Herbert Hoover: The Man and His Work

by Vernon L. Kellogg

which was fitted out with a boy-made harness and trained to work, eventually getting out of hand in a corn field and dragging the single-shovel cultivator wildly across and along rows of tender growing grain. Later the calf was restored to favor when it was triumphantly attached to a boy-made sorghum mill, which actually worked, and pressed out the sweet juice from the sorghum cane.

Winter had its special joys of skates and sled; spring came with maple-sugaring, and summer with its long days filled with a thousand enterprises. There were fish in the creek which you might catch if you could sit still long enough, without too violent wiggling of the hook when the float gave its first faint indications of a bite. It was two miles to school, and most of the time the children had to walk. But that was only good for them, and there was, of course, a good deal of churchgoing and daily family prayers, but there were always convenient laps for tired little heads—being in church was the necessary thing, not being awake in church.

It was a joyous and wholesome two years,

the kind that thousands of Mississippi Valley farms have given to hundreds of thousands of American little boys; the kind that gives them a good start in health and happiness towards a sturdy and simple adolescent life. But the time had come for young Herbert to learn new surroundings. For some reason, apparently not clearly remembered now, it was decided by the consulting uncles and aunts that young Herbert should go to Oregon, and join the Hoover and Minthorn relatives there. Perhaps, even probably, it was because of the presumably superior educational advantages of Oregon in the existence of the Newberg Pacific Academy that led to the decision. We may imagine that Herbert uttered no affirmative vote in the conclave that decided on his departure from the Iowa farm, and when he once got out to the superior place, he was less than ever in favor of the proceeding. But the conscientious uncles and aunts were inexorable as the Fates.

They meant to be the kindest of Fates, of course. They knew that they knew so much better than the little boy what was best for

him. And probably they did. But this little pawn on the chessboard of life, moved about with ever so excellent intention by firm and confident hands, must have thought sometimes that he would have liked to have some little part in deciding these moves. But if one starts as pawn, one must find the way as pawn clear across the board to the king row before one can come to the higher estate of the nobler pieces.

The actual going from Iowa to far-away Oregon was not so unbearable, because of the excitement of the tremendous journey and the actual fun of it. It was not made, to be sure, as Herbert would have preferred it, in a long train of picturesque prairie schooners, drawn up in a circle each night to repel attacking Indians, as his storybooks described all transcontinental journeys; but in an overfull tourist-car on the railroad. Herbert's most vivid memories of the week's journey are of the wonderful lunch baskets and boxes filled with fried chicken, boiled hams, roast meats, countless pies and layer-cakes, caraway-seed cookies, and great red apples. Herbert Hoover had no food troubles in those days!

Arrived in Oregon he found himself in the family of Uncle John Minthorn, his mother's brother, a country doctor of Newberg, and the principal of the superior educational institution. Uncle John did not live on a farm, but on the edge of a small town, which was a mistake, according to Herbert's way of looking at it. And the Pacific Academy of Newberg, Oregon, could not be compared in interest with the district village school of West Branch, Iowa.

After two or three years of life with Dr. John, young Herbert was handed over to the care of a Grandfather Miles, for Dr. John decided to give up country doctoring in order to go into the land business "down in Salem," the capital city. Therefore, as little Herbert's schooling in the academy which he was attending all the time he was living with Dr. John, could not be interrupted, he was placed in the home of this Grandfather Miles on a farm just on the edge of the academy town.