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137 19 Junior Year The political situation of the country had been steadily growing more and more cloudy, year after year.1 There were increasing evidences that both of the old parties, Whig and Democratic, were disintegrating, but it did not yet appear what was to take the place of them. In the year 1856, however, the discontented elements had gone far enough to organize what was known as the People’s Party and of course I belonged to it. So did my father, and I went home at election day to cast my first vote for Frémont and Dayton.2 I was challenged at the polls and compelled to swear my vote in by an Irish Pro-Slavery “Old Hunker” Democrat who proved to have been in this country only about six weeks.3 From that time onward I paid more attention than ever to political affairs and was really beginning to know something about them—but not a great deal, for the situation was a puzzle to older heads than mine. I went back to Rochester with an assurance that now my finances would be regularly cared for, but only to find myself plunging deeper and deeper into difficulties which harassed me dreadfully. Something worse than that was in store, however, for when I went home for the Winter holidays I found my beloved sister Julia apparently recovered from a severe attack of typhoid fever but really drifting into the pitiless grip of bronchial consumption. She lingered until February and I came home to be with her at the last. She died in my arms, with her head upon my shoulder, for I hardly had left her for a minute, day or night, and she appeared to depend on me more than upon anybody else. She was at rest, and poor Kate was left alone with 138 junior year many troubles before her. I returned to my studies almost broken-hearted and it was some time before I recovered from the blow. There were changes among my associates at the university. Mant Marble had gone to New York, into journalism. My friend Norman Fox, of the same class, had gone into the Theological Seminary. Will Harris had gone to West Point on his way to future distinguished army service. How those picked boys did turn out! During most of all this time, I was doing more or less in the Rochester Gymnasium, presided over by a short, cast-iron genius by the name of Shadders from whom I did not learn a great deal, but then I was keeping up my muscles and activities pretty well and preparing for the hard service which was before me. On the whole, I was keeping up my reputation and my place in my class and winning the good opinion of the faculty, as their after action was to show. The Quails of Quail’s Nest were all the while a noted feature in the university life and I was more and more widely known as “The Quail,” perhaps somewhat to my detriment in the eyes of the best of good people. Well, the end of the year came, at last, and I went home burdened with debt, discouraged and determined not to go back into that kind of torment again. I had nominally borrowed two hundred dollars from my stepmother, but it turned out to be from the “Bolles estate” and while I gave my note for the whole and afterwards paid it, with interest, I only received actually one-hundred-and-sixty for my college debts, so pressing were the requirements of home affairs. I do not think my father was then any longer the good businessman that he had been, and his wife was anything but a good businesswoman. I looked over his affairs and decided that although his income was good and business flourishing, it was time for me to get out from under. That meant that I could not consent to stay in Syracuse, as he would have preferred . Indeed, he strongly urged me to go back to college, but a condition precedent to that had to be the liquidation of my debts. As that was not to be, I would go west to seek my fortune as best I might. Slowly and painfully the junior year dragged on to its close and I was at home in a state of mind that was anything but comfortable. I had been proud of my class standing...

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