I mention all this in detail that those who are so dissatisfied with the beautiful and efficient methods of railroad transportation in these days may realize what they would be up against if the Rockefellers, Carnegies and other benefactors like them had not made these great improvements possible.
At Canajoharie we took the stage to Charlotteville, thirty miles distant, where we arrived in a snowstorm.
My father had entrusted to me a large amount of Indiana money to deposit with the treasurer of the academy. On presenting it to Mr. Archer, he exclaimed: "Why, what does your father mean by sending us this 'wild cat money!' You could not buy a breakfast anywhere in New York with it! However, since you have come so far, I will send it to New York and see what can be done." He finally exchanged it and put it to my father's credit.
Charlotteville Academy
At the academy were eight hundred students, male and female, occupying separate buildings, the chapel and dining room being between the boys' and girls' buildings, and the only place where they met. In the town, the girls were allowed to walk only on certain streets and the boys on others.
My father equipped me with what he considered suitable clothing for my new environment, but what was fashionable in the West was a matter of ridicule in New York, particularly my hat, a tall, square-crowned beaver. I wore a large moustache, had black hair and rather dark complexion, and I was a curiosity to the students, my dialect and vocabulary being different from the Yankee pupils. I was soon nicknamed the "Russian Ambassador from the Woolly West," and my good nature was somewhat tried by the ridicule. However, I made the best of it, had plenty of company always, and my room was visited perhaps as much as that of any other student.
I had made myself a small box with a lock, in which I kept some personal things, among them some correspondence with a girl cousin of mine in Ohio, whose letters were very sentimental.
One evening, I found the son of the professor of mathematics, Ferguson, about my own age and size, sitting in my room. He began to quote some of the silly expressions of this young lady. I asked him if he had read my letters. When he said he had, I invited him into the hall and blackened both his eyes. He called for help, but the watchman came very slowly! Ferguson was unpopular with the employees and the watchman told me afterward he wished he had let me alone a little longer. The boy reported the incident to his father and the elder Ferguson, the second officer of the academy, sent for me in the absence of President Alonso Flack. He threatened to dismiss me because I should have reported to him, but said instead he would report the case to the president when he returned. I replied, to use a present day expression, that it was a non-justiciable case.