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BOYHOOD DAYS AND MEMORIES.
What's in a name?
Not much, to be sure, in many of them, but in mine a good deal, for I represent two Michigan towns and two Roman Emperors, Adrian and Constantine.

My father had evidently not outgrown his liking for Michigan when I came into the world, and as he was familiar with both Adrian and Constantine and had many friends in both places he concluded to keep them fresh in his memory by naming me after them.
I don't think he gave much consideration to the noble old Romans at that time.

In fact, I am inclined to believe that he did not think of them at all, but nevertheless Adrian Constantine I was christened, and it was as Adrian Constantine Anson that my name was first entered upon the roll of the little school at Marshalltown.
I was then in my "smart" years, and what I didn't know about books would have filled a very large library, and I hadn't the slightest desire to know any more.

In my youthful mind book-knowledge cut but a small, a very small, figure, and the school house itself was as bad if not worse than the county jail.
The idea of my being cooped up between four walls when the sunbeams were dancing among the leaves outside and the bees were humming among the blossoms, seemed to me the acme of cruelty, and every day that I spent bending over a desk represented to my mind just so many wasted hours and opportunities.