about his Civil War experiences, Edwin also told admiring stories about the heroes of the American revolutions, such as the Marquis de Lafayette and Simón Bolívar. Poor as he was, Edwin subscribed to two periodicals that inspired Herbert and Fred, the Chicago Inter-Ocean and the Youth's Companion. The boys walked five miles to the post office to pick up the latest issues. The Inter-Ocean opened their eyes to world affairs and a life beyond rural Wisconsin. The Youth's Companion fired the boys’ imaginations with adventure stories by Jack London, Barrett Willoughby, and Samuel Woodworth Cozzens. Cozzens's serialized “The Lost Trail,” a story about two boys who went to California with a trading caravan, was a particular favorite of the Bolton boys. The southwestern setting for Cozzens's vivid tale with its deserts, mesas, and perpetually blue skies was dramatically different from western Wisconsin. The story was full of youthful heroism and narrow escapes from Comanche and Apache Indians, who were the villains of the piece. Cozzens even described the mission San Xavier del Bac, near Tucson, as “one of the most interesting relics of the old Spanish rule to be found in the country.” Cozzens's exciting serial was doubtless Herbert's introduction to the Southwest as a place of romance and adventure.7
With incessant labor the Boltons made a go of their hardscrabble farm, but in the late 1870s Edwin's rheumatic condition grew debilitating. He began teaching in the summer as well as the winter in order to replace the income that he could no longer earn by manual labor, but even this occupation became too much for him.8 He died in 1885 at age forty-nine, leaving Rosaline with eight children and the widow's share of his Civil War pension. Forty-one years old and pregnant, Rosaline was responsible for a poor farm and a large family. Every dollar counted. From Edwin's pension Rosaline received eight dollars a month plus two dollars for each child under the age of sixteen. Herbert and his five younger siblings thus added twelve dollars per month to the family treasury, but only briefly. He turned sixteen in 1886. One year later his thirteen-year-old brother, Johnnie, was thrown from the driver's seat when his team bolted; he was killed in the fall. Herbert's maturity and Johnnie's death reduced the family income by four dollars per month.9
All of the boys pitched in to keep the farm and the family together. Fred went to La Crosse to teach school and sent money home. Herbert started high school in Tomah, where he worked for room and board at a local hotel. School was a common topic in the letters of the two education-minded brothers. “I get along very well with my studies,” Herbert wrote, “all except English Language and that I detest.” Teachers had already noticed that tall, blonde, good-looking Herbert was a likely prospect for their calling, because they sometimes allowed him to teach classes. He was in the same business that Fred was, “teachin skule,” he once joked, because the teacher was sick.10 Herbert liked school, although he described many of his fellow pupils as “country Jakes.” Of course, he was a country Jake also, fresh from the farm. In high school he studied history, but at fifteen Herbert did not think of this subject as a professional option. He studied “very hard evenings as well as day time. Don't have much time for mischief.”11
But Herbert did find a little time for devilment. He cut school once to look over the old Bolton farmstead at the Ridge, perhaps wishing that his father had not left his good farm for a dream in Nebraska. Sometimes he got a “good ‘solemn lecture’ ” at school for failing to keep up with his homework, but these occasions were rare.12 Another time, spring weather inspired Herbert and some friends to skip school and go fishing. They were caught in a cold rain, but Herbert persevered and returned home with a bit of doggerel that described his experience:
Thirty-six trout.
Fisherman's luck:
Wet ass
And a hungry gut.13
He was not above a practical joke. One night Herbert and some friends saw one of their schoolmates visiting his girl. They “tied the [barn?] doors when he was up there and he stayed till morning too.” If this adventure became common knowledge, it would have set small-town tongues wagging. “He don't know who ‘twas,” Herbert told his brother, and “you needn't tell him ever either.”14
Rural life was not Herbert's idea of an attractive future, but the countryside had its charms for an active boy. He loved to saddle a horse and ride around the country with his friends. In Tomah Herbert made a name for himself as an athlete. He played baseball with the local team, the unfortunately named Skunks. Herbert was the fastest sprinter in high school, and the best broad jumper.15 He would always revel in the outdoors and in physical activity as long as they had nothing to do with farming.
Herbert was a likable youth who liked other people. Affability was one of his most endearing traits, though he committed himself to solitary habits of study. In some ways, the adult would become almost monkish in his pursuit of scholarship, but the teenaged Herbert was no monk. He liked his friends and enjoyed parties. “Had a good time,” he reported to Fred after attending a social. “I guess it wouldn't be me if I didn't, would it?” he added with a touch of self-awareness that pegged him as a good-natured, social animal.16 Yet Herbert's teen years were marked by unusual seriousness of purpose. He had his fun but worked to make a success of high school just as he worked hard on the farm. As he said, he would have to work hard if he ever intended “to be anybody, which I cert[ainly] do.”17 Herbert's ambition to be somebody marked his whole life.
Girls noticed the blonde boy with the sunny disposition. They smiled at him, and he smiled back, although he sometimes reported that he was giving up girls in favor of hard work so that he could get ahead. One girl in particular commanded Herbert's attention: Gertrude Janes of Tunnel City—“snapping-eyed, beautiful Gertie Janes,” as Fred remembered her.18 Herbert met her when carrying blueberries from the farm to sell at the Tunnel City trading post. Eventually she attended high school in Tomah, so Herbert saw a lot of her there. He kept her in sight on Sundays by going to church in Tunnel City. In his senior year Herbert liked Gertrude well enough to be jealous of a boy who competed for her affection. Consequently he planned to attend church a little oftener than usual, “till he has withdrawn from the field.”19
In the summer of 1888 Herbert worked as printer's devil at the weekly Tomah Journal. It paid six dollars per week and was preferable to “granging it,” as Herbert derisively called farmwork.20 His stint with the weekly may have sharpened his interest in current events. “What are your politics?” he asked Fred. “I don't know what mine are, I'm either a Pro[hibitionist] or a Republican.” Herbert's adult political sympathies seemed to hover around the progressive side of the Republican Party, but he made it a point not to discuss his party affiliation (at least not in writing).
Essentially apolitical in the partisan sense, Bolton had a keen sense of personal and institutional relations that would serve him well throughout his career. He probably acquired these skills in the Bolton family matrix. As historian Frank Sulloway argues, siblings must develop strategies for obtaining their shares of family resources such as food, shelter, wealth, affection, and encouragement. Thus each child develops a niche in the family and a way of maximizing his or her chances for survival.21 The fourth son in a very large family, Herbert capitalized on his innate strengths and developed talents that set him apart from his older brothers. His good looks, athletic prowess, pleasing personality, affability, sense of humor, good health, capacity for hard work, attention to detail, and ability to get along with people made Herbert a good son, a successful student, and a valued employee. These personal qualities served him well throughout his life.
Fred, the second son, blazed the trail of higher education and escape for Herbert, but his older brother's struggle for advancement showed that the scholar's life was not a perfect meritocracy. A certain amount of shrewdness was needed in order to succeed, and Herbert, even as a teenager, seemed to have it. In 1887 Fred wanted a teacher's job at Tunnel City, so he wrote to Mrs. Janes (Gertrude's mother), who was a school board director.22 After Fred's mother went to
