Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/52

 When what was called the hen fever, a wild speculation in fancy chickens spread over the country, an uncle, George W. Whitaker, paid twenty dollars for a dozen Shanghai eggs and, not knowing what to do with them, gave them to me. Four chickens were hatched. As they grew, their enormous size and feathered legs were an astonishing thing. As the fever abated I sold the eggs for two dollars a dozen.

Every fruit tree and nut tree within a mile, with its comparative merit and the way to reach its store, was known to me. I raised broods of white rabbits.

The school kept by Mrs. Heilig had only a brief existence, and I was then sent to the public school in a stone building since converted into dwellings upon Tunnel Hill. Among the teachers were John Sherman, who made of me a pet, and a man named English. It was a rough experience. The vacant lot adjoining was called “Bullies' Acre” and on it the toughs of the town settled their personal controversies. The pupils were the sons of the Irish workmen, who puddled iron and drove carts about the mills, and they were divided into two factions—the “Clinkers” and the “Bleeders,” who fought pitched battles with each other, with stones and other missiles. I belonged to the “Bleeders.” I fought three fist fights with a stocky boy named John Bradley, and I think had rather the worst of it, though, officially, the battles were decided to be a draw. Years later, I gave him a license to sell liquor in Philadelphia. More than one of these boys in later life went to prison and others have won substantial successes. Among them were Mickey McQuade, Johnnie McCullogh, Barney Green, the Sullivans and the Mullins, among whom the last two families reached respectable social standing. Green had a pretty sister, Annie, with a taste for vocal music, who became a teacher and married in Chicago. Tunnel Hill was naturally the prettiest part of the town, being on the high ground between the French Creek and the Schuylkill 44