During
our boyhood our parents tried to distinguish us more
obviously by our clothing and other simple devices,
but we would so frequently exchange suits and other-
wise circumvent the enemy that they abandoned all
such ineffectual attempts, and during all the years
that we lived together at home everybody recognized
the difficulty of the situation and made the best of it
by calling us both 'Jehnry.' I have often won-
dered at my father's forbearance in not branding
us conspicuously upon our unworthy brows, but as
we were tolerably good boys and used our power of
embarrassment and annoyance with commendable
moderation, we escaped the iron. My father was, in
fact, a singularly good-natured man, and I think
quietly enjoyed Nature's practical joke.
Soon after we had come to California, and settled
at San Jose (where the only good fortune that
awaited us was our meeting with so kind a friend as
you), the family, as you know, was broken up by the
death of both my parents in the same week. My
father died insolvent, and the homestead was sacri-
ficed to pay his debts. My sisters returned to rela-
tives in the East, but owing to your kindness John
and I, then twenty-two years of age, obtained em-
ployment in San Francisco, in different quarters of
the town. Circumstances did not permit us to live
together, and we saw each other infrequently, some-
times not oftener than once a week.
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