children's interests, and no parents ever reared a son more worthy of filial devotion than is William Jennings Bryan. Mr. Bryan remained at Union College for two years, graduating there in June, 1883. He located at Jacksonville, July 4, 1883, and swung this shingle to the breeze: W. J. BRYAN, Mr. Bryan was married October 1, 1884, to Miss Mary Baird, of Perry, Ill. The young lawyer very soon built up a paying practice and he remained at Jacksonville until 1887, when, with his young wife and child, he removed to Nebraska. Young Bryan early manifested a love for politics. In 1880, at the age of twenty years, he took the stump for Hancock, and delivered Democratic speeches at Salem, Centralia and two other points in Illinois. In the campaign of 1884 young Bryan, at the age of twenty-four, took the stump for Grover Cleveland. Mr. Bryan's first political speech was delivered in 1880, at the court house in Salem. But there is an interesting story about the first political speech that he did not deliver. Several weeks before the Salem speech young Bryan was working on the farm of 66 N. B. Morrison, of Odin, Illinois. A political meeting was arranged for a grove several miles away. Hand-bills were distributed, announcing that two distinguished men, giving their names, and Mr. W. J. Bryan" would address the "gathered hosts." When the day came young Bryan and the distinguished orators drove to the grove. When they arrived they found a man in charge of the grove, one man with a wheel of fortune, and two men presiding over a lemonade stand. With the exception of a few children from the neighborhood that was the extent of the gathered hosts." The orators waited until late in the evening and no one came to hear them. Young Bryan returned home, possibly greatly disappointed, but he was rewarded within a few weeks by being able to deliver that speech before a great gathering at Salem. Bryan's boyhood is without sensational features. If he ever robbed a melon patch, it is not a matter of record. If he was ever guilty of mischievous pranks, no one recalls the fact. He was a light-hearted, good-natured lad, who, in his more tender years, devoted himself to two things: hard physical work, and earnest, persistent duty. Bryan's splendid physical development, is due to his out of door exercise, and work on the farm during his boyhood. His first employer was John Odin, and in the days of his youth, John W. Patrick, now a railroad freight clerk, at Cincinnati, 39 finds considerable pride in the fact, that he was the second employer of William Jennings Bryan. Mr. Patrick several years ago lived in Salem, Ill. He was a neighbor of the Bryan's, and at one time purchased a field of hay from the elder Bryan. While the harvesting was in progress, young Bryan was employed by Mr. Patrick, to carry water to the farm hands. Professor S. S. Hamill, of Decatur, Illinois, is the teacher under whom young Bryan studied elocution, while attending Illinois College at Jacksonville. Speaking of his pupil recently, Professor Hamill said: "He was a good student, and stood first in all his studies, but he was an awkward speaker. I had many pupils, but few that made the lasting impression on me that Bryan did. That was because of his intentness and earnestness in that particular study. There were not many who studied elocution long, but with Bryan, that seemed to be the one thing in which he desired to excel. He was not satisfied with the instruction in the class, but took a term in private, for which he paid me twenty dollars. While others were trying to beg off the programmes of literary societies for orations, he took extra assignments and worked on all of them with the greatest earnestness. He made political speeches about Jacksonville in the following campaign, and made some reputation for himself. After that, he was often selected to represent the |