The father, Leonidas Hubbard, had come "'cross country" from
Deerfield, Ohio, with gun on shoulder, when Michigan was still a
wilderness, and had chosen this site for his future home. He had
taught in a school for a time in his young manhood; but the call of
the out-of-doors was too strong, and forth he went again. When the
responsibilities of life made it necessary for him to limit his
wanderings he had halted here; and here on July 12th, 1872, the son
Leonidas Hubbard, Jr., was born.
He began by taking things very much to heart, joys and sorrows
alike. In his play he was always setting himself some
unaccomplishable task, and then flying into a rage because he could
not do it. The first great trouble came with the advent of a baby
sister who, some foolish one told him, would steal from him his
mother's heart. Passionately he implored a big cousin to "take
that little baby out and chop its head off."
Later he found it all a mistake, that his mother's heart was still
his own, and so he was reconciled.
From earliest recollection he had listened with wide eyes through
winter evenings, while over a pan of baldwin apples his father
talked with some neighbour who had dropped in, of the early days
when they had hunted deer and wolves and wild turkeys over this
country where were now the thrifty Michigan farms.
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