 In his infancy, the Yavapai Indians were rumored to be preparing an attack on the settlement.Fearing that he might be killed without having been baptized, his mother summoned a neighbor and the two women christened him without benefit of clergy.He moved with his parents to Alden, New York in 1887 where his grandfather lived, and it was there that he gained a first-hand knowledge of dairy farmers' problems and polished his oratorical skills by giving speeches to the corn stalks in the fields.