Grant Fox, at the time of his graduation from Geneseo. He
roomed with Ferry Weeks and me for two years at Princeton at
11 South Dodd Hall. He became my partner in the New York City
firm of Fox, Pierce and Rowe.
Grant's father ran the grist mill at Patchinsville, which was
a cross-roads with the mill, a tavern and a store formerly
built and owned by the Patchins in stage-coach days. The
coming of the railroad put the tavern and the store out of
business and they weren't used for their original purpose as
far back as I can remember.
When Adin was ten or eleven, he used to ride bareback up to
the mill with a sack of wheat slung over the horse's back to
be gound into flour. He and Grant both liked to shoot birds,
and they became friends before Grant and I did.
The family was poor, and after Grant's first year at Geneseo
we were sure he wouldn't be able to come back -- but there he
was. When I asked mother how they'd managed it, she said
Grant's mother had sold their only cow, which she had bought
with money earned by taking in washing. That put her way up
near the top as far as I was concerned. After that when dad
would go to the mill, Grant's father would say, "Well, we
ain't got no cow -- we'll have to drink water. Let's have a
beer."
When he was practicing law, Grant would take the greatest
trouble to arrange his cases so that he would be free to spend
the first two weeks of September shooting birds around
Patchinsville. Even the judge knew better than to cross him
on this point.
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