Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 1

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[36] years younger than I, but very mature for her age. As two or three of us were chatting together that evening, I related some of my mischievous performances, probably exaggerating them, when with her large, dark eyes she looked into mine and said, “Mr. Howard, do you think that was right?”

I may here say that this little contretemps eventuated in a lifelong relationship. The acquaintance ripened into a correspondence which absorbed my heart and much of my leisure during the college course. After this my purpose to do well, to accomplish what I undertook, and to make a success of life never faltered.

The next winter I was able to get a school in the district where I was born. Here I began to teach for $14 a month. The following winter I had a large district school in East Livermore and received for my hard work $18 per month, and part of the time I had the very pleasant experience of “boarding round.” Of course, the master, during his week with a family, always had the very best. After a month, however, I was relieved from the wear and tear of it by an aged widow who found me so useful and companionable that she requested the privilege of boarding the master at her house.

In the fall of 1849 I stayed out of college and conducted a high school at Wayne Village; and the following winter was employed in our home district and enabled to board at home under my mother's care. This was the most difficult and trying of all my experiences in school-teaching, owing to the school being composed of boys and girls of all ages from five years to twentyone and without any proper classification, and further, owing to the fact that I had previously been a