"Before his mother could reach him he had flown to the telephone, and summoned the family doctor. Thinking from the agonized tones of the boy that some of the family had been taken suddenly and violently ill, the doctor hastened to the house.

"He was a stately old gentleman, who believed fully in the dignity of his profession; and he was somewhat disconcerted and a good deal annoyed at being confronted with a very dusty, excited boy, holding a broken-legged dog that was evidently of the mongrel family. At first he was about to be angry; but the earnest, pleading look on the little face, and the perfect innocence of any intent of discourtesy, disarmed the dignified doctor, and he explained to Leland that he did not understand the case, not being accustomed to treating dogs, but that he would take him and the dog to one who was. So they went, doctor, boy, and dog, in the doctor's carriage to a veterinary surgeon, the leg was set, and they returned home. Leland took the most faithful care of the dog until it recovered, and it repaid him with a devotion that was touching."

Leland, knowing that he was to be the heir of many millions, was already thinking how some of the money should be used. He had begun to gather materials for a museum, to which the parents devoted two rooms in their San Francisco home. He was fitting himself for Yale College, was excellent in French and German, and greatly interested in art and archæology. Before entering upon the long course of study at college, he travelled with his parents abroad. In Athens, in London, on the Bosphorus, everywhere, with an open hand, his parents allowed him to gather treasures for his museum, and for a larger institution which he had in mind to establish sometime.

While staying for a while in Rome, symptoms of fever developed in young Leland, and he was taken at once to Florence. The best medical skill was of no avail; and he soon died, March 13, 1884, two months before his sixteenth birthday. His parents telegraphed this sad message home, "Our darling boy went to heaven this morning."

The story is told that while watching by the bedside of his son, worn with care and anxiety, Governor Stanford fell asleep, and dreamed that his son said to him, "Father, don't say you have nothing to live for; you have a great deal to live for. Live for humanity, father," and that this dream proved a comforter.

The almost prostrated parents brought home their beloved boy to bury him at Palo Alto. On Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, Nov. 27, 1884, the doors of the tomb which had been prepared near the house were opened at noon, and Leland Stanford, Jr., was laid away for all time from the sight of those who loved him. The bearers were sixteen of the oldest employees on the Palo Alto farm. The sarcophagus in which Leland, Jr., sleeps is eight feet four inches long, four feet wide, and three feet six inches high, built of pressed bricks, with slabs of white Carrara marble one inch thick firmly fastened to the bricks with cement. In the front slab of this sarcophagus are cut these words:—

Born in Mortality
May 14, 1868,
LELAND STANFORD, JR.
Passed to Immortality
March 13, 1884.

Electric wires were placed in the walls of the tomb, in the doors of iron, and even in the foundations, so that no sacrilegious hand should disturb the repose of the sleeper without detection. Memorial services for young Leland were held in Grace Church, San Francisco, on the morning of Sunday, Nov. 30, 1884, the Rev. Dr. J. P. Newman of New York preaching an eloquent sermon. The floral decorations were exquisite; one bower fifteen feet high with four floral posts supporting floral arches, a cross six feet high of white camellias, lilies, and tuberoses, relieved by scarlet and crimson buds, and pillows and wreaths of great beauty.

"Nature had highly favored him for some noble purpose," said Dr. Newman. "Although so young, he was tall and graceful as some Apollo Belvidere, with classic features some master would have chosen to chisel in marble or cast in bronze; with eyes soft and gentle as an angel's, yet dreamy as the vision of a seer; with broad, white forehead, home of a radiant soul.... He was more than a son to his parents,—he was their companion. He was as an angel in his mother's sick room, wherein he would sit for hours and talk of all he had seen, and would cheer her hope of returning health by the assurance that he had prayed on his knees for her recovery on each of the twenty-four steps of the Scala Santa in Rome, and that when he was but eleven years old....