Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 September 1883 — Jere Black’s Boyhood. [ARTICLE]

Jere Black’s Boyhood.

He was one day riding along the country-road toward a neighbor’s house with a companion a year br mbre older than himself. He had just returned from the winter’s school at Somerset, and wa«4n the eomiug-faU-tp-realize his heart s desire—to be sent away to an institution where there were greater opportunities for learning the higher branches of an English education than about home. -I am going away to school for two years,” said young Black te his companion, as they rode along. The boy looked at him in astonishment, for he had always held, the speaker to be a prodigy, and was wont to say, when the country lads asked information about anything: “Ask Jerry Blacky he knows everything.” “Why. ain’t you learnt through yet?” he inquired, when he recovered from his astonishment that Black was going to waste more time over books. “Why.no; I’ve hardly begun,” was the reply. The boy cast a sort of half-pitying glance at Black and said: “Jerry, if you don’t stop this ; book-nonsense soon, you’ll be a lawyer yet.”—Biograp/iical Sketch. , , •