“When I was still a small boy, mother moved to California. She settled
in a little wild valley amid the hills in the central part of the
state, on a sheep range that she had bought. I was chief herder. All
day long I followed the herd over ridge and hollow, and along the
hillsides into the blue distance. I absorbed woodcraft and weather-wit,
and a love of nature which has been one of the predominating influences
of my life.
“After a few years, we turned our place into a cattle range and farm,
with myself as chief farmer. I was just entering my ‘teens’ then. I
fenced and plowed the land straggling up the little valley, and learned
every detail of a farmer’s work and life. The hoe, the shovel, the
scythe, the cradle, the reaper, the threshing machine, the grafting
knife,—these are all old friends of mine. When I began to near young
manhood, I became a thresher, going from farm to farm, helping to
thresh out the grain after the harvest home, and often sleeping at
night in hay-mows.