua, are now to be found in the neighborhood of Brantford.

And certainly the Indians were wise, for Canada has treated the red brother with a degree of fairness quite unknown on this side of the line. As for the Tories--but what's the need of arguing!

The Balls trace to the same family that produced Mary Ball, and Mary Ball was the mother of George Washington--so tangled is this web of pedigree! And George Washington, be it known, got his genius from his mother, not from the tribe of Washington.

William Wetherald died at an advanced age--near ninety, I believe--only a short time ago. It is customary for a teacher to prophesy--after the pupil has arrived--and declare, "What did I tell you!" Wetherald looked after young Hill at school with almost a father's affection, and prophesied for him great things--only the "great things" were to be in the realms of science, oratory and literature.

Along about Eighteen Hundred Eighty-eight, when James J. Hill was getting his feet well planted on the earth, he sent for his old teacher to come to Saint Paul. Wetherald spent several weeks there, riding over the Hill roads in a private car, and discussing old times with the owner of the car