As It Happened.

I was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on Tenth and Olive Streets, at that time a fashionable neighborhood, in a modest six-room brick house, set a bit back in a yard with a fence around it. We moved from there to Twenty-ninth and Olive Street, and from there back one block to Twenty-eighth Street, still on Olive. The house on Tenth Street was torn down to make way for business buildings and then for sky-scrapers. The house between Twenty eighth and Twenty-ninth Streets was a very comfortable residence, later transformed into two semi-detached houses that still remain, but 2827 Olive Street, the house of my first memories is so covered up and changed that it really is no longer there. My first recollection is of lying on my tummy at the top of the back stairway and calling for my nurse Mary to bring me downstairs for some supper. The stairway was steep and had a turn at the bottom, where there was a door. It was a dark tunnel and I dared not risk going down alone, so must have been very young. My nurse was a sweet, pretty creature, who, with her mother as cook remained in the family for thirteen years. Mary came to us when she was fifteen, having just emigrated from Ireland. She was a brown-eyed, fair skinned girl with auburn hair to her knees, a wonderful sense of humor, a soft tone of voice, and I never saw her angry. A twinkle in her eye, a vibration in her voice, a gentle touch, a fund of stories made her an ideal children's companion. The mother was a dour body, severe and quiet, entirely dominant in the culinary department. The kitchen was a large, square room, and woe to the child who tracked across it after a scrubbing. As time and the stork brought six children into that domicile, Ellen was put to it keeping her premises clean.

Mary took me along when she did the marketing, and the shop is still a vivid picture, saw-dust floor, fat butcher in his white apron, bins for fruit. We crossed two side streets to arrive. It was St. Louis in the early seventies, and the roadbeds were of Macadam, which means mud with an occasional dressing of crushed limestone. A youthful excitement was hanging on the front gate while men unloaded the wagons of rock. They were wagons of planks that came apart to let the rocks fall out. At the street corners were smooth walks or paths of limestone, to cross upon. My second distinct remembrance was once when we were on the way to the store, on the stony street crossing I dropped a doll with a large china head. It socked me very much when it broke into many pieces.

Olive Street had a carline. That was probably the reason we lived on it. It was a direct route to Fourth Street, which was the shopping district, and my father's offices were there. The car of that period was a " dinky ", one-horse car, later driven with two mules. The car had a tiny platform at the back entrance. You put your money in a long slot, sloped toward the front where the driver sat. The coins rolled down into a box near him. If you were slow about contributing your fare he rattled the box to attract your attention. In bitter cold weather a foot or more of straw was laid in the aisle to keep your feet warm. Small boys (and sometimes small girls) just loved to catch a ride on the small platform where they hid from the driver and hung on till he suspected something and came through the car with his whip. Then the small boy was very apt to drop off in a hurry and thumb his nose at the driver.

The house had a square front yard, fifty feet frontage. Its grass was divided by a walk paved with bricks, and was completely fenced in. The front fence, the gates, railings of upper and lower porches were of the French or Spanish style, iron, representing curling vines and grapes, probably brought up from New Orleans. The gates opened into a square of stone with one step up. We could sit there and watch the street and be safe. My mother taught me to love all beautiful things, and she early gave me a plot of ground and allowed me to raise flowers of my own. I have never gotten away from the enchantment of flowers. Two long borders edged the sides of the yard. There were four maple trees across the front, and half-way back, two large catalpa trees. These trees are important in this report, because as I grew I climbed in them like a monkey. I walked along the top of the board fence as a cat walks, and though I was always having accidents of some sort, I never fell from doing that.

Another early memory is of a deep snow fall, of about eighteen inches, and my father removing the snow with much happy assistance from us children. It was the only labor about the place I can ever remember my father doing..... He must have enjoyed it. My mother said if a nail was needed to hang a picture he would send for a man to come and do it. But because I showed an aptitude for tools my mother gave me a set of them for Christmas when I was ten years old.

The house, because it was bought from a family named Paris was always known as "the Paris house". It had a wide hall running through its middle, and the rooms at either side were large and well - lighted. A curving staircase led from the lower hall to a similar hall in the second story. The drawing - room was at the right, only they did not call it that, they called it the parlor. But it was a long apartment, the size of two rooms, and with an air of elegance only known in the Victorian period. There was a tall oval mirror at either end, resting on the marble slab of a gilded base, and decorated with golden cupids and garlands of flowers. The mirrors reflected two chandeliers which had dozens of glittering glass danglers around the globes, and one had a feeling of endless miles of dazzling lights. The carpet was of pale gray velvet, spread with festoons of roses. There were two suites of furniture in the room, one satin, one velvet upholstery, of crimson color. There were two marble mantlepieces, with appropriate bric-a-brac upon them. On one were two tall Sevres vases, between them a French ormolu clock covered by a glass bell. On the other mantel were two Dresden vases with a statuette of Venus and Cupid between them. One thing I adored on that mantel was a small casket of tortoise-shell containing miniature objects in pearl and Ivory. There was a lovely card table of black lacquer inlaid with mother-of pearl- flower designs.

Between the two doors of the room was a piece of furniture called "The Etagiere," which had many mirrors and several shelves, each shelf holding some small object of value or beauty. There was a square piano of carved rose-wood. There were several pictures, two by Thomas Moran, one by Meeker, and others. Over each mantel was an oval golden frame holding portraits of my father and my mother. The woodwork of the room was painted white, and the place was kept in perfect order, so we children were not supposed to go in there we were allowed to go in for practising.

Papa and Mama both sang, my father was a luscious baritone, my mother with an alto voice. I learned to play by ear at the age of four, before I had any in- struction. I can remember Mary and Ellen bringing a friend to the door of the room to show me off. Music came to me as my earliest art, and it has remained my consolation through years of changing fortune. It was as natural as my breathing, and as much a part of me as my blood. The entire family indulged in it. We gathered around the piano and sang while Mama played the accompaniments. The songs my father sang as solos are fashionable again today over the radio. He loved "Beautiful Dreamer," "Star of the Evening," "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep" and all of Stephen Foster's list. He had a charming way of stealing silently into the house at evening, and after divesting himself of outer garments would strike a few chords on the piano or begin an accompaniment on the guitar. Then the tribe would fairly throw themselves down the long stairway, and engulf him.

My father was Alonzo William Slayback, a lawyer, rapidly gaining renown and respect at the St. Louis Bar. Twice he was Vice-President of the Bar Association, twice President of the Law Library Association, and he seemed to have an acquaintance with everybody in town. When we went driving on Sunday afternoon he was kept busy tipping his hat. An exceedingly handsome man, he also had a courtesy and poise from his French ancestors that won him friends wherever he went. A mane of sandy hair waved back from a fair brow, he had brown eyes, a red moustache and goatee. He could have posed for "the Kentucky Colonel." And, in truth, he had been a colonel in the Confederate Army. His father was a lawyer, and a famous Mason of high degree. His grandfather was a physician, descending from those Slaybacks who helped start Princeton and Trenton in New Jersey.

    My mother was the daughter of William B. Waddell, one of the firm of Russell, Majors and Waddell who started the Pony Express. Mama was born in Lexington, Missouri, where she met my father, who had come there to live and be educated at the Masonic College, to which he was eligible because of his father's activities. They had fallen in love while at school, but had become estranged and parted when he went to St. Joseph to practice law. When she was nineteen he came back to Lexington for a visit and he boldly said to her:
   
    "When are we going to be married?"

    When she was twenty and he was twenty-one they were married, in 1859.

A year later my sister Susan was born, and the following year the Civil War broke out. My father organized a company of lancers and calmly went off to war, sending back word to my mother that he had gone. True to the times, she fainted. But she recovered and became one of the most loyal and faithful adherents of the Confederate cause. To the day of her death, at eighty-two, she was an "Unreconstructed Rebel." She was fond of saying she had looked down many a minnie rifle.

    While Papa went through the war she remained at Lexington till he was taken sick in the south. A false comrade stole his money from beneath the pillow, and my mother went to his bedside, traveling in Army ambulances to reach him, and being obliged to accept banishment papers to go through the lines.

    He was very ill with typhoid fever, and a doctor Newman from Caddo Parish, Louisiana, took an interest in him and invited him to visit at his home till he recovered. Mama and Papa went there to that hospitable southern home and remained till he was well. He continued in the fortunes of war, which included an expedition to Mexico after the close of hostilities, and not till 1866 did he take the oath of allegiance and settle down to being an American citizen again.

    They decided to live in St. Louis, and he became a very successful and popular counselor at law in that city. There I was born on March 7, 1868. My mother told me that they welcomed me with great joy. My sister was seven years older and they were not sure they would have another child. From far back in a memory of my father walking me to sleep, I was a nervous creature and had muscle indigestion.

    A bond of deep sympathy and understanding lay between my father and me, and although I stood in awe of him, I was not afraid to approach him and be with him. He was a fountain of knowledge that I could draw upon. He knew Latin and Greek, a smattering of French and German, and while in Mexico he had studied Spanish and still kept a diary in that language. Above all else he understood the speech of English literature. He taught me how to "say my pieces" at school. Now-a-days we would call it expression. I would go to his room while he was completing his toilet, and recite the lines of poetry while he corrected me.

    I am still using that training, for I am the official reader of the poetry club to which I belong, and I have always found use for it, particularly in singing where enunciation is so important. In the evening he worked on his law-briefs, and still I would go to him for help in my arithmetic. I would sit at the table by his side, waiting for the pen to stop scratching, and then I would ask a question or present my problem. The lamp to his table had a dark shade that reflected the glow of the flame down upon his hand as he wrote, and was what they call "Argand Burner," a tubular flame fed gas by a tube from a fixture and having a glass chimney. On the dark shade was a picture of the coliseum with tiny holes pricked to represent lights in the windows. The glow of the flame fell down upon his hand as he wrote. I was about twelve years old when I wrote a poem to his hand and bashfully tendered it to him. It closed with the wish I might never see that hand cold in death. He took it in silence and I thought he did not approve of it. But he had been much disturbed by that last sentence. It created a premonition of what was to come, and he showed it to Mama and told her of his misgivings.

    The only things in our dark cavern of a cellar were the gas-meter and the wine. The cellar was a place to fill children with terror. There were no heating plants in those days, no furnaces and no basement laundries, only a huge, black hole that they had to enter with a lantern or a candle, with queer diamond-shaped shelves to hold the wine-bottles. There must have been casks stored in it also, for at times a man came to bottle the wine in the entrance to the dungeon, while we looked on and peered into the blackness behind him. The wine came from a farm owned by father and mother. When Mama was married, besides the furnishings of her house, she was given two young slaves, a horse and buggy, a trousseau that contained nine silk dresses, and twenty thousand dollars. My father had invested some of that dowry in the farm. It was about nine miles from our house, and we occasionally drove out to inspect it - oftener than Mama liked. It bored her terribly. She had no affinity with the German tenants. She was a person of deep prejudices, that sometimes operated for her undoing. She did not like the farm, and when Papa died she allowed it to be sold for the mortgage on it. That farm afterward became the fashionable Cabanne district. (The mortgage had assisted Papa to run for congress, but he was defeated).

    During the time it was hers she was driven to look it over of a Sunday afternoon behind a spanking team and a barouch full of lively youngsters. As we drove along Papa would point out certain vines and trees to us, would slow down when we came to a beautiful vista, and stop entirely to let us admire a scene. He loved beautiful sunsets and taught us to watch and expect them. His was a soul of temperament and impetuosity, already to appreciate the wonders of nature.

Mama had always owned horses, and while a child, her own pony. On week days she drove the family barouche with a single horse, taking the family for a short drive every afternoon. Papa later took to riding horseback to and from his office. He had a superb, coal-black charger with a white face, a beautiful animal named Prince. As he had ridden for four years during the Civil War, he looked grand on a horse and rode it like a Centaur.

    I was the second child. My father had a sister named Minnie, (although her real name was Amelia). When I was born he wanted to name me for her, but he did not like the name Minnie. My mother's middle name was also Amelia. He side-stepped the complications by using the French diminutive and calling me Minnette. It seemed to be an unusual name in St. Louis, and as I grew older and my name appeared in the society column, mothers, hunting for something odd, adopted it and several St. Louis girls were named for me. After me in the family came Katherine, Mabel and Grace........, and yet no boy. Finally, just before a Veiled Prophet's Parade my mother gave Papa a boy, and I can still see him strutting around that ball-room floor with a grin of supreme joy on his face. Alonzo, Junior made the sixth child in the family, and a fine lot they were. In appreciation of the son and heir Papa gave Mama a pair of large solitaire diamond earrings.

    In the summertime St. Louis is a town of high temperature, so we were generally taken out of it. We got started going up the Mississippi River on a steamboat trip, and we ended at Lake Minnetonka beyond St. Paul and Minneapolis. The first year we stayed at the Weaver House in Wayzeta. After that we went further across the Lake and stayed at the Hotel St. Louis. We fell in love with the spot and repeated it year after year. Papa bought some real estate there, hoping to build a cottage, but his untimely death defeated that plan.

    We children loved the journey up the river on the steam-boats. Sometimes we would get stuck on a sand-bar, and the whole outfit would be transferred to another boat and go on as before. One summer we were on seventeen different boats. I got to be quite an authority on the difference between beside wheeler and stern-wheelers. I loved the cool white bunks in the little cabin state-rooms, and enjoyed the constant change of scenery, the singing of the roustabouts, the flow of the eddying current, the shifting of the cargo as the men labored by day or night. At night the lights were so interesting, and the shore signal lights that guided the pilot were always a source of wonder to me. Occasionally I would be allowed to go up into the pilothouse with my father to talk to the pilot.

    Lake Minnetonka was very beautiful. The water was of a clear, deep greenish blue. It was a wonderful place for fishing, which was probably why my father went there, for he was a fine fisherman, and seemed to know just what he had to do to catch fish. I often went out with him when he went trolling, when he rowed and I held the string until he had a bite. But I was not allowed to go when he went on expeditions where he took a guide with him and spent the day, coming back in the evening with a wash-tub full of fish, pickerel, large "crappies" (elsewhere called "calico bass") sun-fish, blue-gills, black bass, all of large size and probably no longer there in such quantities. He would turn them over to the hotel management and we would revel in them for several meals. In the evening we would have dancing in the ball-room, and as I had been sent to dancing-school at six, I was at home on the dance-floor.

    My sister Katherine (Well, in those days we called her Katie, but when she grew to be a young lady she would no longer permit that), was twenty months younger than I was, and people took us for twins. As much as possible we dressed alike. She had blue eyes and wore blue, I had brown eyes and wore red or pink. At the lake we wore dark blue sailor-suits and percale shirt-waists of white or print. We were always together and where I led she had to follow. Because I was always the leader where there were other children. Eventually there were thirty-three children on our block in St. Louis, and I led all the games. At the lake we had to learn to swim and to row, and although our bathing-suits were the most hampering things imaginable we managed to learn to swim. I can still feel the cling of heavy flannel about my ankles. During the following winter we went to a Natatorium and took lessons. They had a regatta and I got a prize for "Grace and Beauty of Motion," but beyond that I never was much of a swimmer. It was my weakest accomplishment. Please remember that the prize I received was a silver ring, with a fashionable "bangle" on it, the bangle being a tiny pistol.

    But at first we hadn't the slightest idea how to swim, and they placed Katie in the water in her nighties. She howled lustily and said:

"Oh! They're getting my night-drawers all wet!"

How we escaped being drowned is a mystery. There was one occasion when I had a narrow squeak. The picnic barge was moored at our shore and I went down to investigate at a time when no one was about. I inspected the dance-floor and soon finished with that. I climbed up on the edge of the hull and stood with my arm about one of the roof supports, and ended by going round and round the two by four. Of course I eventually slipped into the water. I recall feeling my way along the bottom and gasping for breath as I finally put my head above water. Someone rescued me and I was guided up to the hotel and my sailor suit hung up to dry.

    My father rented a boat for the children's use, and it was fastened by a rather generous rope to the shore. We learned to row by handling one oar at a time, forth to the extent of the rope and back again. He took us for rambles along the shore and taught us how to find carnelians and moss agates and even occasionally amethysts, with which the sands were enriched. He was interested in everything. In the evening he would take us out in a boat and we would sing, his beautiful baritone floating over the lake in an occasional solo, and people would speak of it when we were again at the hotel. My elder sister, Susie, meantime was enjoying herself with a crowd of young society people, and we all had some delight in the Minnesota holiday, and were sad and subdued when the time came to drive through the woods to Minneapolis and go to St. Paul and start down the Mississippi river to St. Louis. Again my lessons in reading came into use. I was not very old, maybe eleven or twelve, when I sat on the upper deck reading aloud to a group of people who went into chortles of laughter over the comedy volumes that were the fashion. "Mrs. Caudles's Curtain Lectures," "Peck's Bad Boy," "Tom Sawyer."

    The recollections of those summer twilight’s as we steamed along the beautiful upper Mississippi is one of my happiest pages. The only cloud in the horizon was in getting back to school and to our humdrum city existence. When I was first sent to school I did not like it. I must have objected a lot, for they let me stay at home another year. I had learned to read at four, seated in my father's lap as he read the morning paper, and demanding to know what the letters meant. I suppose I was progressing at home so that schooling was not very important. I know when I went back the next year I was put up with the class I had left. The teacher in this room was as cruel a female as you would like to know. When she encountered a boy she could not easily manage, she had a cute little trick of sticking him with an instrument shaped like a cobbler's awl, only sharp enough to go through his clothes like a   pin. The picture of a boy squirming around under her hands is still vivid.

    In the lower grades reading is a very important number, so I got on well at school, and of course was soon reciting on their exhibition days and being picked out for singing. At eight years scarlet fever claimed me, and while it was not serious, it was memorable, because during that illness my Grandmother Slayback calmly walked into the sick-room with her father my great grand father Jeremiah Minter. He was eighty-six, of French descent and lived on a farm in Marion county. He was amused to watch me traveling about the room on a faulty rocking-chair that progressed as it rocked. My nurse during this illness was a family auxiliary named Granny Adams, no relation in any way, but my mother's faithful practical nurse when she had her babies, and always called upon in emergency, and this was both occasions, for my sister Grace was born in the next room while I was sick with scarlet fever. Germs were not mentioned in those days, but how they managed to keep things antiseptic I don't know. All the toys I played with at that time were burned. They burned the mattress I used and a perfectly stunning doll-buggy that had cost seven dollars was laid on the flames.

    I had very handsome books always, and the first editions I lost that time would make me weep if I could remember them. No harm came to the mother and baby, but my sister Katie contracted the disease in due time and it left her with dropsy. I remember a man coming to "cup" her back, burning a taper under a glass to draw forth the water. It made me very nervous to watch him.

    The new baby was the fifth child, and she had red hair and brown eyes like my father. As she grew older I found that although eight years younger than I was, she was my pal in the family. We were very sympathetic, and had many tastes in common. She had a lovely singing voice and sang at church and school celebrations when quite young.

     Living in St. Louis at the time my father had two brothers and a sister, Mrs. Y.H. Bond. Charles Slayback and Preston Slayback, the brothers also had families, and at family gatherings we numbered twenty-two. Our Christmas entertainment’s were on an elaborate scale. Of course there was always a tree - a magnificent one - with candles of wax, lighted by hand and watched for fear of fire during the Christmas celebration. There were so many of us, and the exchange of presents so generous, that we returned to our domiciles carrying the gifts in clothes baskets. My mother and father were not content with bestowing one or two gifts, but they showered a multitude of toys and books and useful gadgets upon us. We took turns in having the tree and dinner at the various families, and I can recall fairly suffering from the abundance of what we ate. I think the climax came when I was thirteen, the Christmas before my father died. He gave me a small diamond ring, and because Katherine did not whimper or show any jealousy, he went down town late on Christmas Eve and bought one for her, too. At the same time he gave us each a fine portable table desk, inlaid in colored woods. And my mother gave me my last doll (I loved to sew for them by that time,) and several sets for embroidery and handiwork. I had shown a fondness for tools, so she gave me a jig - saw and several patterns and the wood to be used. She was really a very canny person about such things and I realized from her that children must be kept occupied. She gave us paint boxes and painting books. They did not have the crayons for   children we have now, but she always gave us something we could use in a handicraft way, and taught us to use them. As for books, we were given sets of books at a time, and all the single volumes that came out. I was an omnivorous reader until I came to the decision that I must either take in or give out. I would read like one in a trance till I had finished the book. Then I would put it up, go outside and play just as hard.

    Boys were scarce in the Slayback tribe. Alonzo had five girls and one boy. Charles had one girl and no more family. Preston had two girls and a boy. Minnie had four girls. We were a happy and friendly family, and for years enjoyed a loving companionship. Elizabeth Bond and Bertha (Birdie) Slayback were my particular pal cousins. Birdie was the daughter of Charles Slayback and Anna Newman of New Orleans. Governor E.O. Stannard, in the grain business, became interested in Charles and sent him on a business mission to New Orleans. There he met his future wife, and he made money. At one time the young man was worth two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Unfortunately that business is not very steady, and he lost his fortune. But he and his wife remained two of the most devoted and serene young couples I have ever known. She was a lovely girl, ideally refined and charming, a real beauty. My grandmother Slayback lived with them, and the harmony between Anna Newman Slayback and Anna Minter Slayback was deep and impressive. I was permitted to go to their house alone to play with Birdie, and I often spent the night there. There was so much happiness in that household, so little friction of any sort that I think religion must have had something to do with it.

    My grandmother was a straight-laced Presbyterian, the kind that believes in predestination, and fortunately Aunt Annie belonged to the same church. They were very devout church goers, and in addition my grandmother devoted much of her time to services for the various guilds or societies in connection with the church. And I understand that she was noted for her kindness and charity and the good deeds she performed for the poor and needy that she heard of. And in that family circle it seemed to be a principle not to say anything unkind or impatient or derogatory. My Uncle Charlie used to say to me:  

     "If you can't think of something kind to say, don't say anything."

    He understood my tendency to be critical and caustic, and he tried to be tactful and considerate. While Uncle Charlie and Uncle Preston were in business in New Orleans they became fascinated by the pageant of the Mardi Gras festival, and when they moved their business to St. Louis they began a propaganda to have a similar celebration in that city. Thus began the Autumnal celebration of the Veiled Prophet, and the three Slayback brothers were the originators of the custom. My sister Susie was a very beautiful young woman, and she became the first queen of the ball. Much to her disgust my father permitted Katie and me to go to the ball, and we were always on the ball-room floor at the Veiled Prophet's Ball. As we could dance, and we found other children there, we enjoyed it very much. I particularly enjoyed watching my father. He was so well-bred, had such beautiful manners and knew so well how to be gallant, that it thrilled me to watch his handsome, courtly figure walking about with the ladies.

He did not dance, and neither did my mother. It used to make my sister Susie quite provoked because Papa took me everywhere he thought I would profit by going. He took her to the theater to see genius and talent, but he spoiled her joy and glory by taking me also. In this way I saw or heard Adalina Patti, Edwin Booth, Madame Alboni, Adelaide Neilson, and many famous singers whom I have forgotten. One evening in a fine concert the singers had to pass back through the audience, and as they went by me as I stood aside in the crowd, one of the great singers, Madame Nillson, leaned down and kissed me. It took away my breath.

    It was not to be wondered at that when my father announced he was going East to try a case in the Supreme Court at Washington, and would take both Susie and me with him, that she objected very strenuously. He was going to New York as well, and would call upon some wealthy people while we were there. I do not blame her one bit. But it didn't do any good for he took me anyway. And to this day I can remember the scene in the Supreme Court room when he made the judges laugh, and everyone was so surprised. The trial was of course the main object of our journey, but we went through all the sights of Washington, went to New York, bought me some smart clothes - among them a dark blue bowl-shaped felt sailor, and a dress of blue green and black plaid which we bought at Macy's - and visited some wealthy relatives and friends.  I had a wonderful time. On the journey over East we were surrounded by a group of college boys who had also been on the journey up the Mississippi in the summer time, and I continued to sharpen by wits against theirs. I remember one remark that I made. As we went over the Eads bridge I said, softly;

"This is a bridge of size." I was twelve years old, but I could keep up my conversational end of things.

    After leaving New York we continued our journey by way   of Niagara Falls. The aforesaid College boys had been returning from Christmas holidays. It was bitter cold weather, and the Falls had on a coat of shining armor made of ice, through which ran the green water. We went about seeing all the points of interest that we could, and ended by standing near the edge of the chasm where great pillars reached from top to bottom of the walls, formed like enormous icicles. My father and Susie were viewing and discussing the interesting sight , and I was a bit apart from them when I felt myself slipping gently toward the edge of the abyss. Child that I was I determined I would not cry out for help because I was afraid if I did so my father would rush toward me and he might slip and fall himself. I kept as quiet as possible, but I continued to slide and I wondered if I would not better sit down. But then a small button of ice caught my foot and held it, and I said very quietly;

    "Papa, will you please take my hand and help me back?"

    What a relief I felt as his strong hand clasped mine! We moved back to safety, but a feeling of agony always grips me whenever I think of that moment.

    My father won the case he took to Washington. It was a case that involved many river boats, and the fee was fifty thousand dollars. However he had two partners and he would not get all of that. The name of the firm was Broadhead, Slayback and Haeussler. Mr. Broadhead was a fine old gentleman, his family socially prominent in St. Louis. Mr. Haeussler was a South side German, very animated and nervous in his manner and taking life very seriously.

    Papa belonged to the old school of gentlemen. He expected a lady to be a lady. That meant that she must never do anything that would excite comment and her language must be sedate and refined. He could not tolerate slang. My poor sister, a girl full of natural gaiety and impulse, was always being reprimand- ed for some breech of proper speech. She was not permitted to use slang at all. As she went about a great deal with young people it was almost impossible not to pick up such expressions. She went to "Miss Cuthbert's Seminary," and graduated from there at seventeen. She was really a very beautiful young woman, and her clothes were handsome and fitted her marvelously, setting off a figure that conformed exactly to the ideals of beauty in those days. Papa would do anything to entertain her and to help her enjoy herself, but she was expected to behave always with perfect propriety. He took her to balls and dances and as he went with the best people in the city and belonged to associations that were exclusive and elegant she had a brilliant future before her in society. She made her debut at the Veiled Prophets Ball, and was the first queen of that association.

    He was very particular about the companions we went with, but parents cannot always regulate affections and affinities. Early in my school life I became attached to a little Irish girl with red hair. My father had red hair and I thought she was grand because she had red hair. She taught me to hang on behind wagons, and to go two blocks away to meter car-line where we could catch on behind the little dinky horse-cars and steal a ride. I was very discreet and did not mention my new activities at home. But she acquired the habit of calling for me on her way to school. And so, one morning my father met her in the library of our house. I can never forget the look of sharp scrutiny he gave that girl. He was so well versed in reading character, so fastidious and selective that he knew at once she was no fit companion for his little daughter. When we had departed for school he gave Mama instructions not to allow the girl to go with me. And in the evening he informed me I was not to associate with her any more. I suppose they kept their eyes on me for awhile after that. I was apt to be a bit independent, and I was a terrible tom-boy. The boys represented the war between the sexes, with me. They thought it very funny to call me "Sixty Seconds make a Minnette." That was just the height of cleverness, and some times they cut it short and called me "Sixty Seconds". It apparently made me quite furious, and then I would chase them and if the little boy was my size or smaller I would knock him down and pummel him! I suppose they were pursuing the theory that if a small boy admires a small girl he has to torment her in some way. And I was having to show them I wouldn't stand for it!

    Katherine was much more retiring and dignified than I was. Mary, the nurse, would dress me first and send me out to play, and when Katie came out I was ready to have my sash tied over again. But everybody was my friend. I was a very democratic person. Once a young chap who was a high school student was too lazy to carry his books into his house and asked me if I would take them to his door, ring the bell and hand the books to the servant. In those days a door-bell was a pull affair attached to a long wire that went to the back regions and clanged a bell on a coiled spring. I dashed up the steps with the books and gave the bell-handle a pull and out came the knob in my hand, and I went down against an iron picket fence by the side of the steps. It made a gash in my head very near my temple, and the blood spurted from the wound and went all over my nice little black alpaca dress. The young man picked me up in his arms and ran for my home and the doctor who lived at the corner and who soon arrived to put some stitches in me.

    I was always having accidents like that. At one time I was dancing up and down on a shed roof, assisted by the branch of an oak tree. But the shed had a slanting roof, and gradually the board I was jumping on slipped down and it finally fell. I went through the roof and tore an eyelid open as I did so. That necessitated some stitches, and I bore a small scar there for years. My most favorite occupation was walking the second story joists of a new building. But I never fell through, and I never broke a bone.

    Then there were certain events that had no serous consequences and sometimes made me wonder how I escaped. I know I was chastised frequently with a switch or a hair-brush, and I would go off by myself and try to swear. But it was not very successful. Gentlemen did not swear before ladies in those days, and of course ladies did not swear at all. So probably a neat little dammit was all I could command, picked up when my mother gave father the monthly bills.

    There was one occasion when I escaped and I have often felt sorry that I was not caught. My mother used to drive out every day and having two or three servants at home she thought we were well taken care of and all was well. But the large parlor was full of fine chairs, and by placing these in a long circle, one could jump from chair to chair and play follow my leader on satin and velvet. We brought in cronies from the neighborhood and had a grand time. We never were caught, but just about the time I was grown and needed the fine furniture it was worn out and had to be recovered and was never so beautiful again.

    I was never in trouble at school. I had no difficulty with my lessons while I was at the grammar school - Stoddard School. But one Katie had a teacher whom she could not get along with, and my father went to school to see what could be done. Papa always rode his fine black horse to business and was in riding breeches and carried a whip when he went to the school, early one morning. The teacher reported to the principal that my father had threatened her with a horse-whip. It was very absurd, so my father had to go back and talk to the Principal, Mr. Caldwell, and explain the situation. It happened that they were good friends anyway, and Mr. Caldwell did not spend much time talking about the teacher, but he did speak with great enthusiasm about me and my singing voice. He told my father that my voice must certainly be cultivated. And that was that.

    It was toward the end of my life at the Stoddard School that I earned five dollars doing without butter. I was always suffering from indigestion because my parents did not know how I should be fed. Certainly children are better and finer now-a-days because their mothers know how to direct their diet. But I was allowed all the spending money I could wheedle from my father and we had a rich and abundant menu. I ate a great deal of candy; and one of my favorite in-between meals was a huge slice of bread, thickly buttered and then sprinkled with sugar. I was said to have "Dyspepsia" occasionally the doctor was consulted and for a time I was dosed a nauseous liquid from a bottle. But no one ever thought of regulating my diet. Finally my sister Susie decided I ate too much butter for my good. She offered me five dollars if I would do without butter for a month. I took up the bet, but I am convinced that if she had bet against candy it would have done me more good.

    For a month, therefore, I abstained from butter. In the meantime my father went on a trip to his native Marion County in Missouri and asked Susie and me to go along. We visited relatives and had a jolly visit and in due time returned home, and all the while I had no butter. Of course Susie was obliged to pay me the five dollars I had so pluckily won. But after I had received it I did not know what to do with it. I always had all the nickels and dimes any small girl could spend. It took quite a bit of ruminating to decide just what I could do with it. And then I had an inspiration.

    I was not in the highest grade of the school but two grades below it. In that top grade was a teacher who always noticed me and spoke pleasantly to me, and I developed a decided crush on her. I bought her a fifty cent bouquet once a week, a bouquet of the French style, made carefully at the florists, with a lace paper back to the flowers, and a silver foil covering to the handle. I gave her one of these offerings each week till my money was exhausted. I felt an intense satisfaction in the presentation, and if she had been pleasant to me before, she now spoke to me with a proprietary air as if I belonged to her. Unfortunately I never had the pleasure of being teacher's pet in her room. Before that was possible I was entered at Mary Institute, the Girls' school of Washington University, and life became more difficult.

    I had an easy time at Stoddard School, and had gained a certain renown for my singing and my compositions. My small essays were carried from room to room and read as models. I get along well with the teachers and life was pleasant. But when I entered the Mary Institute I was obliged to take written examinations that paid a great deal of attention to mathematics and seemed to make every thing more difficult than it had ever been before. From that moment my childhood was left behind.

    It was at some time during this period, although I cannot fix the exact date, that our house was robbed of three thousand dollars worth of jewelry. the jewels were taken while we were at supper, the deed was as mysterious as any detective story, and the identity of the thief was never established, although Mother and Susie and I had our opinion about it. Mary our attractive and very lady-like nurse was engaged for eight years to a young man who was a plumber, but who did not have a shop of his own. It seemed strange that after the jewel robbery he established his own shop and they were married. One afternoon according to her custom, Mama took all the children out in the barouche, driving. When we returned home, old Ellen was standing at the front fence waiting for us and giving us the impression that we were very late. So we hurried up into the house leaving the horse tied to await the coming of the man from the livery stable. Mama's room looked very untidy. The bed was covered with coats from a down town store, which Mama had brought home for us children to try on. Instead of taking us to the shop, she brought a number of garments home and then could decide what she wanted at leisure. But Ellen seemed in a hurry for us to eat supper, so we trooped down to the evening meal. During supper someone said:

    "Hush a moment. Is someone up stairs?"

    It had sounded like a loose board squeaking , but we laughed off our fears and resumed our eating. No one went to investigate. After supper we went up to Mama's room to look over the cloaks. I noticed a small bit of coral jewelry on the floor and picked it up.

"Look what's on the floor. Someone might step on it."

"What's it doing out of the drawer?" asked Mama. For during that day she had gone about the house carefully gathering up the jewelry, her own watch and Susie's, various rings and necklaces and trinkets and had taken them to the jewelry drawer locked it and put the key in her pocket. So now she handed me the key and said:

"Put it in the box, lock the drawer and give me back the key."

Between us we had a great many bits of jewelry. Children's dresses were made with puffs on the shoulders that were caught together by small clasps of gold or coral or turquoise beads. We wore necklaces of twisted turquoise or coral beads or carved coral. It was one of these small trinkets I had picked up from the floor. The jewelry drawer had in it a set of four Chinese lacquer boxes, cunningly contrived with one round corner at the outside. "There's nothing in there," I said, and opened another, then another. All were empty. The thief had carefully replaced the tricky lids and had probably emptied the jewelry into a bag, and in doing so had spilled one on the floor. The new coats were still lying on the bed. My mother had some very nice diamonds. A round brooch crusted with thirty-five diamonds, two rings one with five and one with seven diamonds. Her solitaire diamond earrings had drops with thirteen diamonds each. She had taken off the dangling part of the earrings when she came home and put them in the drawer, leaving the solitaires in her ears. The two watches were gone and a varied lot of bracelets including two plain wide bands of Roman gold, and more miscellaneous decorations than I am able to remember. My own heart was broken over a carved coral necklace with a small book of gold which was a locket. My father called in a lot of detectives and they searched the country over for the robbers. But Father played true to form when he refused to allow them to search the belongings of our two maids. The detectives must have been rather disgusted at that. They never found a clue. Of course the thief may havegotten in the back door while old Ellen was out in the front yard; or he may have climbed up our porch supports in the form of iron vines while we were at supper,we never knew.

Minnette's Journal