ABSTRACT
I have made reference to the circumstance that I was at one time a director of a small State bank. It had come about in this way. While I lived in Boston I was called upon one day by a cousin, a year or two my senior, who was a storekeeper in East St. Johnsbury, Vermont. We made arrangements to go to a theater that evening, and he brought with him two men, also from Vermont, one being a Mr. Hibbard, a junior partner of the well-known firm of wholesale drug and medicine dealers, Messrs. Geo. C. Goodwin & Co.; the other a man in some way connected with the drug and medicine trade, hailing from Waterbury, Vermont, and named John F. Henry. We were all of about the same age, possibly Henry may have been the senior by a year or two. He was a typical example of the New England Yankee—tall and lean, of a light sandy complexion, and a manner giving evidence of considerable shrewdness. It was a pleasant evening and I felt that I had made two not undesirable additions to my rather small list of acquaintances, and possibly thought myself not of the least consequence of any of the four of us. In this I was mistaken, for each of the other three was in reality a good deal better situated than I was in the way of a start in business life. I was probably earning a salary of $16 a week at the time. Henry had done some business with a peddler’s outfit, and I think I felt a little sorry for him.
