ing. The house ran east and west, indicating thus probably the direction from which its builder had come, and the quarter in which he had settled. Its length was modest, about twenty feet, and the frontage was towards the south. It had two ceilings, something unusual in the primeval log cabins of the West, and the upper story showed two small windows, while the same number of somewhat larger ones perforated the walls of the ground story. The door opened in the center of the house, and on either side of the entrance extended the main rooms of the building.

Copying the common Western style, Mr. Hendricks, Sr., built his chimney outside of his house, on the west side. Its construction was typical of the times in which it was built. Instead of brick, which was then an unknown material in the unsettled West, sticks were used, and these were covered with mud and straw, as a sort of outer covering, to protect them against the inclemencies of the weather, and the heavy rainstorms which were characteristic of Ohio in those days.

In front of the log cabin, thus erected, a six-foot yard sloped down to the roadway, which was then designated as the "State road," and ran past the door from Zanesville to Lancaster. The house itself appears to have stood on a slight eminence, the side of an adjacent hill, which ran towards the east, and very few trees seem to have surrounded it, though a little in the rear the country was one dense growth of forest wood, which had never felt the blow of the settler's axe.

In such surroundings as these was born Thomas A. Hendricks, who has already once been chosen to the second highest office in the gift of the American people, of which, however, fraud deprived him, and who will be called upon next December to preside over the National Senate for four years, from the fourth of March, 1885.

CHAPTER II.

His Life in Shelbyville, Ohio.-His Early Education.-Studying for the Bar. His Early Marriage and Estimable Wife.-His Legal Successes. -Elected to the State Legislature.

When John Hendricks settled in Shelby county, Indianapolis had just been laid out and established as the future capital of the State, and Mr. Hendricks' house was resorted to by people of education and refinement from all the neighborhood. He was himself the father and founder of the first Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, where the old Scottish creed was taught in its pristine purity and vigor, and in that faith young Thomas, his son, was carefully educated.

The lad attended the village school in Shelbyville until he was of age to enter the college of South Hanover, near Madison, from which, after finishing his course, he graduated with high honors. Subsequently he entered the law office of Judge Major, then the leading member of the Shelbyville bar, and still residing in that place. From his preliminary legal studies in Judge Major's office, young Hendricks went to that of his uncle, Judge Thomson, of Chambersburg, Pa., but returned to Shelbyville to be admitted to the Indiana bar. His success was assured from the outset. His methodical ways, studious manners, his correct habits and pleasant disposition, won him favor in a very short time, and early presaged that legal prominence

which he has since acquired, not alone in Indiana, but throughout the whole country.

Self-made men, such as Mr. Hendricks seemed to be, are generally the most prosperous of all, and certainly there are few Americans who were born amid the surroundings that begirt his early years who have succeeded as well in the world as our next vice-president. Through all his life, as is easily apparent to those who study his sterling moral character, Mr. Hendricks has preserved the characteristics of his early Presbyterian training, and although he has often been highly honored by his fellow-citizens, he has ever remained the same modest individual, those who remember him in his youth say he was when he dwelt in Shelbyville, in the Buckeye State.

Mr. Hendricks married early in life. In his twenty-fifth year he wooed and won Miss Lucy C. Morgan, the beautiful daughter of accomplished parents, and no small part of his success in life has been due to the influence and guidance of that estimable lady. Mrs. Hendricks, as is well known, still lives and takes a deep interest in everything that concerns her distinguished husband. Their married life may be said to have been one perpetual honeymoon, so attached have husband and wife ever been to each other, and to visit them to-day, one is forcibly reminded of those beautiful homes poets depict, in which love eternally abides. Wherever Mr. Hendricks is, there you are certain of finding his partner in life. When he goes from home she accompanies him, and it is but a few months ago since both returned from an extensive tour throughout Europe. All Mr. Logan's stately wife is said to be to the senator from Illinois, that, and more than that, has Lucy Morgan been to Thomas A. Hendricks, and no one is readier than that gentleman himself to acknowledge the debt he owes to his accomplished and practical helpmeet

Mr. Hendricks' law practice and his economical and thrifty mode of life soon acquired for him a competency and left him at leisure to turn to that political career for which he has exhibited so remarkable an adaptability and fitness. It would be a gross mistake, however, to conclude from the remarks made above concerning his economical and thrifty manner of living that Mr. Hendricks is, in any sense of the word, a parsimonious man. The exact contrary is the case. He is generous to every deserving charity, and his wife enjoys no small praise for her bounty to the poor. But generous though both Mr. and Mrs. Hendricks have always been in such ways, they have ever been modest in their own expenditures, and that virtue has served them in good stead, inasmuch as it has contributed in no small measure to the ease and independence they now enjoy.

It has been said that much of Mr. Hendricks' prominence in life is due to the laudable ambition of his wife, who early saw in the man of her love capabilities for great things. If this assertion be true, Mr. Hendricks is by no means the first man who owes his social station and political preferment to the wife of his bosom. Instances without number might be quoted of similar happenings, and it is an indisputable fact that women are sometimes keener to discern possibilities of success than men, and also readier to recognize capabilities in men for achieving that success than the individuals who possess those capabilities.

Three years after Mr. Hendricks married Lucy Morgan, whether the statements recorded above of that lady are true or not, we find him in the Indiana Legislature, in which he served but one year, declining a renomination that was unanimously offered him. During that brief service, however, he won for himself the reputation of being a painstak ing legislator and an industrious representative of his constituents; and it was during that period also that the future