By this time I could read and even imitate the copies set in the writing books. This, however, was not the real method by which I had learned to use the pen or rather pencil. Much more skill was acquired in little notes to Launa Probana during school hours, passed furtively under the desks and benches or hidden in a book which I was suddenly anxious to borrow or lend. What nothings we wrote! With what pains and searchings of the brain for words! Still I filled my bit of paper while Launa wrote only three words, yet her name signed in the tiniest letters satisfied me. With that name in my vest pocket I felt her near me, fixed my attention upon my book again, and learned my lessons more easily. I was conscious that she watched all my movements out of the corner of her eye, and at recitations it was she, who, when I hesitated and was lost, bending her head down so as not to be observed by the teacher, whispered softly the right word and saved me from shame. Thus in a thousand ways she repaid the boy's devotion, and however out-spelt or out-grammared he might be, where he stood, was for her the head of the class. What lessons we learned, not in any book nor taught by any teacher! After a year or two more of winter saw-mill and summer school my teacher thought I was old enough to write compositions, an exercise usual in all New England common schools. Long before this I thought myself competent and was ambitious to begin. It seemed too much a school exercise to be undertaken out of it. I saw the older pupils on appointed afternoons stand up in their places and read from their slates the compositions they had written. It fired my ambition beyond any of the other exercises or lessons. It seemed to me the very pinnacle of greatness to stand up and read a composition before the whole school. How I labored over my first little essay, not being able to think of anything, or to find language; how I began without any real beginning sentences that had no end; how I strung together words without connection or sense, how the whole school tittered and made faces as I read, how I sat down flushed, trembling, completely overwhelmed with mortification, it pains me even to remember. What would Launa care for me now! Without seeming to notice her I looked over to where she sat and saw that she was weeping. I did not speak to her for a whole week. Thus I punished myself, and all the week pondered how I could write something which should make her again proud of me and reinstate myself with my teacher and schoolmates. Suddenly it occurred to me that next time I would choose a subject of which I knew something. Wonderful discovery, which has been of use to me ever since; a bit as well as reins—this is the reason why I have not been a prolific writer. Between one book and the next I am totally forgotten. I found also thus early that one needs a muse. I had made a blunder in not taking Launa into my counsels, say rather into my mind, for I had never once thought of her while writing, nor that she would be my audience. No, I thought only of myself, and the distinction I should win all for myself. Thus experienced, I did not repeat my mistake. When we were next called upon for compositions, I coaxed Launa to go with me at the nooning to the shade of the old blacksmith shop, where I proposed that we should write them together. There sentence by sentence I made my little essay, covering one side of my slate, with Launa for inspirer and critic. My subject was the saw-mill, that one I knew best. There was a pricking of ears in the school-room when I named my humble subject, and an elder boy by my side whispered, "Now, give us some sawdust." I prospered this time and won a smile from Launa. Had I helped her at all in her own composition? I know not; yet when she read, it seemed to me I had written it myself. Such has always been my experience in regard to writing which I have admired, and thought I could do as well—until I tried.

Thus passed two happy summers and two lonely impatient winters; then I was ill with a fever and came to the doors of death. I never resumed my apprenticeship to the mill-wright. For some years succeeding my illness I suffered from periodical sick headache which, before and after, was accompanied by a dreadful depression, an indescribable apathy, a distaste for food, for play, for everything: I wished myself dead. My mother and sisters were very tender to me at this time; they amused me, they petted me, and in the evening read to me stories out of Merry's Museum and from the school readers. It was at this time I was sent on a visit to Boston, perhaps for my health and spirits. I say sent, for I went alone in a stage coach the thirty miles. Much preparation was made for my journey and many letters passed to relatives in Boston concerning it. I had a new cloak lined with bright red flannel, home-made, and a cap with an extremely flat crown and a tassel that fell upon my shoulder. These were the first articles of clothing that made me feel that everybody was looking at me, a feeling something between vanity and embarrassment. My cousin met me in Boston at the stage office and took me to his house in the old West End, at that time the residence of the respectable middle class, with here and there some more wealthy citizens. There were a few shops at the corners of the streets; but I did not venture beyond the street where my cousin lived and saw nothing at all of the city. I was taken to church on Sunday and once to the Museum, where I saw the elder Booth in Shylock. The only scene that made an impression upon me was that where Shylock is about to take his pound of flesh. He squatted upon the floor, his wild and terrible face turned directly upon me, as it seemed, while he sharpened his knife upon his rusty shoe. I was filled with terror and began to cry and begged to be taken away. Quite angry, yet pitying me, too, I suppose, my cousin led me out and home where I went at once to bed, covering my head tightly, unable to sleep for apprehension lest I should be discovered by Shylock. At the Players' Club, in New York City, in the last winter of Edwin Booth's life, I related this incident to him as a childish tribute to his father's power. "Yes," he said, "that was my father, and such things often happened among women and children when he was playing that character. He was dangerous at times, not to his audiences, but occasionally to his fellow actors."

I returned from Boston not much wiser nor more travelled than when I went. I found nothing there that gave me so much pleasure as the freedom of my own field, my sports and my companions. When asked what I had seen, what I had done, I candidly confessed, nothing; yet among boys I did feel a certain pride because I was the only one among them who had been to Boston. And I have found the result of nearly all travel is little more than the cheap avenue to conversation between those who have travelled over the same ground, or the feeling of superiority that one has wandered farther.

Although I was more active and restless than most boys, ever longing, yet with no definite object, I believe I should always have remained in the place of my birth, except for family exigencies, for I had no ambitions, no special talent nor practical faculty. When I reflect on the futility of literature without genius, or the miserly rewards of scholarship, or the disastrous conclusion in a majority of business enterprises, I confess the life of a New England farmer is to be preferred. It was so ordered that opportunities, which I never could have made for myself, came to me unsought and without effort. Such education as I have, a miscellany of odds and ends of learning, and such things as I have accomplished, are the chance results of various and disconnected impulses; and God himself has given me my beautiful friends. I have found them waiting for me all along my path, and their attachment has always filled me with astonishment and gratitude; for I cannot think it is anything I have done that should deserve it. So I relegate it to that indefinable, unconscious self which is hidden from our own knowledge. On the whole, who is he, that would not rather be loved for himself than for his book, his horses or his honors? He, who is capable of friendship, and inspires it, is happier than Alexander with worlds conquered and to be conquered.

After much counselling and agitating of the change, my mother moved from Bellingham, which was her native place, to Hopkinton; and, from this time forth to the end of her life, she continued to change her residence from town to town as work, cheaper rent, or the persuasion of friends induced her. My eldest sister and I went with her. The change filled me with a pleasant excitement, although we were going to the same place and the very same house where I had suffered so much from home-sickness. I did not then know that in leaving my birthplace I left behind me the fountain head of half my later musings, regrets and imaginings. In returning now, I find naught but the graves of my family, the elm of my childhood, fallen to the ground, its bleached trunk and larger limbs reminding me of a skeleton, the well filled with stones, and the Red House converted into a woodshed. The river still flows by; one great pine still murmurs and wonders what has become of the children once playing in its shade; the pond, the arched bridge which spanned its outflow are unchanged. And Launa, I fear to inquire what has become of her, though I never lost her. She followed and reappeared in all my wanderings.



BOOTMAKING

In Hopkinton I began to feel myself too old to play with girls. Boys were numerous and knew more than those I had met before. I soon caught up with their manners and customs, and in some respects bettered them. I outdid them in mischief, looted the best apple trees, beat them at ball and managed to escape my tasks oftener. My work was stitching the counters of boots; my mother and sister filled their spare time with the same employment. Indeed, at this period it was our sole means of support. The making of boots, pegged boots, double soled and welted, with legs treed until they were as stiff and hard as boards, was the chief occupation of all that portion of the town called Hayden Row. For a mile or more up and down this street were the houses of the bootmakers, each with its little shop, either attached to the house, or built in the yard. Each had from two to six workers. Generally every part of the boot was made in these shops; the stock was cut and distributed from some larger shop to which the finished boots were returned to be put in cases and shipped. The smaller shops were the centers for the gossip, rumors and discussions which agitated the community. There men sharpened their wits upon each other, played practical jokes, sang, argued the questions of that day, especially slavery, and arranged every week from early spring to late autumn a match game of ball either among themselves or the bootmakers of neighboring towns for Saturday afternoon, which was their half holiday. All this was possible where the men sat on low benches, making scarcely any noise, and doing work which did not often require concentrated attention. My uncle was a stern abolitionist, as were the other bootmakers; and before I knew it, I was one; nor did I know at that time that there was any other opinion in the world. Little did I understand or care for the subject. My uncle took the Liberator, and it was sometimes read aloud in the shop, and I can remember feeling angry at some of the stories of cruelty to slaves. I am glad I was brought up in such an atmosphere, for I have not changed on this point, as I have in so many other of my beliefs. The only church in the place was the Methodist, and my mother had, almost for the first time since her conversion at the age of fourteen, an opportunity of mingling with the brethren and sisters of her own faith. The chief financial pillar of the Methodists of New England, Lee Claflin, was a citizen of Hopkinton, although his place of business was Boston. He was, when I knew him, a rather short, fat man with a large head and a face beaming with benevolence and good will. To be noticed, to be spoken to by him was a great honor, so that when he laid his hand upon my head and inquired if I were a child of grace, although I had not the least idea what he meant, I was equal to the occasion and said, "Yes, sir." My mother smiled at my confession and I have no doubt her heart was made glad; for though she was not at all rigid in the religious discipline of her children, the great desire of her life was that they should be converted and saved from the toils of Satan. I had, as early as I had any conception of my own, a certain image of Satan as something huge, an aggregation of all the largest objects with which I was most familiar, arms and legs as long as the tallest trees and church steeples, and it was of his size that I was afraid, rather than of his temptations and torments, which I heard thundered from the pulpit. I had a fear, born of sundry rough encounters with larger boys, of that which was superior in strength, and to me Satan was as a big and ugly boy, whom I sometimes looked for along the road, expecting him to dart out from behind the stone walls, or clumps of bushes. Many writers have said harsh things about the former religious creeds and preaching of our New England forefathers, especially in their effects upon children. I do not agree with them. It did often save the wayward from peril, and offered a rich field for the imaginative interpretations of children. What does the modern child find in a modern sermon to give him any sort of quickening? Yes, my dear pulpit orators, with no wing left to imp your eloquence, recover Satan in all his immense, Miltonic grandeur and energy.

Those happy Hopkinton days were filled with many new and fascinating objects and boyish pursuits to which I gave an undivided heart. I learned all the tricks and sleight-of-hand with which the bootmakers amused themselves and puzzled each other in their shops. I was long in discovering the secret of the best trick of all, which was making names and pictures appear on the bare plaster of the shop walls by striking on them with a woolen cap such as we all wore. Then there were all sorts of string, button and ball tricks, and my pockets were full of articles with which to astonish the uninitiated. He, who introduced or invented a new trick or puzzle, was the hero of the shops for a day; and for many days after, as soon as learned, the men and boys were confounding each other by its performance. In those days Signor Blitz was travelling the country, giving his necromantic shows, and left behind him everywhere a taste for his wonderful performances. Our ingenuity was exercised in weaving watch chains in various patterns with silk twist; in making handsome bats for ball, and in making the balls themselves with the ravelled yarn of old stockings, winding it over a bit of rubber, and in sewing on a cover of fine thin calf skin. This ball did not kill as it struck one, and, instead of being thrown to the man on the base, was more usually thrown at the man running between them. He who could make a good shot of that kind was much applauded, and he who was hit was laughed at and felt very sheepish. That was true sport, plenty of fun and excitement, yet not too serious and severe. The issue of the game was talked over for a week. I did my daily stint of stitching with only one thing in mind, to play ball when through; for the boys played every afternoon. When there was to be an important match game the men practised after the day's work was done.

Meanwhile my education was entirely neglected. I attended no school at this time, either summer or winter, and came as near acquiring a trade as I have ever done. In fact I longed to be able to make the whole of a boot, to last, peg, trim, gum, blackball and stone it, all processes of the craft as then practised. But how does one know when he is learning? I was laying up a good store of things more valuable than any in books, whilst the free life I led was preparing in me the soft and impressionable tablets on which could be traced future experiences and acquisitions of a more intellectual kind. Tomorrow would come and this was its preparation. Yet not consciously can one prepare for it all that it is to hold. I became a graduate of the shops of the bootmakers before acquiring the whole of their trade, but not before absorbing most of that which constituted the overflow of their lives. I began to imitate the manners and conversation of men. Ridiculed for this, I retreated into myself and became more observant and more silent. A small, very dim yet new light appeared to me—reflection, silent thoughts at night, and when alone; questionings with no least effort at answers. My new world as yet was not much more than a mile square, as in my native town; within that mile I knew every natural object and all the people. Everybody called me by my first name, prefixing, usually, "little curly" or "snub-nose," and my companions gave me nicknames according to their likes or dislikes. I much affected the company of boys older than myself, especially my cousins, whom I naturally looked up to and very much admired. They would have none of me, called me "nuisance" and "tag-tail." This last epithet wounded me sorely and made me slink away like a whipped cur. Added to my mile-square world, I had now also the germs of memory. Faintly and at long intervals I remembered my life in Bellingham; but it seemed another planet, far off, indistinct, and I had as yet no desire to return to it.



LOVE AND LUXURY

My mother had three daughters, one had died within a year of my father's death. She was the belle of the neighborhood, fair-haired and blue-eyed, not very tall, graceful and attractive. Every one admired her and her friends loved her ardently. She had already ventured into verse, religious in tone, and affectionate effusions to her girl friends. With a little education she had begun to teach school. She was my first teacher and the school her first. We were very fond of each other. Her kiss was the only one I did not shrink from and try to escape. She took most of the care of me, and I always slept in the same room with her. Usually I went to sleep in her bed, and in the morning crept back into it. When death came and took her away from me, when I found, in the darkened room to which my mother led me where she lay in a white dress, that she did not kiss me nor even speak, I was frightened and awed. In a short time I forgot her; but before I grew to be a man I recovered her, and shed the tears long due her love and loss. Another older sister was already a successful teacher in the district schools of the region, so successful indeed, that she taught winters as well as summers, which was unusual for women teachers to attempt. Several winters she had undertaken schools, the pupils of which were so unruly that no man could be found who was able to control them. At length, through friends who knew her success and abilities, she was invited to take charge of a private school in Norwich, Connecticut. Her pupils were from the wealthy and influential families of the upper, the aristocratic part of the city, round about Savin Hill and along the Yantic riverside. After she had become established there, she took me back with her at the end of a spring vacation. I found myself among a very different class of children from any I had ever known, highbred, well-mannered and well-dressed, I felt at first abashed and suppressed; but as we were all children, more or less unconscious of distinctions in rank, democrats at heart, I soon came to terms with them; if there were any barriers, they were broken down as soon as we began to play together. There is no realm of equality like that of the playground; there you are estimated on your merits, your skill, your honor and good nature. In two weeks I felt perfectly at home, and already had two or three cronies to whom I was devoted. I dreaded the hour of my return to my mother. It came; I found myself again among men in shirtsleeves, and boys in blue jean overalls; my mother's oven no more busy than of old, my hands black with leather and sticky with wax, I, who had been eating the fine fare of rich men's tables with silver forks and knives that shone like mirrors. The world had been changed in a few weeks and fifty miles of travel. I felt myself no part of anything around me; I loathed it and longed to return to my sister. I had had a taste of better things, or so they seemed, or was it their novelty? I began to look down with shame and disgust at the humble life around me. Above all I wanted to escape my task and wondered how I had ever wished to be a bootmaker.

Norwich was a small and beautiful city, well planted with trees, the houses large and set in ample ground. Two riven meet there to form a third, the Thames, at the head of which is the port or Landing as it is called. At the port of the city I had for the first time seen steamers and sailing vessels. Strange and wonderful creatures they were to me, and I asked a thousand questions about them without comprehending in the least the answers. I was told they sailed down the river with the tide, past New London, then out upon the sea, and at once and ever since I always behold vessels, as it were, double, one near and another far away, disappearing on some vast level plain. Here was water enough, water, the most fascinating thing in nature, tempting by its dangers to boyish adventures, and I determined to be a sailor as soon as I was old enough and could get back to Norwich. How to get back was the problem I vexed myself over day and night for weeks and months. My sister returning home for her summer vacation, I continued to tease and coax until she consented to my wishes. My small trunk, covered with hairy cow hide, was packed with my few belongings, and with a gay heart I left the town and my mother's door never to return permanently, and as blind as a stone to what I was going away for; I was going—that was all that concerned me. There was no future; time does not exist for children; yesterdays are faint, tomorrows undreamed, today endless. Arriving in Norwich, at once, I felt at home. I met my former playmates without a greeting, and just as if we had not been separated for half a year. Nothing was changed; we resumed our sports, and every afternoon at the close of school, in which I was now a pupil, we played among the cedars of Savin Hill; or else we paired off and spent our time with the dogs, rabbits and pigeons and other pets owned by my different companions. I had myself one hen which the good dame, with whom my sister and I boarded, allowed me to keep in a large box in her yard. I spent much of my time, when without companions, with my hen. I made her many nests in hopes of enticing her to lay eggs, for which I was promised a cent apiece by dame Onion. I cannot recall how I came by this hen, nor what was her final fate. What trifles we pursue! What trifles connect the seven ages of life, more often remembered than the real steps of our career. So let biddy spread her wing as wide as Jove's eagle, and eat gravel with Juno's peacock; and in this narration I keep company with my betters, who have not lowered their dignity by confessing their obligations to the beasts of the field, the birds of the air and to all those friendly creatures which dwell in the shelter of the house and the barnyard. So, little red hen, I leave thee here on the road by which I strayed, playing and singing, into the fearful arena of life, walled and thousand-eyed; whether we fall or triumph, the spectacle and the wonder of an hour.

Whether it were better to be the limpet fixed to its rock, forever free from change, or the wild gull soaring over shores and sea, now wading in the mud, now riding gloriously on the crest of the billows, is a query which has often agitated me since the time I abandoned the home of my childhood. For me there was no return now to the rock. I thought of my home with a gloomy dread lest I should have to return to it. Such forebodings, however, were rare and did not interfere with my complete enjoyment of present pleasures. Along with them I caught the manners of the little aristocrats of my sister's school. It was an ideal company of boys and girls, handsome, refined and innocent. My sister herself was a natural lady and rigorous in her demands for perfect conduct on the part of her pupils. She spared me least of all, as more needing such discipline, and also, I suppose, that she might escape any suspicion of sisterly partiality. I have ever been extremely open to personal influences and environment, and apt to take on the customs and opinions of those with whom I mingle. What one gains so is a part of his education. It is true there is a lurking danger as well as advantage, and we may be wrecked or carried into a safe harbor according to the accidents of life and the power or feebleness of the will. My good fortune was seemingly great at this time, having such a sister to watch over me and such influences around me. On the other hand I was disqualified by it for living the life of a poor man which circumstances have made imperative; and it required many years to reconcile me to my lot and to discover other riches by which a man might make his life honorable and happy. My sister's pupils were affectionately attached to her and this feeling was soon shared by their parents. She visited among them continually, and always took me with her. I saw the inside of the houses of the rich, the leading citizens of Norwich, governors and ex-governors of the state, senators, the Rockwells, Greens, Tylers, Williams, Backuses, Lusks, and others, and became used to the elegancies and luxuries of their households. My sister seemed to be recognized as their equal, as well she might be. She was a woman to win her way anywhere; distinguished looking, full of tact and efficiency. She was tall, with a perfect figure and graceful movement. Her eyes were large and dark, her hair black and abundant, in this being the only one of my mother's children who resembled her, as she did also in the contour of her face and nose. She was of a hopeful and joyous temperament and full of energy; by this latter gift she had raised herself from the humblest position to one of influence and acquired in no long time much reputation as a remarkably successful teacher, and her services were in constant demand. She was also a favorite in all classes of society and knew how to adjust herself to the humblest and the highest of her fellow creatures. From the time of her father's death she had been the prop of the family, the mover in all their plans and the provider of their needs. Over me she had a special charge and a sacred duty, for my father, conscious of the too gentle nature of his wife and the poverty in which he was about to leave her, had on his deathbed, committed, had indeed made a solemn gift of his little boy to the daughter whom he trusted most; and for fifty years did she fulfil that trust. On her tombstone are engraved these brief but true words: "Faithful daughter, sister, friend, teacher." New England has been full of such devoted, self-sacrificing daughters and sisters, and still is. I do not single her out as exceptional, but to give her the tribute she merits, and that she may not be among the uncounted and unremembered where these pages shall be read.

In my sister's school besides good manners, which now seem to me the best part of my education, I learned to draw and to sing; and in which I delighted most, it were hard to say. Never before had I heard any music, except that of the doleful and droning church choir. We sang simple songs about nature, conduct, duties to the Heavenly Father, to parents and teacher. Their notes lingered in my ears for a great many years, and I can still hum some of them. We drew plain figures, blocks, cones, the sides and roofs of buildings and outlines of trees. In penmanship I made no progress, and it was always unformed and illiterate until I was a man, and took it in hand without a teacher. My two years' detention from school did not seem to put me into classes below me in age. I could read and spell very well. There were other longer or shorter periods when my education was entirely interrupted; yet I did not have to begin my studies exactly where I had left off. Something carries us along unconsciously and a natural intelligence bridges over the superficial differences between ourselves and our associates. How often have I deceived myself into thinking I knew something when it was merely a borrowed acquirement, as it were, a cuticular absorption from a transient environment or interest, from classmates, social circles, clubs and books. Great books are the most flattering deceivers of all. I never read one that did not touch me nearly in this way. The fall to my own proper level is painful, but has been somewhat stayed and alleviated by reading another. Being of this plastic, imitative nature, I soon took on the manners and childish ideas of my companions in my sister's school. I was already aristocrat enough to look down with indifference upon the boys of the Landing and other parts of the town, and at a good safe distance, to call them by some insulting name. We never came to blows, nor ever nearer than a stone's throw. By the natural elective affinities, which seem to be more marked among boys and girls than among men and women, I formed the closest intimacy with two brothers about my own age. They belonged to the leading family among my sister's patrons. Their father was a wealthy, retired manufacturer who had held every honor Norwich had to bestow. The boys were indulged in all their wishes, in every kind of pet animal that walks or flies, a menagerie of small creatures in cages, ponies for the saddle and dogs to follow. In these I was allowed to share as if my own, and their house was as much mine as theirs, more often taking supper in it than at my boarding place. Thus becoming familiar with and possessing the pleasures which wealth can furnish a boy, I knew not what a fall I was preparing for myself when the thread of my destiny should lead me back into its narrow and tortuous path. How is any one responsible for such passages in his life which carry him into situations and form in him tastes and propensities that must be relinquished with much sorrow or maintained with peril? But the hour of doom was not yet, and my pleasant days had no omen that their sun would ever set. In truth that sun has never set on the days when I was in the company and close beside the one girl in my sister's school with whom I felt the passionless, but none the less ardent delight. Laugh who will—"Her sweet smile haunts me still." Never was sweeter or more captivating on the face of a girl or woman, and it was perpetually there, whether she spoke or only looked in your eyes. By it I should even now recognize her among a thousand. If I had then known that souls are reincarnated, I should have known by her smile that she was the Launa Probana of my earliest awakening. I never played with her, but I was in the same class; she was at the head of it in spelling exercises, where, in the then customary manner, we went up when we mastered a word missed by the pupil below. I was always struggling to stand next to her, and when I did, I was happy. That is how I learned to spell so well! I had become diffident with girls and as much more so with her as I was fond of being with her. Consequently we spoke to each other but little. To be where she was was enough. Those inclinations and awkward attentions, which betray the situation to the onlooker, I manifested always in her presence without suspicion of being observed. I was alert to win her notice by any sort of indirection, and embarrassed to speechlessness when I had won it. There were certain occasions when I could count on having her for my companion, when we found ourselves together by some inevitable attraction. These were on the excursions which my sister was fond of taking with her whole school to places of interest in the vicinity of Norwich. The holiday freedom, the excitement, made it easier for me to be more demonstrative than usual toward the new-found Launa. Yet we were still too young and sensitive for indulgence in the physical tokens of affection. We often walked hand in hand, yet under cover of that which was a permissible and usual gallantry among all the children of the school, the secret attachment of any pair was pleasantly and sufficiently hidden even from themselves. Wondrous were the places we visited; places of historic or natural interest; to Groton by steamboat, where we saw Fort Griswold and its monument to the heroes of the Revolutionary fight, and its still surviving heroine, Mother Bailey, who tore up her petticoat to make cartridges for the gunners. We called upon the venerable woman in her neat, little cottage. She was very proud of her fame. She related the story of the fight, not omitting her part in it. "Do you think I am a very old woman?" she said to us. "Well, see," and in an instant she was whirling around the room in an old fashioned jig. Then we returned to the Fort, and in its enclosure we opened our baskets and ate our cakes and apples. I sometimes think that was the happiest day of my life. Certainly it was the very beginning of what is called seeing the world. What, is not the first steamboat ride, and with your sweetheart, the first fort, the scene of a battle and the most celebrated heroine of the Revolution something? My sweetheart was the only thing not entirely novel; her smiles ever recalled the memory of Launa Probana. All the way home we stood on deck, leaning over the rail, watching the swirl and foam from the paddle wheels, and our tongues were loosened. As usual, in my attempts at seeming superior to girl companions, I undertook to explain things about which I knew nothing. Now, any boy could put me down in a minute with, "how big you talk;" but my gentler hearer led me on with her acquiescence and her trusting, wondering eyes. The teacher's brother was somebody in her estimation; he was a new kind of boy. The other boys she had known all her life, commonplace, tiresome teasers or clowns. That awkward impediment, a rival, I had not to contest or fear. All went well with us until I fell from the ranks of the aristocracy and became a menial shop boy in a store. But before that eclipse there were other happy days and joyous experiences. Together we visited the grave of the Indian Uncas, and the remnant of his tribe at Montville; we drove often to Fishville, where was an estate laid out in a foreign fashion with grottoes, mazes, fountains, strange trees and shrubbery and a museum of curiosities.

Doubtless it was not the intention of my sister at this time to educate me. Perhaps she saw nothing in me worthy of it. I do not much wonder at her conviction, if such it was, as I look at a daguerreotype of myself taken about that period, a round head, mostly hair, a low forehead, a pair of round eyes, thick nose and lips and short neck, altogether just such a solid, stolid child as one would expect to see from the country, bred in the sun and cold, and fed on brown bread and milk. My being with my sister, and a pupil in her school was a temporary expedient until a place could be found for me. At length it was found, a situation in a dry goods store, where I could earn my board and clothing. Thus without warning I fell completely out of the ranks of the elect and again returned to servitude as a shop boy, a runner of errands, a builder of fires and floor-sweeper.



SHOP BOY

In country stores the man or boy behind the counter was an enviable person. Many boys had no higher ambition than to be a store-keeper. I was now behind the counter, and although there was nothing in a dry goods shop to interest me as in the country store, with its varied assortment of goods, tools, crockery and candies, I felt rather proud of my position, especially when permitted to wait on a customer. He seemed an inferior sort of a person, and I had no idea at first of conciliating him and making a sale. It was not then the custom to observe a fixed price and simply show the goods; but clerks were expected and instructed to use persuasion, to expatiate on quality and beauty, and to take less than they first asked. The cost price was marked with secret characters; the selling price was variable. The more you could get out of a gullible customer, the better; and he who could get the most was the smartest clerk. A thrifty purchaser would beat down the price little by little, the sharp clerk yielding with many protestations until a last offer was made, when, with feigned hesitation, the clerk would wrap up the goods. One thinks he has bought a cheap bargain, the other figures the profit and laughs in his sleeve. It was not my particular duty to wait upon customers except in a rush of trade, or early in the day before the other clerks had arrived. I opened the store in the morning, swept the floors and sidewalk, dusted the counters, filled the lamps, and in winter built the fire. During the day I ran on errands, delivered goods and was the fag of the proprietor and his two clerks. I soon chafed under the confinement, and when sent out of the store I made no haste to return; the farther away the bundle was to be delivered the better I liked it, and I always took the longest way, loitering about, making acquaintance with strange boys, dogs and any wayside apple or pear tree. If possible I skirted the region of the wharves and the rivers, where I always found something interesting going on, a vessel arriving or leaving, sailors chaffing and fighting. Sometimes I received a small fee for delivering the bundle at the door of a lady, but this happened rarely; it was not the custom, and seldom was I even thanked. I had only two memorable adventures on my travels; one was an attack on my breeches by a savage dog, and the other—shall I confess it—almost as disagreeable. A young and handsome woman, whom I had often seen in the store, and knew me, I imagine, better than I knew her, called me into the house with my package, set me on her knees, petted and kissed me, and asked me a lot of questions about one of the clerks. I have reason to believe her tender behavior was meant rather for her beloved clerk than for me. I reported nothing on my return, only, on being reproved for my long absence, I said, "Miss—had kept me," which made the clerk look sheepish. I was not sent to her house again. The clerks, however, did use me a good deal as an innocent pander in their various intrigues with the pretty and fast girls of the town. I carried notes, concealed in dry goods bundles, and brought back answers in my jacket pocket, which I was instructed to deliver on the sly.

The proprietor of the store to whom I was bound, and in whose family I lived, was a tall, thin, sallow-faced man. He had a nervous manner, but he was not unkind to me. He clothed and fed me well. He chewed tobacco and was brimming over with funny stories, funny and usually indelicate. I heard much swearing, too, and I began to think it the proper thing to try to be wicked myself. I was greatly attached to the two clerks, and they were my models in everything. One of them was also the bookkeeper of the establishment as well as a salesman. He dressed after the mode in trig, close-fitting suits; his pantaloons were like tights, and only kept on his legs by straps under his boots. He played and fooled with me in idle hours. The other clerk was exceedingly sober, often melancholy, seldom smiled and had nothing to do with me, rarely speaking to me. I stood in awe and admiration of him. He wrote poetry for the local newspaper, and I think he felt above us all, and above his position. He belonged to a distinguished family, and why he happened to be a dry goods clerk I never knew. He seemed as much out of his natural place as I. How restless and penned up I felt at times no words can tell. The lean dog with freedom, is much more to be envied than the chained dog with a golden collar. It was a small store of only three counters, and during unoccupied hours there was nothing on the shelves or in drawers with which I could amuse myself. In mere desperation for something to occupy myself I counted spools of cotton and silk, unrolled and rolled again pieces of goods, and many a hot summer afternoon, when both the shops and the streets were deserted, I caught flies and put them in a bottle, and then smoked them to death.

I now seldom saw my former playmates. Their families traded at a much larger and more fashionable store. Our customers were of an humbler class, mainly from the suburbs and adjoining villages. But a boy does not long remain companionless, be there another boy within reach. I became intimate first with a lad in a grocery store, whereby there was considerable access to sugar, raisins and other sweets; through him, together with others in similar situations, I was made a member of their secret society, having been tested as to strength, reliability and other qualifications. Our badge was a red morocco star, worn under the left lappet of the vest. The only purpose of the club that I could ever discover, was to lick every boy who did not belong to it! I was expected to celebrate my initiation by challenging three non-members, which I proceeded to do, licked two and met my match in the third. Then I was warned to attack only boys smaller than myself. The morals of the club were meant to be on a par with those of much older boys, but signally failed. We were as bad as we knew how to be; none of us had the courage or the enterprise to do the naughty things which so excited our emulation in our elders. However, we insulted and beat all the goody-good boys in our way, swore small oaths, smoked and swaggered until sick with nausea, and crowning achievement, learned what a Tom and Jerry tasted like, enticed merely by the name. It was not until we had Ike Bromley for a leader, that we fairly succeeded in being as bad as we wished. He had an instinct for mischief and deviltry, and a way with him that led captive the heart and devotion of all boys. Daring and cool, he could carry a sober, innocent face which would disarm a detective and charm a deacon. Whoever got caught or punished, he always escaped. No one could have guessed at this time that he would become one of the most brilliant journalists of his day, the wittiest and most engaging of men at a dinner table, a boon companion, and beloved friend. Money was very scarce with us; what little we had we earned in various outside ways, in doing extra errands or selling old rubbers, old boots, copper and brass. In fact we were the scavengers of the town, and had the run of all the cellars. We managed to sneak or steal our way into most of the shows that visited the town. For some reason, now quite incomprehensible, the wharves were our most common rendezvous. And for what object we spent our small funds on raw clams, eaten out of the shell, and doused with pepper sauce, (which, for my part, I could with the greatest difficulty swallow, bringing tears to my eyes, and burning in my throat for a week after), I as little know, but now suppose it was in imitation of the rough men and sailors about the piers with whom we consorted, and whom we wished to impress with our manliness. Indeed, with all the rough characters about the streets we made friends and aped their manners as much as we could, two or three notoriously fast, rich young men being our particular heroes. Nothing saved us from the realization of our ideals but our extreme youth and native innocence, and perhaps some lurking sense that we were playing at vice, with fire that would not burn and water that would not drown. There was one thing we were ambitious to do, yet could not screw our courage to the sticking point; we wanted to get drunk to see how it felt. Either a Tom and Jerry had not sufficient potency, or we could never find the bottom of the glass before our stomachs rebelled, for we only paid the penalty in a penitential headache without the fun of the debauch.

I realized all the while the peril of my ways in case they should come to light, which only served to increase the excitement, though now and then I had some serious moments. Several times I barely escaped discovery, and our pranks often defied punishment because of our number and the ease with which we could shoulder off the blame on one another. I now thought of the children of my sister's school, with whom I had recently been so intimate, with contempt as far beneath me in knowing how to have real sport.

Although I continued to be the menial of the store, I had acquired some knowledge of the business; could snap a piece of broadcloth to show its firm quality and nap, hang dress goods in proper folds over my arm to give an idea how they would look when made up, and talk quite glibly on the cheapness of our wares in comparison with those of our competitors. I could see that the small boy in a jacket, and only two heads higher than the counter, amused the men customers with his brag attempt at being a salesman, and that the women smiled down upon him approvingly—all of which he took as a compliment to his success; for successful he often was, to the surprise of the older clerks. With what pride did I enter my sales on a slate kept for the purpose under the cash drawer. I surmised that the women sometimes bought goods just to encourage the boy. The clerks laughed and made fun of me telling me it was my rosy cheeks that sold the goods. Young ladies frequented the shop for no other purpose than to chat and flirt with the clerks, and one I remember always kissed me at any favorable chance. How I hated my red checks, and tried my best to rub out the color. It was a comfort to be told I should outgrow it, and then the girls would not care for me. For two long years I had ceased to care for them. It was even with some shame that I thought of my Launas, they, who later in life, have formed many an ideal of loveliness.

It is said the child in the womb passes through all animal forms in its growth from the germ to birth. Whether any incipient wings have been observed I have not heard. In much the same way the boy represents in his growth the different stages of civilization from the savage to the civilized man. Some time the average boy typifies the Indian, the cowboy, prizefighter, pirate, sailor, soldier; and all classes of rough, wild men are wonderfully attractive to him. He wishes to be like them and plays at being one of them. For more than a year I was greatly attached to the ruffians on the wharves, and to such of the Montville Indians as I could make friends with. A wandering party of Indians from the Penobscot tribe had their tents pitched for a whole summer just outside the city, with whom I became intimate, and spent my leisure time with them. I made my errands go their way, however long the circuit. I should have gone away with them, would they have had me. To live in a tent and shoot with a bow became to me the ideal of life. Strange it is that the most vivid memory of that episode remaining with me is the peculiar smell of the Indians; but it was not then offensive to me.

All these propensities were greatly stimulated by reading at this time the Wandering Jew of Eugene Sue. I had found the volume, a paper covered pamphlet edition, in a drawer in the store. I carried it home secretly and read it at night. After I was supposed to be in bed and asleep, and the house still, I used to get up, partly dress, light my lamp and read often until midnight or as long as the oil held out. I doubt if any one knows the supreme pleasure and excitement of reading, who has not read a book surreptitiously. All the mysteries and horrors of the Wandering Jew entered into my soul, and while it opened a scene and actions utterly new to me, it sobered me far beyond anything that had ever happened to me. About the same time I had many gloomy days and nights of terror from having seen the bodies of twenty-five drowned passengers from the wreck of a steamboat which plied between Norwich and New York City. Our poet clerk took me with him to see them the morning they were brought to the dock on another steamboat of the same line. They were laid out in rows on the main deck, frozen stiff, for it was the winter season, covered with sand and particles of ice, their flesh dreadfully lacerated and blue, their features contorted into ghastly shapes. Among them were two men whom we knew well, frequenters of our store. I clung to the hand of the clerk, and should have fainted, had he not taken me away immediately. He himself was overcome, and his sad face was sadder and longer for many days. The whole city was in gloom and mourning. A revival, which was in progress in one of the Baptist churches, added greatly to its converts in consequence of the accident, and the presence of death in such near and fearful form.



PISTOL MAKER

At length Fortune took a new turn at her wheel. Suddenly the store door closed behind me; broom, oil can, coal hod and scissors knew me no more. I rejoiced in my release and in the prospect of new scenes, new faces and pleasures. What was to be my occupation did not give me one thought; I had as yet no choice, no preference. Wherever there were boys was my world and my trade.

Two of my sister's influential patrons, who had been instrumental in bringing her to Norwich, removed their business to Worcester, Mass. She followed them, and, as usual, I followed her. The business of her patrons was the manufacture of pistols, a patented, six-barrelled, self-cocking revolver, the first of its kind, I believe, ever invented, and a wonder in its day. The whole six barrels revolved on a rod running through their center, and by one and the same ratchet movement the hammer was raised and the chambers of the barrel thrown into position to receive the discharge from a percussion cap. There was a great demand for these pistols in the South and West. It was, I suppose, on account of my sister's intimacy with the families of these manufacturers that a place was found for me in their works.

See me now no longer in a linen shirt and brown broadcloth jacket, but again in blue jean overalls, with grimy, oily hands and dirty face, shut in walls from which was no escape for ten hours each day. The lathes, hand tools, forges and engine which operated the machinery were novel and interesting to me at first. I was the only boy in the establishment. The workmen, all skilled mechanics, were a remarkably fine body of men. They earned large wages, lived quite comfortably, and were prominent in their several circles and churches. One of them became Lieut. Gov. of Mass. I was placed under the charge of the foreman of the first floor where the heavier part of the material of the pistol was prepared. I did the odd jobs of the room, worked a punching machine and managed the lathe that turned the rough outside of the pistol barrel. My master took an active personal interest in me and was very minute and painstaking in his instructions. He was a very pious man and lost no opportunity of exhorting me to seek religion and become converted. It made no impression on me; I understood no word he said. Besides, just the same words had always been familiar to me and had never conveyed any meaning to my simple ears. It did not trouble me to be called a sinner; it never occurred to me to question whether I was or not. In short in my innocence and indifference, I was a perfect type of the thing itself, as understood by the church. But when my master invited me to go a-fishing on some half holiday, that was a very different sort of a text, which I well understood. Alas, when the fish did not bite, it gave an uncomfortable opportunity for a little exhortation. In addition to the work in the shop I spent much time in the office, where I was employed in putting the last touches to the pistols before being packed for delivery. I burnished the silver plates, set in the handles, cleaned and oiled the chambers, hammers and nipples, and polished the whole with fine chamois skin. Thus I had a hand in the beginning and completion of the construction of a pistol, and knew pretty well all the intermediate operations. I also obtained an inkling of the way the business was conducted by hearing the conversation and discussions of the proprietors. I heard many secrets. Some of them confused my small glimmerings of moral sense. It seemed to me that I had known the same sort of obliquities among boys in the swapping of jacknives. I heard the bookkeeper say one day, "business is business; this is no Sunday school." I had bewildering thoughts. Was it possible these pistols were not what they seemed and would not kill a man? For I knew they were sold mostly in the South for the fighting of duels. I longed to try one on a cat. The sun rose and set on my suspicions, with never a solution. To this day I cannot rid myself of an innate doubt when I make a purchase. I expect to be cheated.

I seemed in a fair way at last of acquiring a trade, and it might have been, except for the accident of my boarding place. For there I first came in contact with books and students. It was not a regular boarding house, save for three months in the winter. I was taken into the family on account of its association with mine long before in Bellingham. The master of the house had formerly been the clergyman of that town, but was now a botanic-eclectic physician and general medical professor of a school, which held one winter session in his house. It was attended by only a dozen students. Lobelia was Prof. ——'s strong point. Everybody in the house was put through a course of lobelia with a heavy sweat, sometimes to cure a slight indisposition, but more often as an experiment. My only escape from the drudgery of the workshop was in feigning sickness and undergoing the Professor's panacea. This confined me to the bed for a day and gave me another day for recovery, when I could be about and enjoy myself. These sweatings and retchings took the color out of my cheeks so that when I returned to the shop it was easily believed that I had been ill, and, with considerable sympathy, my master also warned me of the brevity and uncertainty of life and the necessity of preparing for the day of wrath. Little did he know how all this could be escaped by a good dose of lobelia.

It was a curious life I led at this time between my regular occupation, lobelia, the dissecting room of the professor and frequent religious exhortations. I was immensely delighted by the secrets of the basement cellar, where, in winter, the cadavers were kept I became accustomed to the sight of them, and frequently inspected them when alone, curious to see the internal structure of a human body, for until that time I was not conscious of any internal structure of the human body. Hands and feet were the epitome of my physiology. The whole business of dissection was conducted in the most clandestine manner, although the subjects were obtained from Boston and were, no doubt, honestly procured. There was probably some professional reason for their being all women. I know not why, but I seemed to be trusted by the Professor and his little band of students, and when cadavers arrived at the railroad station by express, I was often sent to watch them until they could be removed. They came in large casks packed in oats.

I had little time to make acquaintance with boys, as I was not allowed on the street in the evening, and Sunday was strictly observed. Nor did I know any girls of my own age. With the pretty waitress of the Professor's dining-room, some years older than myself, I had occasional ardent encounters on back stairs and in dark entries. I was less embarrassed by them than formerly and began to play the beau. As usual, only girls much older than myself attracted me. I began to have the same experience with regard to men. There were even some moments when I dimly realized why some men were respected and honored. For the proprietors of the pistol factory I had a deep reverence. One of them, the inventor of the self-cocking pistol, was the model of a reserved, dignified gentleman. I saw much of him in the office attending to his business, deciding and despatching it with few words. The other member of the firm was in complete contrast to his partner. His round, jolly face was always wreathed in smiles, a joke, a pun, or story always forthcoming, and business the last thing to be considered. He was a college graduate and a poet of local reputation. It is singular in my boyhood how often I happened to be dropped in the vicinity of small poets. This gentleman was, like myself, a native of Bellingham, and on that account he sometimes noticed me and made inquiries after my well-being. He seemed to me a very great man, chiefly because he wrote poetry and had it printed in books. I imagine that he expected me to remain a mechanic, and had little thought of the influence he was unconsciously exerting over the future. Nor did I myself recognize it, until years later when my first article appeared in a magazine; feeling some pride in this grand, world-moving effort, I sent it to him as a lawful tribute. Time had not been kind to him; he had almost lost the use of his hand for writing and was using some sort of mechanical contrivance for that purpose. But the fire of the proselyter still burned in him, and he ended his note of acknowledgment with the old familiar query about the salvation of my soul.



THE AWAKENING

Having no boy associates I began to cultivate the Professor's students. I spent my leisure time with them, and, through their conversation, entered a new world. Words are too cold a medium to convey the change that came over me, for at the same time that I began in some measure to appreciate the learning and general knowledge of these young men I began to be conscious of my own ignorance, I became aware that I knew nothing, never had, and probably never should. Consequently I was more depressed than stimulated. I reflected on the conversations I heard among the students, and the pithy, sententious sayings of the Professor at the table. He usually settled all discussions and table talk with a witticism or apt quotation, I was about to say with a toothpick; for he had a curious habit of digging his thumb and finger into his vest pocket and fumbling for one, jabbing it into one side of his mouth and delivering his wisdom from the other side. His wife who sat opposite to him, tall, lean and prim always frowned on any levity at the table. It was her opinion that we should eat our food in silence and as quickly as possible, so that, as she often remarked, the table could be cleared and the kitchen work not be delayed. To her great distress the conversation often became so lively that the meal dragged, and various were her devices for bringing back our attention to the business at hand. I had some sense of the humor of the situation, and as I never took part in the talk, I amused myself by exchanging winks with the pretty waitress. She was the only person in the house near my own age. We were very good friends; she cut me a little larger piece of pie than she served to the others, darned my socks and called me "Sonny," and "curly head." She was not averse to an arm around her waist, and I repaid her kindness in the only currency I had—a kiss. However, I more enjoyed the society of the students than I did hers. I could be in their company without being noticed. No word escaped me and slowly, then, at length, overwhelmingly, there was borne in upon me the crushing sense of the difference between these young men and myself, their interests, expectations, future careers and mine. Yet I saw no way out of my present situation. The bitter seeds of unrest, and ambitions without opportunities, were at the same time planted in a fruitful soil. When the soul of man is awakened, not one but all its faculties awaken together. Hitherto the memory of my past life had no existence and no interest. It was a blank page.

All at once, when most cast down and discouraged in my thought of the future, that blank page of the past became illuminated and full of delightful pictures and memories. I was entirely overcome by them. They all pointed back to Bellingham, which I had not thought of since leaving it. The attraction to the place became irresistible. It seemed as if there I could recover myself and begin my life over again, continuing all its joys, reuniting all its companionships. It is obvious to me now that this was an evasive yet ingenuous effort to escape from myself, an awakening that had come to me, which I knew not how to meet. I revolved several plans for getting back to my native place and becoming a farmer. None of these were practicable, and I determined to go, trusting to chance to make the way plain. But even the going had difficulties. I solved them by setting out. I crossed the bridge before I came to it, and all the way was easy. I could take no scrip for the journey, for I had none; neither two coats, for I had but one; nor yet could I take the blessing of any one, for to no one save the waitress did I entrust my intentions. I set out on foot, and once on the road, I felt as free and joyous as a bird. There were twenty-five miles to cover, and I expected to do them from sun to sun of a late April day. Sometimes I ran for a mile or two from sheer eagerness to arrive. Most of the way I sauntered along thinking of nothing, overflowing with animal spirits. Enough the freedom, the open sky, the earth, which had been lost to me for three years. It did not occur to me that I was running away, not from outward conditions, but from myself; that at last I had come to the not unusual crisis in the life of boys. However, it was a very mild form of runaway, twenty-five miles, and its objective my old home; not the lure of the sea nor the army, nor yet the adventures of the dime novel hidden in the hay mow. No, it was none of these, but strangely in contrast to them, an impulsive, passionate awakening of memory, an attempted escape from a future, which had been shown to me as in a vision, and from which I shrank in fear and despair.

At noon I was half way between Grafton and Upton and I rested on a high bank with my back against a stone wall. There I could see the church spires of Milford town, and beyond, the land fell away toward Bellingham. I ate some food that the waitress had given me for the journey, and took the road again. Soon I was in Milford. The remainder of the way was very familiar. I knew every house, rock and tree; yet everything looked smaller than I anticipated. I hurried on as I wished to arrive at Uncle Lyman's before his supper time, which I knew was invariably at five o'clock the year round. Uncle Lyman's house, to which I was going, was the house in which I was born. He had been my father's most intimate friend. The house had always been like a home to me, even after my family had one of their own. As I hurried along I saw again the house, one-storied, and the elm tree, with its branches extending over the roof, and arching the highway. I suddenly remembered the flat stone that had been set in its bole for a seat, which the tree had so overgrown that, as a child, I could sit there and be almost hidden from sight; and the brook which flowed through the fields near the house, where the grass was always a darker green along its course, even when it dried up; and the windings so many and sharp that they seemed to write letters when one looked down upon them from a little elevation. I have sat in a tree and fancied I spelled out words in the green grass.

As I came nearer the house I became more and more agitated about the welcome that awaited me. It was friendly, yet surprised, and not as warm as I had expected. Had they changed? Or was it I? Certainly I did not feel at home. This was the house most dear to me, this the settle where I had sat when my legs did not reach the floor. How familiar sounded the voices I now heard, one deep and penetrating, the other a thin falsetto; yet I did not feel the comfort I had imagined that I should. At the table were the same dishes I remembered; the taste was gone. After supper I went out and tried to sit in my old seat in the elm. It was too small for me now; alas, it seemed to disown me, to have cast me out. The barn which once looked so enormous appeared insignificant. I went to bed unreconciled and unhappy. Yet how can a healthy boy awake in the morning dejected? Night, pitying night, which knows how the evil days succeed each other, hinders their sad return and hides in her oblivious mantle their weariness, their sorrows and their disappointments. I was awake at dawn, and yesterday was forgotten. The sun shone across the tops of the forest oaks just beginning to show their red buds. There was dew on the grass and a sweet, earthy smell in the air. Robins were calling everywhere and blue birds flying low from fence to fence. The little brook was full to the brim; the lush grass laid flat along its borders. I found the places where I used to erect my miniature mill wheels, and the remains of the little dam. Here was already antiquity. I did not need Egypt or Greece. Childhood contains their whole story. The season was unusually early; the great elm was becoming misty with the ruffled edges of its unfolding leaves. The outermost sprays began to drop from increasing weight of sap and leaf bud. Catkins hung on birch and willow and alder and the ancient bed of tansy had a new growth of three inches. Down the hill toward Beaver Pond, and along the meadow clusters of ferns were leading up their brides and bridegrooms in opposite pairs with bowed heads. It was twenty days before the usual pasturing time; but Uncle Lyman was turning his cattle out for half a day to keep the grass from becoming too rank and sour. I helped him drive the cows, oxen and heifers to the pasture. How they gamboled, kicked up their heels and tossed their heads. No more bow and stanchion, no more dry hay and confinement for them. I shared in their exhilaration, having been myself a prisoner for the past six months, and as we drove them afield, could hardly keep from dancing and shouting. "There, my son," said Uncle Lyman, "let me see if you have forgotten how to put up the bars."

I lifted them into place with a will, and thought, this is the life for me. Emboldened by his question I opened my mind in a roundabout way as to helping him all summer on the farm. He saw my drift at once and told me he could not hire me, nor any other boy; he must have a man if anybody, and that I must stick to my trade.

"You can stay a few days," he continued, "and then you had better go back to it," and as if to soften his advice he added, "The first cloudy day we will try for pickerel, though it is rather too early."

This might have been discouraging and a dreadful check to my plans, but by some sudden transition wholly inexplicable, I had already half given them up. My discontent and melancholy had been exhausted in the running away; and a few hours experience of disenchantment reconciled me to my lot.

There is no human experience more acutely painful than when one awakens to the fact that he is a person, an ego, unrelated to people or things, with no real claim to assert save that of habit or associations. The sense of isolation and loneliness is at first overpowering, and vainly does he try to attach himself to former objects and environment. The awakening may come in mature years, it may come in youth; but at what time it appears, the old heavens and the old earth crumble and the soul faces its own destiny and recognizes that it must walk alone.

I was surprised to see how the face of things had altered, when, in the course of the day, I hunted up the two playmates with whom I had formerly been most intimate. I met a cold reception. We could not find our way back to the old ground, the old innocent relation. As for Launa Probana, I did not so much as inquire for her. Time and change had not yet made her distinct and dear. After this I enjoyed myself very well for a few days, excusing my prank with the notion that it was a vacation. We went fishing, but the pickerel would not come from their hiding places. In the evenings Uncle Lyman and his wife at their several sides of the fireplace, she with her knitting, and he with his pipe, and I in a corner of the settle, talked of the days when my father was alive, and of the labors they underwent to make a good farm, clearing the brush and stones and building the fences. They told me of my birth and my father's joy at having a son. Then when I inquired for Nahum, their son, whom I remembered as a young man, when I was a child, a sudden silence fell over the great kitchen. There was no reply and the mother's head drooped over her work and tears fell upon it. I wondered, but did not dare to speak, and shortly I climbed the attic stairs to my bed. The next day Uncle Lyman cautioned me not to mention Nahum again before his wife. He said he had run away, and they knew not where he was. A guilty pang struck my heart; I became conscious of what I had done, and thought perhaps at that very moment my sister might be weeping for me.

Nothing was now wanting to complete the failure of my escapade, and I was as eager to run back as I had been to run away. Memories, touched by imagination, had come to naught in contact with reality. I learned my first lesson in keeping it and ideals in their proper place. A bird in the bush is worth two in the hand! Utopia is a far country, toward which to travel is better than to arrive. It was some years before I restored the Bellingham of my imagination. If experience be nothing but suffering then I had experienced; over this transaction therefore I grant an act of oblivion.

The return to Worcester was tedious. I was in no hurry, dreading my reception; what should I say, what should I answer? I revolved many explanations, but each I could think of contained a falsehood. With all my waywardness I was never a good liar; the lie was manifest in my face and I could feel it there as something not myself. I concluded to say nothing and not attempt any apology. This proved the wiser plan. Few questions were asked; reproachful looks were to be expected. Some penalty I paid in the shop also; harder tasks were set for me and I was kept more strictly to my work. The students of Prof. Lobelia were now gone, the sessions of his medical school closing in April, and the house seemed lonesome. In the course of the summer there came into the family a young man who was preparing himself to be a missionary. For the first time I heard of Greek and Latin books. The young man was studying both; it excited my curiosity. Here were other things of which I knew nothing, and I began at this period to be oppressed continually by the more and more frequent discovery of the extent of my ignorance. Luckily I knew how to read. My rustic mentors had warned me against girls, but never of books. I found in the Professor's library a queer assortment of odds and ends of learned works. There was a shelf of theology and missionary records, doubtless collected when he was a minister; many shelves of medical books, and a small number of miscellaneous works, histories and cyclopaedias. Among these latter I chanced one day to take down Whelpley's Compend of History. All that I can remember of it now are its stories of ancient heroes, Alexander, Caesar, the greater and lesser men of Greek and Roman annals. That of Alexander made the deepest impression upon me; I know not why, perhaps his conquests, his glory, his youth. I scarcely knew before what the word hero meant. It was a mark of utter inexperience and a visionary temperament that my ambition should have been so aroused by the career of an ancient hero instead of the man who had invented a self-cocking pistol. It was to be two thousand years behind the times, in an age when half a generation is sufficient to write you down as belated and not wanted. However, it is well to have a hero in youth, an example, a spur, a Bucephalus, although one gets many a fall before he reaches the goal, and I can date my desire to know more and to achieve something from the reading of that brief compend of ancient history.

If ever a man finds a path to the true life, he experiences two awakenings, the intellectual and the spiritual, and it matters little which is first. In Worcester I stumbled upon the two books in the space of three years, which led me from darkness to day. The first was that I have just described; the other was of somewhat the same character, Emerson's Representative Men.

The beech at last divides the rock in whose invisible seam its tiny seed was sown. I now began to spend all my leisure time in reading, and to be more and more aware of my unprofitable and aimless life. Books carried me this way and that. I was wholly overcome by them as by a strong personal influence, especially when I read Byron. The student whom I have mentioned had a few books of poetry, and among them the complete works of Byron in one thick volume bound in calf, and printed on cheap, thin paper. He himself had written verses before his conversion. He now looked upon his poets as witnesses of his former sinful state. He wanted to sell them to me with all their sins, and eventually I did buy his copy of Byron for fifty cents, after borrowing and becoming so enamoured of it that I felt I could not live without the book. The Byronic moods and fashion I imitated to the best of my ability. I began to turn down my Sunday linen collar which had stood up to my ears, and to wear my hair long and careless; whereas formerly, I had brushed it back and upward as straight as possible, after the manner of ministers and school-masters, now I let it hang as it would over my forehead and neck. Melancholy was the wear, and for this, in my present temper, not much effort was required. I did not, as Alexander and Chrysostom had done, put my favorite author under my pillow; but often having to sleep on the floor, this volume of Byron served as my pillow. In turn one book after another held me like a captive lover, and I endeavored to conform my life to what I read, no sooner enthralled by one than I found another more enchanting. I formed a taste for reading that has lasted all my life, in which, if there be any education, any mental discipline, is the only consistent part of my development. Our critics and literary mentors extol such books as are fit to be read a second time. I have a still better reason for a second reading, because I forget the first. When I strictly examine myself I cannot say that the contents of any book remain long with me, not even the Greek and Latin grammars over which I spent years of terrible toil. Somewhat survives the years, vague, inexact and never at hand when wanted. Enough for me that I know pretty well where to find what I have once read. I have been drawn to the authors, who have written especially for me, by a certain, recurrent impulse and appetite. Then I can go to the shelf in the dark. I find that memory is a faculty over which we cannot use the whip and spur to much purpose. It goes its own gait through barren or fertile fields, gathering many a weed with its flowers. How many trifles one carries through life from childhood days, by no effort of his own, things of the senses mostly, when these were unwritten tablets and blank for the first impressions. Upon these tablets are indelibly retained a certain box, a spool, a pair of stairs, the smell of a neighbor's house, when, with all my efforts, I cannot recover my father's voice and countenance, nor many another thing that would make a golden treasury of memory. Instead, it is more like the lumber of an old attic, or the contents of a boy's pocket. From much reading I began to observe the difference between written and spoken languages, and to single out the people who used the best speech in their common conversation. I tried myself to talk like the books I read. Never before had I noticed any difference between men as to education. All were on the same plane, only separable by some personal relation to myself. Little by little they became distinct so that I attempted to classify them in a crude and bookish way. Character and the moral point of view, with their manifold applications to life, were as yet hidden from me. I judged men and women by their speech, even by their pronunciation, and thought that I could detect the accent of the educated. In short, education became all in all to my mind; the one desirable possession, and its end the writing of books, its reward fame. As was natural I tried to write, but my rude penmanship, my inability to spell the words, which I was ambitious to use, the difficulty of beginning a sentence, and still greater perplexity of ending it, completely disgusted me and filled me with despair. It was more evident than ever that education was the ladder for my enterprise. There was, at that time, in Worcester a learned blacksmith, who knew fifty languages; he might have been an example to me; yet I had never heard of him. I knew only the great men of Whelpley's ancient history, and the poet Byron. Schools and colleges assumed great and greater importance. I saw no way of educating myself: I expected it to be done for me, as everything thus far had been. I was nearly sixteen years old, barely able to read and write, but no more advanced than the average boy of ten or twelve.



STUDENT LIFE

After much solicitation I persuaded my sister to send me for one term to the Worcester Academy. This was a school then in the suburbs of the city under the patronage of the Baptists. It had formerly been a manual labor school; that is, students could pay their expenses by labor on a farm belonging to the institution. This feature had been given up, and it was conducted like other institutions of a similar character. It was essentially a country academy, intended primarily for youths who, having gone through the common schools, desired some further education at small expense. One or two terms were considered sufficient to round off the culture of farmers' sons. The school pretended to teach Latin and Greek, and occasionally sent a student to college. A few, having acquired a taste for study, remained long enough to fit themselves to become teachers of common schools, or to enter one of the professions, which at that time did not place so much importance as at present upon lengthy preparation and a degree. The expenses were as light as was the fare. The rooms were scantily furnished; chairs, tables and beds were in the last stages of dilapidation from the rough usage of a generation of students. No one felt or was held responsible for their condition. Some of the students boarded themselves in the dormitory, which did not add to the tidiness and order of their rooms. Books, clothing, plates and pots, wood and food were scattered about promiscuously. Each room was a citadel, neither teachers nor steward ever entered it; a servant made up the bed, and that was the extent of her function. We filled our own water pails, cut our own wood and swept the room when we happened to think of it, and could borrow a broom. As I have said, the common table was meagerly kept. How could it have been otherwise at the rate of one dollar per week? We often rose in rebellion at the cooking, when we drove the waitress from the room, hurling the food, and after it, the dishes, upon the floor. No punishments ever followed these out-breaks, nor any of our pranks with the bell, the steward's horse and cow and the principal's desk. The discipline was mild; or rather there was none. And yet there were many diligent students and a few who distinguished themselves in later life. The best features of the institution were its unbounded freedom, the close democratic companionship of the students, the affectionate attachments formed, and the tremendous interest we took in the meetings of the Philomathean society for debates, and the reading of essays and poetry, exhibited also in a lesser degree in the Saturday declamations and compositions. How deep and real were our personal attachments I may illustrate in mentioning that I have maintained two of them for fifty years. Others that faded out of my life I still remember with grateful and tender feelings, especially a young man considerably older than myself, to whom I was passionately devoted. He was a handsome, reserved fellow with the eyes and lips of genius. He played the violin, and well do I recall the sensitive twitchings of his mouth at any strain of unusual thrilling sweetness. It made my heart beat faster when he spoke to me, which was rarely; and never before had I felt such a deep emotion as when coming from the city one evening he asked me to take his arm. It was the common custom with all of us when walking or strolling about the grounds to lock arms or put them about each other's necks. Only with him, the violinist, it was less usual than with the others. How often have I wondered what was the subsequent career of him whom we thought the greatest man among us.

With such freedom, such slight discipline, and so little pressure in the classroom, it was nevertheless the best arena for the development of the whole man which I have ever known. Our debates were exciting, often fierce; sometimes we almost came to blows, and instead of being merely practice and forensics, they were very real and vital, so much so, that we generally resumed them when two or three met in their rooms or on their walks. They were sure to continue until the next meeting, when a new question would be proposed. Usually the topics for debate and the principal disputants were selected a week in advance. Much time was given to preparation, to the complete neglect of our studies. The debates were extemporaneous, and after the preliminary speeches, the question was open to all. The topics of debate were generally on the social and political issues of the time; anti-slavery, temperance, women's rights; these questions often led into religious and theological controversies. Not who was the better scholar, but who was the better speaker, and next the better writer, was the popular estimate of reputation and settlement of rank in school. We strove above everything to be eloquent, to become orators; that being at the time the aim set before us by ambitious public men, inspired by the examples of Webster, Clay, Calhoun and others. It is my belief that, at this period, one of the great public prizes of glory, which young students set before themselves, was to deliver a Fourth of July oration. Meanwhile no instruction was given in elocution, rhetoric or composition. The required exercises in declamation and writing were conducted with almost no criticism. They neither added nor subtracted from our standing with the teachers by any sign known to us. We were left to our own self-instruction, which, on account of our enthusiasm, emulation and rivalries, was the very best of school-masters. We studied parliamentary law from a little volume called Cushing's manual; for who could tell when he might be called upon to be an officer of the club, or at what point he could with safety move the previous question? Very amusing were some of the attempts of the students to speak extemporaneously; the stammering, the hesitation, the confusion and final flunk; the confidence with which some one would spring to his feet, as if full to the muzzle, and the entire inconsequence and futility of his words, ending in apparent abject paralysis of speech. We dealt liberally in jeers at any exhibition of bathos or fustian; in laughter and applause at any touch of eloquence or wit. What better training was there than this? I have always had a fond lingering desire to be an orator, but when before an audience found myself as cold as a clod. Toward essay writing and reading our attitude was somewhat different. Yet here we looked for and were only satisfied with eloquence—good, resounding periods with plentiful classical allusion and quotations of poetry. We always expected at least one apostrophe to "Science Hill," which was the consecrated name of the eminence on which the academy building stood. Progress, liberty, the Fathers of the Republic and other patriotic themes were those on which we sharpened our pens. For purely literary subjects there was no interest whatever; and, because of this indifference, occurred what was, to me, one of the most mortifying episodes of my youth. I had come into the possession of Milton's poetry, and though untouched by his Paradise Lost, his Lycidas was a revelation to me of the music and rhythm and allusions possible to poetry. I committed it to memory and startled my class one day by reciting it as a part of the regular exercises. It was customary for some criticism to follow such exercises; but, to my distress, my beautiful poem, that had filled me with delight, was received in absolute silence. It had fallen like a bolt from heaven on those young wights. Covered with confusion, I went to my seat feeling that I had committed the unpardonable sin of attempting to do something beyond my capacity. No comment on my effort was made at the time; I was not even rallied about it outside the class room; and only after fifty years had passed did I learn the reason of the extraordinary silence that had followed my rhetorical outbreak. Said one of my classmates at a reunion, "I shall never forget the day you recited Lycidas; none of the fellows had ever done such a thing; they neither knew nor cared for poetry, and your recitation was a revelation to us all. It came like a shock and thrilled us to bigger things. We never forgot it."

So impressionable and plastic is youth in its formative period that it only takes one great poem to unlock for it the higher mysteries.

We taught ourselves patriotism in season, and before the days of attenuated and hypersensitive politics. Rough fellows were we, dressed in cheap coats, eating coarse food, sleeping on hard beds in cold rooms, and I fear the well was not much called upon for baths. We read but little. There was not a newspaper nor magazine taken in the whole establishment, and how we knew what was going on in the world I cannot tell; yet in some way it penetrated our seclusion. In such a small and socially affiliated school, what one knew, all the others soon imbibed. We were every one of us Yankee boys, acquisitive and resolved to make the most of ourselves and our small opportunities. The library of the institution contained about a hundred volumes, and of these some were religious books. There was a ragged, greasy Shakespeare in eight volumes which I tried to read through, but found the task too much for me. However, I did have a glimpse of something for which I found myself unprepared; and such is the constitution of my mind, that I have seldom been able to grasp dramatic writing with complete enjoyment; I am apt to dwell too long on its beauty spots. For this reason I prefer the Greek drama, because of the simplicity of its construction. The characters are fewer, and, I may say, not so personal, and there are not so many threads to keep in hand. I am in no perplexity when I begin Agamemnon and Antigone; there is a clear, simple and straight path for action. The one book which we all read with greatest diligence was Todd's Student's Manual. As we did not really study much, it seemed best to know all about the methods and rules for study. The book was stuffed full of sound advice in regard to the regulations of the student's time, diet, sleep and exercise; in short, what may, without offense, be called the mechanical apparatus for the acquirement of education and character. I am sure I profited much from this manual, although I could never observe a tithe of its instructions. It was something to know there was a path especially laid out for the student, if he could not always keep it. It prompted the searching of one's self, and in consequence, many of us began to keep a diary, which, I think in my own case, stimulated observation and reflection. Feeble as the young child's first effort to walk were my entries in my first diary. How is one to write without a definite subject, or one selected for him? But with each day's practice it became easier, and at last a pleasure to hold a silent intercourse with myself, to recover and merely to catalogue the day's doings and try to discriminate them. In vain thus far were my attempts at logic in the debating club, and the sentences in my diary seemed even more wanting in connection. Conjunctions would not join, nor any therefores and wherefores tie the sentences. It was merely chance that I landed a verb in the right place, and did not altogether lose the noun. I seemed to know what I wanted to say but it would not form itself on the pen, and what I wrote one day I had an infinite disrelish for the next. I have heard something in my time about rising upon our dead selves. I know of nothing so dead and so precipitating as the look into an early youthful diary. Not much more encouraging is the book one has written and published, and some time after has the temerity to open.



SCHOOLMASTER

After a few terms at Worcester Academy, during which I contrived in different ways to support myself on a single meal a day, at one time by ringing the bell for morning prayers and sweeping the general recitation room, at another by delivering a daily newspaper, the Worcester Spy, to one hundred and twenty-five subscribers, I thought myself competent to teach a common school, by which I hoped to earn enough to carry me through another year of study. I was examined as to my qualifications for teaching by the chairman of the school committee of the town of Grafton, having applied for one of the district schools. Between fright and incompetency I passed a most inadequate examination. What little I did know deserted me at the pinch. The reverend gentleman, who conducted me through questions in the various common school studies, was one of the most amiable souls in the world, as I had many subsequent opportunities of knowing, for he continued my friend as long as he lived. He told me frankly that he was hardly warranted in giving me a certificate, but would allow me to make a trial of the school, and, as my sister had such a high reputation as a teacher, he had no doubt I would succeed if I was in earnest and studied diligently. The school consisted of fifty pupils of all ages; some were just learning to read, others had been through again and again all the text books in use and went to school in winter for fun, and because they had nothing else to do. There were six young men four years older than myself. These older pupils thought they knew their school books well enough, and had no occasion to study them again. They were much inclined to match their proficiency with that of their teacher, which was a good way of putting him on his mettle. A few appeared to be present only to make trouble, and to try their pugilism against that of the master. I was not especially athletic; yet, when my temper was up, I was a dangerous antagonist. I soon discovered the work cut out for me. I spent every evening in preparation for the next day's lessons, and I introduced some new exercises for those older boys and girls whose familiarity with their books gave them little to do. My troubles began soon enough, not in the school, but among the parents, which was shortly reflected in their children. In every New England school district there are generally factions and parties as in larger political divisions; it divides on all kinds of issues, political, religious or social. I am giving my experience, not for its personal value, but as the average picture of the average school district. This particular district was sharply split by the temperance party and the rummies. It so happened that the prudential committeeman, as he was called, that is, the agent whose office it was to hire a teacher and have the general care of all the business concerns of the school for the year, was an ardent temperance worker, and I boarded with him. This was reason enough for the other party to stir up antagonism against the teacher. It was not long before I became aware of the situation, and learned to my surprise and amusement that I was a strong temperance man, and in the habit of making temperance speeches. The rummies, I found, were men addicted only to their cider barrels; hard working citizens with red faces and rather lurid speech. On the whole, I thought them much more interesting characters than the faction to which I was supposed to belong. But they would have none of me, and I had not sufficient tact to win them to myself. The crisis came when I thrashed the son of one of them, my first and last experiment in corporal punishment. The boy's father threatened and sent me word that the first time he met me I might look out for his horse whip. I fully expected it, and carried a stick on my way to and from school. He turned out to be a great coward, for one day we met on the road and he slunk the other side of his load of wood as we came opposite each other. He took his boy out of school, and several others followed him, complaining that I did not know enough arithmetic to teach them, which was quite true, only I was learning; and gladly would I learn and gladly teach, if they could have had patience. I think my most successful teaching has been with those with whom I was also studying and learning, having a double incitement and interest. The teacher who knows it all beforehand, and rests in his knowledge is soon dulled and wearied.