I
_Statement of the case, containing facts, figures,
dates, and circumstances that constitute the reason
for and the beginning of this history—my father’s
demise; his legacy; some youthful happenings
incident to the legacy, the possession of which was
exceedingly difficult._
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WHEN I was about five years of age, I was summoned, one morning, to the
bedside of my father, where I learned that he was at the point of death
from an accident.
I was one of fourteen children—the fourteenth; seven boys and seven
girls, the girls and boys alternating until I was reached.
I was very much surprised, upon entering the room in which he lay, to
observe all the other members of the family leave, and close the door.
This, I afterward learned, was by my father’s special direction. While I
had been favored by him in many things, it had seemed to me I was the
recipient of more chastisement than any of my brothers; and, yet, I must
say I was indulged much beyond my deserts.
I had one serious fault—at least, it was so considered by the good old
dames of the neighborhood, who prophesied all manner of evils should
befall me, in magnitude from being hung to being torn asunder by wild
beasts, through all the gradations of torture that may flit through the
mind governed by superstition.
I presume I might as well make a clean breast of the matter, in order
that the reader may not be misled into a false conception of the
situation in which I was placed during my boyhood days, and say that I
was known, throughout that particular community, as the “Prince of
Liars”; in fact, it had been said, and often in my very hearing, that
Truth and I were total strangers, with no possibility of an acquaintance
springing up between us.
Strange to say, my father never chastised me for failure to speak truly,
and would, as I thought, look upon me with approval when I asserted as a
fact something which could by no possible means have happened.
To continue the history.
My father motioned me to his side and handed me a package, saying:
“My son, here is a package which you must not open until your
twenty-fifth birthday. Upon that day, you will open this package and
read the instructions contained in it, and I ask you to follow those
instructions closely. You must guard this package as you would guard
your own safety and yield its possession to no one, not even for one
moment.”
I took it, observing that it was very light of weight and seemed
certainly not to be momentous, if considered from that point of view.
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