p714-014 CHAPTER I. IN WHICH, AFTER THE VISIT OF NEIGHBOR NILES, MY CHILDHOOD SUDDENLY TERMINATES.

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I was sitting at the front window, buried, chin-deep, in
the perusal of “Sandford and Merton,” when I heard the
latch of the gate click. Looking up, I saw that it was only
Neighbor Niles, coming, as usual, in her sun-bonnet, with
her bare arms wrapped in her apron, for a chat with
mother. I therefore resumed my reading, for Neighbor
Niles always burst into the house without knocking, and
mother was sure to know who it was by the manner in
which the door opened. I had gotten as far into the book
as the building of the Robinson-Crusoe hut, and one half
of my mind speculated, as I read, whether a similar hut
might not be constructed in our garden, in the corner
between the snowball-bush and Muley's stable. Bob Simmons
would help me, I was sure; only it was scarcely possible
to finish it before winter, and then we could n't live
in it without a fireplace and a chimney.

Mother was hard at work, making me a new jacket of
gray satinet, lined with black chintz. My reading was interrupted
by the necessity of jumping up every ten minutes,
jerking off my old coat and trying on the new one, —
sometimes the body without the sleeves, sometimes one of

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the sleeves alone. Somehow it would n't fit at the shoulders,
and the front halves, instead of lying smoothly upon
my breast as they should have done, continually turned and
flew back against my arms, as if I had been running at full
speed. A tailor would have done the work better, it can't
be denied, but mother could not afford that. “You can
keep it buttoned, Johnny dear,” she would say, “and then
I think it 'll look very nice.”

Presently the door burst open, and there was Neighbor
Niles, voice and figure all at once, loud, hearty, and bustling.
Always hurried to “within an inch of her life,”
always working “like six yoke of oxen,” (as she was accustomed
to say,) she inveterately gossiped in the midst
of her labor, and jumped up in sudden spirts of work when
she might have rested. We knew her well and liked her.
I believe, indeed, she was generally liked in the neighborhood;
but when some of the farmers, deceived by her own
chatter, spoke of her as “a smart, doing woman,” their
wives would remark, with a slight toss of the head, “Them
that talks the most does n't always do the most.”

On this occasion, her voice entered the room, as nearly as
I can recollect, in the following style: —

“Good mornin', Neighbor Godfrey! Well, Johnny,
how 's he? Still a-readin'? He 'll be gittin' too much in
that head o' his'n. Jist put my bakin' into th' oven, — six
punkin-pies, ten dried-apple, and eight loaves o' bread,
besides a pan o' rusk. If I had nothin' else to do but
bake, 't would be enough for one woman: things goes in
our house. Got the jacket most done? Might ha' saved
a little stuff if you 'd ha' cut that left arm more catercornered, —
't would ha' been full long, I guess, and there
a'n't no nap, o' no account, on satinet. Jane Koffmann,
she was over at Readin' last week, and got some for her
boys, a fippenny-bit a yard cheaper 'n this. Don't know,
though, as it 'll wear so well. Laws! are you sewin' with
silk instead o' patent thread?”

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“I find it saves me work,” said my mother, as Neighbor
Niles popped into the nearest chair, drew her hands from
under her apron, leaned over, and picked up a spool from
the lap-board. “Patent thread soon wears out at the
elbows and shoulders, and then there are rips, you know.
Besides, the color don't hold, and the seams soon look
shabby.”

I resumed my reading, while our visitor exhausted the
small budget of gossip which had accumulated since her
last visit, two days before. Her words fell upon my ears
mechanically, but failed to make any impression upon my
mind, which was wholly fixed upon the book. After a while,
however, my mother called to me, —

“Johnny, I think there 's some clearing up to do in the
garden.”

I knew what that meant. Mother wished to have some
talk with Neighbor Niles, which I was not to hear. Many
a time had I been sent into the garden, on the pretence of
“clearing up things,” when I knew, and mother also knew,
that the beds were weeded, the alleys clean scraped, the
rubbish gathered together and thrown into the little stable-yard,
and all other work done which a strong inventive
faculty could suggest. It was a delicate way of getting me
out of the room.

I laid down my book with a sigh, but brightened up as
the idea occurred to me that I might now, at once, select
the site of my possible Crusoe hut, and take an inventory
of the material available for its construction. As I paused
on the oblong strip of turf, spread like a rug before the
garden-door, and glanced in at the back-window, I saw that
mother had already dropped her sewing, and that she and
Neighbor Niles had put their heads together, in a strictly
literal sense, for a private consultation.

The garden was a long, narrow plot of ground, running
back to the stable of our cow, and the adjoining yard, which
she was obliged to share with two well-grown and voracious

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pigs. I walked along the main alley, peering into the beds
right and left for something to “clear up,” in order to
satisfy my conscience before commencing my castle- or
rather hut-building; but I found nothing more serious than
three dry stalks of seed-radishes, which I pulled up and
flung over the fence. Then I walked straight to the snowball-bush.
I remember pacing off the length and breadth
of the snug, grassy corner behind it, and discovering, to my
grief, that, although there was room for a hut big enough
for Bob and myself to sit in, it would be impossible to walk
about, — much less swing a cat by the tail. In fact, we
should have to take as model another small edifice, which,
on the other side of the bush, already disturbed the needful
solitude. Moreover, not a hand's-breadth of board
or a stick of loose timber was to be found. “If I were
only in Charley Rand's place!” I thought. His father had
a piece of woodland in which you might lose your way
for as much as a quarter of an hour at a time, with enough
of dead boughs and refuse bark to build a whole encampment
of huts. Charley, perhaps, might be willing to join
in the sport; but he was not a favorite playfellow of mine,
and would be certain to claim the hut as his exclusive property,
after we other fellows had helped him to build it.
He was that sort of a boy. Then my fancy wandered
away to the real Crusoe on his island, and I repeated to
myself Cowper's “Verses, supposed to be written by Alexander
Selkirk.” Somehow, the lines gave an unexpected
turn to my thoughts. Where would be the great fun of
playing Crusoe, or even his imitators, Sandford and Merton,
in a back-garden, where a fellow's mother might call
him away at any moment? I should not be out of humanity's
reach, nor cease to hear the sweet music of speech;
the beasts that roam over the plain (especially McAllister's
bull, in the next field) would not behold my form with indifference,
nor would they suddenly become shockingly
tame. It would all be a make-believe, from beginning to

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end, requiring even greater efforts of imagination than I
had perpetrated a few years earlier, in playing at the village
school, —


“Here come three lords, all out of Spain,
A-courting of your daughter Jane,”
or in creating real terror by fancying a bear crouching behind
the briers in the fence-corner.

A little ashamed of myself, I walked to the garden-paling,
and looked over it, and across the rolling fields, to some
low, hazy hills in the distance. I belong to that small
class of men whose natures are not developed by a steady,
gradual process of growth, but advance by sudden and
seemingly arbitrary bounds, divided by intervals during
which their faculties remain almost stationary. I had now
reached one of those periods of growth, — the first, indeed,
which clearly presented itself to my own consciousness.
I had passed my sixteenth birthday, and the physical
change which was imminent began to touch and give color
to the operations of my mind. My vision did not pause at
the farthest hill, but went on, eagerly, into the unknown
landscape beyond. I had previously talked of the life that
lay before me as I had talked of Sinbad and Gulliver,
Robert Bruce and William Tell: all at once I became
conscious that it was an earnest business.

What must I do? What should I become? The few
occupations which found a place in our little village repelled
me. My frame was slight, and I felt that, even if I
liked it, I could never swing the blacksmith's hammer, or
rip boards like Dick Brown, the carpenter. Moreover, I
had an instinctive dislike to all kinds of manual labor,
except the light gardening tasks in which I assisted my
mother. Sometimes, in the harvest-season, I had earned a
little pocket - money on the neighboring farms. It was
pleasant enough to toss hay into cocks on the fragrant
meadows, but I did n't like the smother of packing it in

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the steaming mows, and my fingers became painfully sore
from binding sheaves. My ambition — at this time but a
vague, formless desire — was to be a scholar, a man of
learning. How this was to be attained, or what lay beyond
it, I could not clearly see. I knew, without being able to
explain why, that the Cross-Keys (as our village was
called, from its tavern-sign) was no place for me. But, up
to the afternoon I am describing, I had never given the
subject a serious thought.

Many a boy of ten knows far more of the world than I
then did. I doubt if any shepherd on the high Norwegian
fjelds lives in greater seclusion than did we, — my mother
and myself. The Cross-Keys lay aside from any of the
main highways of the county, and the farmers around were
mostly descendants of the original settlers of the soil, a
hundred and fifty years before. Their lives were still as
simple and primitive as in the last century. Few of them
ever travelled farther than to the Philadelphia market, at
the beginning of winter, to dispose of their pigs and poultry.
A mixture of the German element, dating from the
first emigration, tended still further to conserve the habits
and modes of thought of the community. My maternal
grandfather, Hatzfeld, was of this stock, and many of his
peculiarities, passing over my mother, have reappeared in
me, to play their part in the shaping of my fortunes.

My father had been a house- and sign-painter in the
larger village of Honeybrook, four miles distant. Immediately
after his death, which happened when I was eight
years old, my mother removed to the Cross-Keys, principally
because she had inherited the small cottage and garden
from her spinster aunt, Christina Hatzfeld. There
was nothing else, for my great-aunt had only a life-interest
in the main estate, which — I do not know precisely how—
had passed into the hands of the male heirs. My
mother's means were scarcely sufficient to support us in
the simplest way, and she was therefore in the habit of

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“taking in sewing” from the wives of the neighboring
farmers. Her labor was often paid in produce, and she
sometimes received, in addition, presents of fruit, potatoes,
and fuel from the kindly-hearted people. Thus we never
reached the verge of actual want, though there were times
when our daily fare was plainer than she cared to let the
neighbors see, and when the new coat or shawl had to be
postponed to a more fortunate season. For at least half
the year I attended the village school, and had already
learned nearly as much as a teacher hired for twenty dollars
a month was capable of imparting. The last one, indeed,
was unable to help me through quadratic equations, and
forced me, unwillingly, upon a course of Mensuration.

Between mother and myself there was the most entire
confidence, except upon the single subject of my future.
She was at once mother and elder sister, entering with
heart and soul into all my childish plans of work or play,
listening with equal interest to the stories I read, or relating
to me the humble incidents of her own life, with a
sweet, fresh simplicity of language, which never lost by
repetition. Her large black eyes would sparkle, and her
round face, to which the old-fashioned puffs of hair on the
temples gave such an odd charm, became as youthful in
expression, I am sure, as my own. Her past and her present
were freely shared with me, but she drew back when I
turned with any seriousness towards the future. At one
time, I think, she would have willingly stopped the march
of my years, and been content to keep me at her side, a
boy forever. I was incapable of detecting this feeling at
the time, and perhaps I wrong her memory in alluding to
it now. God knows I have often wished it could have
been so! Whatever of natural selfishness there may have
been in the thought, she weighed it down, out of sight, by
all those years of self-denial, and the final sacrifice, for my
sake. No truer, tenderer, more single-hearted mother
ever lived than Barbara Godfrey.

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She was so cordially esteemed in our little community
that no reproach, on my account, was allowed to reach her
ears. A boy of my age, who had no settled occupation,
was there considered to be in danger of becoming a useless
member of society; antipathy to hard, coarse manual
labor implied a moral deficiency; much schooling, for one
without means, was a probable evil: but no one had the
heart to unsettle the widow's comfort in her child. Now
and then, perhaps, a visitor might ask, “What are you
going to make of him, Barbara?” whereupon my mother
would answer, “He must make himself,” — with a confident
smile which put the question aside.

These words came across my mind as I leaned against
the palings, trying to summon some fleeting outline of my
destiny from the vapory distance of the landscape. I was
perplexed, but not discouraged. My trials, thus far, had
been few. When I first went to school, the boys had called
me “Bricktop,” on account of the auburn tinge of my hair,
which was a source of great sorrow until Sam Haskell,
whose head was of fiery hue, relieved me of the epithet.
Emily Rand, whose blue eyes and yellow ringlets confused
my lessons, (I am not certain but her pink-spotted calico
frock had something to do with it,) treated me scornfully,
and even scratched my face when it was my turn to kiss
her in playing “Love and War.” The farmers' sons also
laughed at my awkwardness and want of muscle; but this
annoyance was counterbalanced in the winter, when they
came to measure another sort of strength with me at school.
I had an impression that my value in the neighborhood
was not estimated very highly, and had periodical attacks
of shyness which almost amounted to self-distrust. On the
other hand, I had never experienced any marked unkindness
or injustice; my mother spoke ill of no one, and I did
not imagine the human race to be otherwise than honest,
virtuous, and reciprocally helpful.

I soon grew tired of facing the sober aspect of reality,

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so unexpectedly presented, and wandered off, as was the
habit of my mind, into vague and splendid dreams. If I
had the Wonderful Lamp, — if a great roc should come
sailing out of the western sky, pick me up in his claws, and
carry me to the peaks overlooking the Valley of Diamonds,—
if there were still a country where a cat might be sold
for a ship-load of gold, — if I might carry a loaf of bread
under my arm, like Benjamin Franklin, and afterwards
become rich and celebrated, (the latter circumstance being,
of course, a result of the former,) — there would be no difficulty
about my fate. It was hardly likely, however, that
either of these things would happen to me; but why not
something else, equally strange and fortunate?

A hard slap on a conspicuous, but luckily not a sensitive
portion of my body caused me to spring almost over the
paling. I whirled around, and with a swift instinct of retaliation,
struck out violently with both fists.

“No, you don't!” cried Bob Simmons, (for he it was,)
dodging the blows and then catching me by the wrists. “I
did n't mean to strike so hard, John; don't be mad about it.
I 'm going away soon, and came around to tell you.”

Bob was my special crony, because I had found him to
be the kindest-hearted of all the village boys. He was not
bright at school, and was apt to be rough in his language and
manners; but from the day he first walked home with me,
with his arm around my neck, I had faith in his affection.
He seemed to like me all the better from my lack of the
hard strength which filled him from head to foot. He once
carried me nearly a quarter of a mile in his arms, when I
had sprained my ankle in jumping down out of an apple-tree.
He had that rough male nature which loves what it has
once protected or helped. Besides, he was the only companion
to whom I dared confide my vague projects of life,
with the certainty of being not only heard, but encouraged.

“Yes,” said Bob, “I am going away, maybe in a few
weeks.”

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“Where? Not going away for good, Bob?”

“Like as not. I 'm nearly eighteen, and Dad says it 's
time to go to work on my own hook. The farm, you know,
is n't big enough for him and me, and he can get along with
Brewster now. So I must learn a trade; what do you think
it is?”

“You said, Bob, that you 'd like to be a mason?”

“Would n't I, though! But it 's the next thing to it.
Dad says there a'n't agoin' to be many more stone houses
built, — bricks has got to be the fashion. But they 're so
light, it 's no kind o' work. All square, too; you 've
just to put one atop of t' other, and there 's your wall.
Why, you could do it, John. Mort! Mort! hurry up with
that 'ere hod!”

Here Bob imitated the professional cry of the bricklayer
with startling exactness. There was not a fibre about him
that shrank from contact with labor, or from the rough tussle
by which a poor boy must win his foothold in the world.
I would, at that moment, have given my grammar and algebra
(in which branches he was lamentably deficient) for a
quarter of his unconscious courage. A wild thought flashed
across my mind: I might also be a bricklayer, and his fellow-apprentice!
Then came the discouraging drawback.

“But, Bob,” I said, “the bricks are so rough. I don't
like to handle them.”

“Should n't wonder if you did n't. Lookee there!”
And Bob laid my right hand in his broad, hard palm, and
placed his other hand beside it. “Look at them two hands!
they 're made for different kinds o' work. There 's my
thick fingers and broad nails, and your thin fingers and narrow
nails. You can write a'most like copy-plate, and I make
the roughest kind o' pot-hooks. The bones o' your fingers
is no thicker than a girl's. I dunno what I 'd do if mine
was like that.”

I colored, from the sense of my own physical insignificance.
“Oh, Bob,” I cried, “I wish I was strong! I 'll

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have to get my own living, too, and I don't know how to
begin.”

“Oh, there 's time enough for you, John,” said Bob, consolingly.
“You need n't fret your gizzard yet awhile.
There 's teachin' school is n't so bad to start with. You 'll
soon be fit to do it, and that 's what I 'd never be, I reckon.”

We went into the little hay-mow over the stable, and sat
down, side by side, in the dusky recess, where our only
light came through the cracks between the shrunk clapboards.
Bob had brought a horse to the smith to be shod all
round, and there were two others in before him; so he could
count on a good hour before his turn came. It might be
our last chat together for a long time, and the thought of
this made our intercourse more frank and tender than usual.

“Tell me, Bob,” said I, “what you 'll do after you 've
learned the trade.”

“Why, do journey-work, to be sure. They get a dollar
and a half a day, in Phildelphy.”

“Well, — after that?”

“Dunno. P'raps I may be boss, and do business on the
wholesale. Bosses make money hand-over-fist. I tell
you what, John, I 'd like to build a house for myself like
Rand's, — heavy stone, two foot thick, and just such big
willy-trees before it, — a hundred acres o' land, and prime
stock on 't,; would n't I king it, then! Dad 's had a hard
time, he has, — only sixty acres, you know, and a morgidge
on it. Don't you tell nobody, — I 'm agoin' to help him
pay it off, afore I put by for myself.”

I had not the least idea of the nature of a mortgage, but
was ashamed to ask for information. Sometimes I had
looked down on Bob from the heights of my superior
learning, but now he seemed to overtop me in everything, —
in strength, in courage, and in practical knowledge. For
the first time, I would have been willing to change places
with him, — ah, how many times afterwards!

When we went down out of the hay-mow it was nearly

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evening, and I hurried back to our cottage. The fire which
I was accustomed to make in the little back-kitchen was already
kindled, and the table set for supper. Mother was
unusually silent and preoccupied; she did not even ask me
where I had been. After the simple meal — made richer
by the addition of four of Neighbor Niles's rusks — was
over, we took our places in the sitting-room, she with her
lap-board, and I with “Sandford and Merton.” She did
not ask me to read aloud, as usual, but went on silently
and steadily with her sewing. Now and then I caught the
breath of a rising sigh, checked as soon as she became
conscious of it. Nearly an hour passed, and my eyelids
began to grow heavy, when she suddenly spoke.

“Put away the book, John. You 're getting tired, I see,
and we can talk a little. I have something to say to you.”

I shut the book and turned towards her.

“It 's time, John, to be thinking of making something of
you. In four or five years — and the time will go by only
too fast — you 'll be a man. I 'd like to keep you here
always, but I know that can't be. I must n't think of myself:
I must teach you to do without me.”

“But I don't want to do without you, mother!” I cried.

“I know it, Johnny dear; but you must learn it, nevertheless.
Who knows how soon I may be taken from you?
I want to give you a chance of more and better schooling,
because you 're scarcely strong enough for hard work, and
I think you 're not so dull but you could manage to get
your living out of your head. At least, it would n't be
right for me not to help you what little I can. I 've looked
forward to it, and laid by whatever I could, — dear me, it 's
not what it ought to be, but we must be thankful for what 's
allowed us. I only want you to make good use of your
time while it lasts; you must always remember that every
day is an expense, and that the money was not easy to get.”

“What do you want me to do, mother?” I asked, after
a pause.

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“I have been talking with Neighbor Niles about it, and
she seems to see it in the same light as I do. She 's a
good neighbor, and a sensible woman. Charley Rand's
father is going to send him this winter to Dr. Dymond's
school, a mile the other side of Honeybrook. It 's the best
in the neighborhood, and I would n't want you to be far
away from me yet awhile. They ask seventy-five dollars
for the session, but Charley goes for sixty, having his washing
and Sunday's board at home. It seems like a heap of
money, John, but I 've laid away, every year since we came
here, twenty dollars out of the interest on the fifteen hundred
your father left me, and that 's a hundred and sixty.
Perhaps I could make out to let you have two years'
schooling, if I find that you get on well with your studies.
I 'm afraid that I could n't do more than that, because I
don't want to touch the capital. It 's all we have. Not
that you would n't be able to earn your living in a few
years, but we never know what 's in store for us. You
might become sickly and unable to follow any regular
business, or I” —

Here my mother suddenly stopped, clasped her hands
tightly together, and turned pale. Her lips were closed,
as if in pain, and I could see by the tension of the muscles
of her jaws that the teeth were set hard upon each other.
Of late, I had several times noticed the same action. I
could not drive away the impression that she was endeavoring
not to cry out under the violence of some mental or
physical torture. After a minute or two, the rigidity of
her face softened; she heaved a sigh, which, by a transition
infinitely touching, resolved itself into a low, cheerful
laugh, and said, —

“But there 's no use, after all, in worrying ourselves
by imagining what may never happen. Only I think it
best not to touch the capital; and now you know, Johnny,
what you have to depend on. There 's the money that I 've
been saving for you, and you shall have the benefit of it,

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every penny. Some folks would say it 's not wisely spent,
but it 's you must decide that by the use you make of it.
If I can see, every Saturday night when you come home,
that you know a little more than you did the week before,
I shall be satisfied.”

I was already glowing and tingling with delight at the
prospect held out to me. The sum my mother named
seemed to me enormous. I had heard of Dr. Dymond's
school as a paradise of instruction, unattainable to common
mortals. The boys who went there were a lesser kind of
seraphs, sitting in the shade of a perennial tree of knowledge.
With such advantages, all things seemed suddenly
possible to me; and had my mother remarked, “I expect
you to write a book as good as `The Children of the
Abbey,' — to make a better speech than Colonel McAllister, —
to tell the precise minute when the next eclipse of
the sun takes place,” — I should have answered, “Oh, of
course.”

“When am I to go?” I asked.

“It will be very soon, — too soon for me, for I shall find
the house terribly lonely without you, John. Charley
Rand will go in about three weeks, and I should like to
have you ready at the same time.”

“Three weeks!” I exclaimed, with a joyous excitement,
which I checked, feeling a pang of penitence at my own
delight, as I looked at mother.

She was bravely trying to smile, but there were tears in
her black eyes. One of her puffs fell out of its place; I
went to her and put it back nicely, as I had often done
before, — I liked to touch and arrange her hair, when she
would let me. Then she began to cry, turning away her
head, and saying, “Don't mind me, Johnny; I did n't
mean to.”

It cost me a mighty effort to say it, but I did say, — “If
you 'd rather have me stay at home, mother, I don't want
to go. The cow must be milked and the garden looked
after, anyhow. I did n't think of that.”

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“But I did, my child,” she said, wiping her eyes with
her apron. “Neighbor Niles will take Muley, and give me
half the milk every day. Then, you know, as you will not
be here on week-days, I shall need less garden-stuff. It 's
all fixed, and must n't be changed. I made up my mind to
it years ago, and ought to be thankful that I 've lived to
carry it out. Now, pull off your shoes and go to bed.”

I stole up the narrow, creaking ladder of a staircase to
my pigeon-hole under the roof. That night I turned over
more than once before I fell asleep. I was not the same
boy that got out of the little low bed the morning before,
and never would be again.

p714-029 CHAPTER II. DESCRIBING MY INTRODUCTION INTO DR. DYMOND'S BOARDING-SCHOOL.

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From that day the preparations for my departure went
forward without interruption. Mother quite recovered her
cheerfulness, both permitting and encouraging my glowing
predictions of the amount of study I should perform and
the progress I should make. The jacket was finished, still
retaining its perverse tendency to fly open, which gave me
trouble enough afterwards. I had also a pair of trousers
of the same material; they might have been a little baggy
in the hinder parts, but otherwise they fitted me very well.
A new cap was needed, and mother had serious thoughts
of undertaking its construction. My old seal-skin was
worn bare, but even a new one of the same material
would scarcely have answered. Somebody reported from
Honeybrook that Dr. Dymond's scholars wore stylish caps
of blue cloth, and our store-keeper was therefore commissioned
to get me one of the same kind from Philadelphia.
He took the measure of my head, to make sure of a fit; yet,
when the wonderful cap came, it proved to be much too
large. “'T will all come right in the end, Mrs. Godfrey,”
said the store-keeper; “his head 'll begin to swell when he 's
been at school a few weeks.” Meanwhile, it was carefully
accommodated to my present dimensions by a roll of paper
inside the morocco lining. A pair of kip-skin boots — real
top-boots, and the first I ever had — completed my outfit.
Compared with my previous experience, I was gorgeously

[figure description] Page 017.[end figure description]

arrayed. It was fortunate that my Sundays were to be
spent at home, as a second suit, much less a better one,
was quite beyond my mother's means.

Mr. Rand, Charley's father, made all the necessary arrangements
with Dr. Dymond, and kindly offered to take
me over to the school in his “rockaway,” on the first Monday
of November. The days dragged on with double slowness
to me, but I have no doubt they rushed past like a
whirlwind to mother. I did everything I could to arrange
for her comfort during my absence, — put the garden in
winter trim, sawed wood and piled it away, sorted the supplies
of potatoes and turnips in the cellar, and whatever
else she suggested, — doing these tasks with a feverish haste
and an unnecessary expenditure of energy. Whenever I
had a chance, I slipped away to talk over my grand prospects
with Dave Niles, or some other of the half-dozen village
boys of my age. I felt for them a certain amount of
commiseration, which was not lessened by their sneers at
Dr. Dymond's school, and the damaging stories which they
told about the principal himself. I knew that any of them —
unless it was Jackson Reanor, the tavern-keeper's son —
would have been glad to stand in my new boots.

“I know all about old Dymond,” said Dave; “he licks
awfully, and not always through your trousers, neither.
Charley Rand 'd give his skin if he had n't to go. His father
makes him.”

“Now, that 's a lie, Dave,” I retorted. (We boys used
the simplest and strongest terms in our conversation.) “Old
Rand would n't let Charley be licked; you know he took
him away from our school when Mr. Kendall whacked his
hands with the ruler.”

“Then he 'll have to take him away from Dymond's too,
I guess,” said Dave. “Wait, and you 'll see. Maybe
there 'll be two of you.”

I turned away indignantly, and went to see Bob Simmons,
whose hearty sympathy was always a healing-plaster

[figure description] Page 018.[end figure description]

for the moral bruises inflicted by the other boys. Bob was
not very demonstrative, but he had a grave, common-sense
way of looking at matters which sometimes brought me
down from my venturesome flights of imagination, but left
me standing on firmer ground than before. When I first
told him of my mother's plan, he gave me a thundering
slap on the back, and exclaimed, —

“She 's a brick! It 's the very thing for you, Johnny.
Come, old fellow, you and me 'll take an even start, — your
head aginst my hands. I would n't stop much to bet on
your head, though I do count on my hands doin' a good deal
for me.”

Finally the appointed Monday arrived. I was to go in
the afternoon, and mother had dinner ready by twelve
o'clock, so that Mr. Rand would not be obliged to wait a
minute when he called. Her plump little body was in constant
motion, dodging back and forth between the kitchen
and sitting-room, while she talked upon any and every subject,
as if fearful of a moment's rest or silence. “It will
only be until Saturday night,” she repeated, over and over
again. How little I understood all this intentional bustle
at the time, yet how distinctly I recall it now.

After a while, there was a cry outside of “Hallo, the
house!” — quite unnecessary, for I had seen Rand's rockaway
ever since it turned out of the lane beyond Reanor's
stables. I hastily opened the door, and shouted, “I 'm coming!”
Mother locked the well-worn, diminutive carpet-bag
which I was to take along, gave me a kiss, saying
cheerfully, “Only till Saturday night!” and then followed
me out to the gate. Mr. Rand and Charley occupied the only
two seats in the vehicle, but there was a small wooden stool
for me, where I sat, wedged between their legs, holding the
carpet-bag between mine. Its contents consisted of one
shirt, one pair of stockings, a comb, tooth-brush and piece
of soap, a box of blacking and a brush. I had never heard
of a night-shirt at that time. When I opened the bag,

[figure description] Page 019.[end figure description]

afterwards, I discovered two fall pippins and a paper of cakes
snugly stowed away in one corner.

“Good-day, Mrs. Godfrey!” said Mr. Rand, squaring
himself on his seat, and drawing up the reins for a
start; “I 'll call on the way home, and tell you how I
left 'em.”

“I shall be so much obliged,” my mother cried. “Do
you hear, Johnny? I shall have word of you to-night;
now, good-bye!”

Looking back as we drove away, I saw her entering the
cottage-door. Then I looked forward, and my thoughts
also went forward to the approaching school-life. I felt the
joy and the fear of a bird that has just been tumbled out
of the nest by its parent, and flutteringly sustains itself on
its own wings. I did not see, as I now can, my mother
glance pitifully around the lonely room after she closed the
door; carefully put away a few displaced articles; go to the
window and look up the road by which I had disappeared;
and then sink into her quaint old rocking-chair, and cry
without stint, until her heart recovers its patience. Then I
see her take up the breadths of a merino skirt for Mrs.
Reanor, and begin sewing them together. Her face is calm
and pale; she has rearranged her disordered puffs, and
seems to be awaiting somebody. She is not disappointed: the
gate-latch clicks, the door opens, and good Neighbor Niles
comes in with a half-knit stocking in her hand. This means
tea, and so the afternoon passes cheerfully away. But when
the fire is raked for the night on the kitchen-hearth, mother
looks or listens, forgetting afresh every few minutes that
there will be no sleeper in the little garret-room to-night;
takes up her lamp with a sigh, and walks wearily into her
chamber; looks long at the black silhouette of my father,
hung over the mantel-piece; murmurs to herself, — is it a
prayer to Our Father, or a whisper to the beloved Spirit?—
and at last, still murmuring words whose import I may
guess, and with tears, now sad, now grateful, lies down in

[figure description] Page 020.[end figure description]

her bed and gives her soul to the angels that protect the
holy Sleep!

Let me return to my own thoughtless, visionary, confident
self. Charley and I chattered pleasantly together, as we
rode along, for, although he was no great favorite of mine,
the resemblance in our destined lot for the next year or
two brought us into closer relations. Being an only son,
he had his own way too much, and sometimes showed himself
selfish and overbearing towards the rest of us; but I
never thought him really ill-willed, and I could not help
liking any boy (or girl, either) who seemed to like me.

Mr. Rand now and then plied us with good advice, which
Charley shook off as a duck sheds water, while I received
it in all earnestness, and with a conscientious desire to remember
and profit by it. He also enlarged upon our future
places in the world, provided our “finishing” at the
school was what it ought to be.

“I don't say what either o' you will be, mind,” he said;
“but there 's no tellin' what you might n't be. Member o'
the Legislatur' — Congress — President: any man may be
President under our institootions. If you turn out smart
and sharp, Charley, I don't say but what I might n't let you
be a lawyer or a doctor, — though law pays best. You,
John, 'll have to hoe your own row; and I dunno what
you 're cut out for, — maybe a minister. You 've got a sort
o' mild face, like; not much hard grit about you, I guess,
but 't a'n't wanted in that line.”

The man's words made me feel uncomfortable — the
more so as I had never felt the slightest ambition to become
a clergyman. I did n't quite know what he meant by “hard
grit,” but I felt that his criticism was disparaging, contrasted
with his estimate of Charley. My reflections
were interrupted by the latter saying, —

“I 'm agoin' to be what I like best, Pop!”

I said nothing, but I recollect what my thoughts were:
“I 'm going to be what I can; I don't know what; but it
will be something.”

[figure description] Page 021.[end figure description]

From the crest of a long, rolling wave of farm-land we
now saw the village of Honeybrook, straggling across the
bottom of a shallow valley, in the centre of which, hard
against the breast of a long, narrow pond, stood its flourand
saw-mills. I knew the place, as well from later visits
as from my childish recollections; and I knew also that the
heavy brick building, buried in trees, on a rise of ground
off to the northeast, was the Honeybrook Boarding-School
for Boys, kept by Dr. Dymond. A small tin cupola (to
my boyish eyes a miracle of architectural beauty) rose
above the trees, and sparkled in the sun. Under that
magnificent star I was to dwell.

We passed through the eastern end of the village, and in
another quarter of an hour halted in a lane, at one end of
the imposing establishment. Mr. Rand led the way into
the house, Charley and I following, carpet-bags in hand.
An Irish servant-girl, with a face like the rising moon,
answered the bell, and ushered us into a reception-room on
the right hand of the passage. The appearance of this
room gave me a mingled sensation of delight and awe.
There was a bookcase, a small cabinet of minerals, two
large maps on the walls, and a plaster bust of Franklin on
the mantel-piece. The floor was covered with oil-cloth,
checkered with black and white squares, and a piece of
green oil-cloth, frayed at the edges, bedecked the table.
The only ornament in the room was a large spittoon of
brown earthen-ware. Charley and I took our seats behind
the table, on a very slippery sofa of horse-hair, while Mr.
Rand leaned solemnly against the mantel-piece, making
frequent use of the spittoon. Through a side-door we
heard the unmistakable humming of a school in full blast.

Presently this door opened, and Dr. Dymond entered.
I looked with some curiosity at the Jupiter Tonans whose
nod I was henceforth to obey. He was nothing like so
large a man as I expected to see. He may have been fifty
years old; his black hair was well streaked with gray, and

[figure description] Page 022.[end figure description]

he stooped slightly. His gray eyes were keen and clear,
and shaded by bushy brows, his nose long and wedgeshaped,
and his lips thin and firm. He was dressed in
black broadcloth, considerably glazed by wear, and his
black cravat was tied with great care under a very high
and stiff shirt-collar. His voice was dry and distinct, his
language precise, and the regular play of his lips, from the
centre towards the corners, suggested to me the idea that
he peeled his words of any roughness or inaccuracy as they
issued from his mouth.

“Ah, Mr. Rand?” he said, bowing blandly and shaking
hands. “And these are the boys? The classes are scarcely
formed as yet, but we shall soon get them into the right
places. How do you do? This is young Godfrey, I presume.”

He shook hands with us, and then turned to Mr. Rand,
who took out his pocket-book and produced two small rolls,
one of which I recognized as that which mother had given
to him when we left home. It was “half the pay in advance,”
in accordance with the terms of the institution.
Dr. Dymond signed two pieces of paper and delivered
them in return, after which he announced: —

“I must now attend to my school. The boys may remain
in the family-parlor until tea, when they will join the other
pupils. They will commence the regular course of study
to-morrow morning.”

He ushered us across the passage into the opposite room,
bade good-bye to Mr. Rand, and disappeared. “Well,
boys,” said the latter, “I guess it 's all ship-shape now, and
I can go. I want you to hold up your heads like men, and
work like beavers.” He shook hands with Charley, but
only patted me on the head, which I did n't like; so, when
Charley ran to the window to see him drive down the lane,
I turned my back and began examining the books on the
table.

There were “Dick's Works,” and Dr. Lardner's “

[figure description] Page 023.[end figure description]

Scientific Lectures,” and “Redfield's Meteorology,” and I don't
know what besides, for, stumbling on Mrs. Somerville's
“Physical Geography,” I opened that, and commenced reading.
I had a ravenous hunger for knowledge, and my opportunities
for getting books had been so few that scarcely
anything came amiss. Many of the technical terms used in
the book were new to me, but I leaped lightly over them,
finding plenty of stuff to keep my interest alive.

“I say, Jack,” Charley suddenly called, “here 's one of
the boys!”

My curiosity got the better of me. I laid down the book,
and went to the window. A lank youth of about my own
age, with short brown hair and sallow face, was leaning
against the sunny side of a poplar-tree, munching an apple.
From the way in which he made the tree cover his body,
and the furtive glances he now and then threw towards the
house, it was evident that he was not pursuing the “regular
course of study.” We watched him until he had finished
the apple and thrown away the core, when he darted across
to the nearest corner of the house, and crept along the
wall, under the very window at which we were standing.
As he was passing it, he looked up, dodged down suddenly,
looked again, and, becoming reassured, gave us an impudent
wink as he stole away.

We were so interested in watching this performance
that a sharp “Ahem!” in the room, behind us, caused us
both to start and blush, with a sense of being accessories in
the misdemeanor. I turned and saw an erect, sparely
formed lady of thirty-five, whose clouded gray eyes looked
upon me through a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. Her
hair was brown, and hung down each side of her face in
three long curls. Her gown was of a black, rustling stuff,
which did not seem to be silk, and she wore a broad linen
collar, almost like a boy's, with a bit of maroon-colored
ribbon in front. If I were an artist, I am sure I could
draw her entire figure at this moment. It was Miss

[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]

Hitchcock, as I discovered next day, — a distant relative, I
believe, of Dr. Dymond, who assisted him in teaching the
younger boys, and, indeed, some of the older ones. Her
specialty was mathematics, though it was said that she was
tolerably well versed in Latin also.

“You are new scholars, young gentlemen, I see,” she
remarked, in a voice notable, like Dr. Dymond's, for its
precise enunciation. “May I ask your names?”

Charley gave his, and I followed his example.

“Indeed! Godfrey? A mathematical name! Do you
inherit the peculiar talent of your famous ancestor?”

Her question was utterly incomprehensible to me. I
had never even heard of Thomas Godfrey or his quadrant,
and have found no reason, since, to claim relationship with
him. I had a moderate liking for abstract mathematics,
but not sufficient to be developed, by any possibility, into a
talent. Consequently, after stammering and hesitating, I
finally answered, “I don't know.”

“We shall see,” she said, with a patronizing, yet friendly
air. “How far have you advanced in your mathematical
studies?”

I gave her the full extent of my algebra.

“Do you know Logarithms?”

Again I was cruelly embarrassed. I was not sure
whether she meant a person or a book. Not being able to
apply the term to anything in my memory, I at last answered
in the negative.

“You will come to them by the regular progressive
path,” she said. “Also the Differential Calculus. There
I envy you! I think the sense of power which you feel
when you have mastered the Differential Calculus never
can come twice in the course of a mathematical curriculum.
I would be willing to begin again, if I were certain that
I should experience it a second time.” Here she sighed,
as if recalling some vanished joy.

For my part, I began to be afraid of Miss Hitchcock. I

[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]

had never encountered, much less imagined, such a prodigy
of learning. I despaired of being able to understand her;
how she would despise my ignorance when she discovered
it! I afterwards found that, although she was very fond of
expatiating upon mathematical regions into which few of
the scholars ventured, she was a very clear and capital
instructress when she descended to the simpler branches.

Turning from me, she now said to Charley, “Do you
share your friend's taste?”

He appeared no less bewildered than myself; but he
answered, boldly, “Can't say as I do.”

“Come to me, both of you.”

She took a seat, and we approached her awkwardly, and
with not a little wonder. She stretched forth her hands
and grasped each of us by the outer arm, stationed us side
by side, and looked from one to another. “Quite a difference
in the heads!” she remarked, after a full minute of
silent inspection: “Number is not remarkably developed
in either; Language good in both; more Ideality here,”
(touching me on one of the temples,) “also more of the
Moral Sentiment,” (placing a hand on each of our heads).
Then she began rubbing Charley's head smartly, over the
ears, and though he started back, coloring with anger, she
composedly added, “I thought so, — Acquisitiveness six
plus, if not seven.”

We retired to our seats, not at all edified by these cabalistic
sentences. She presently went to a bookcase, glanced
along the titles, and, having selected two bulky volumes,
approached us, saying, “I should think these works would
severally interest you, young gentlemen, judging from your
developments.”

On opening mine, I found it to be “Blair's Rhetoric,”
while Charley's, as I saw on looking over his shoulder at
the title, was the first volume of “McCulloch's Commercial
Dictionary.” For herself she chose a volume of equal size,
containing diagrams, which, from their irregular form, I am

[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]

now inclined to think must have been geological. Charley
seemed to be greatly bored with this literary entertainment,
and I should probably have been equally so, had I not
found couplets and scraps of poetry on turning over the
leaves. These kernels I picked out from the thick husks of
prose in which they were wrapped, and relished.

The situation was nevertheless tedious, and we were
greatly relieved, an hour later, when the dusk was already
falling, to hear the loud sound of a bell echoing through
the house. Miss Hitchcock rose and put away her book,
and we were only too glad to do likewise. The regular
tramp of feet sounded in the passage, and presently an immense
noise of moving chairs came from the adjoining room
on our left. The door of this room opened, and Dr. Dymond
beckoned to us. On entering, we beheld two long
tables, at each of which about twenty boys or young men,
of all ages from twelve to twenty-four, were seated. Dr.
Dymond, placing himself at the head of the first table,
pointed out to us two vacant seats at the bottom of the second,
which was presided over by Miss Hitchcock. All eyes
were upon us as we walked down the room, and I know I
was red to the roots of my hair; Charley took the scrutiny
more easily. It was not merely the newness of the experience,
though that of itself was sufficiently embarrassing, —
the consciousness of my new clothes covered me
awkwardly, from head to foot. I saw some of the boys
wink stealthily at each other, or thrust their tongues into
their cheeks, and envied the brazen stare with which my
companion answered them.

No sooner had we taken our seats than Dr. Dymond
rapped upon the table with the handle of his knife. The
forty boys immediately fixed their eyes upon their plates,
and a short grace was uttered in a loud tone. At its conclusion,
the four Irish maids in waiting set up a loud rattling
of cups and spoons, and commenced pitching measures
of weak tea upon the table. I was so amazed at the

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

rapidity and apparent recklessness with which they flung the
cups down beside the boys, that I forgot to help myself to
the plate of cold meat until all the best pieces were gone,
and I was obliged to choose between a few fatty scraps.
This dish, with some country-made cheese, and a moderate
quantity of bread and butter, constituted the supper.
When Dr. Dymond had finished, he clasped his hands
over his stomach, twirling one thumb around the other,
and now and then casting a sharp glance at such of the
boys as were still eating. The latter seemed to have a
consciousness of the fact, for they hastily crammed the last
morsels of bread into their mouths and gulped down half a
cup of tea at a time. In a few moments they also crossed
their knives and forks upon their plates, and sat erect in
their chairs. Thereupon Dr. Dymond nodded down his
table, first to the row on his right hand, and then to the
row on his left, both of whom rose and retired in the same
order. Miss Hitchcock gave a corresponding signal to our
table, and I found myself, almost before I knew it, in the
school-room on the other side of the hall. Most of the
boys jerked down their caps from the pegs and rushed out-of-doors,
being allowed half an hour's recreation before
commencing their evening studies. With them went Charley,
leaving me to look out for myself. Some half-dozen
youths, all of them older than I, gathered around the stove,
and I sat down shyly upon a stool not far from them, and
listened to their talk. Subjects of study, village news,
the private scandal of the school, and “the girls,” were
strangely mingled in what I heard; and not a few things
caused me to open my eyes and wonder what kind of fellows
they were. I had one comfort, however: they were
evidently superior to my former associates at the Cross-Keys.

As they did not seem to notice me, I got up after a while
and looked out the window at the other boys playing.
Charley Rand was already “hail-fellow well-met” with the

[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]

most of them. I have never since seen his equal for making
acquaintances.

It was not long before a few strokes of the bell hanging
under the tin cupola called them all into the school-room.
Lamps were lighted, and the Principal made his appearance.
His first care was to assign desks to us, and I was
a little disappointed that Charley and I were placed at different
forms. I found myself sandwiched between a grave,
plodding youth of two-and-twenty, and a boy somewhat
younger than myself, who had a disagreeable habit of whispering
his lessons. At the desk exactly opposite to me sat
a boy of eighteen, whose face struck me as the most beautiful
I had ever seen, yet the impression which it produced
was not precisely agreeable. His head was nobly balanced
and proudly carried, the hair black and crisply curling, the
skin uniform as marble in its hue, which was a very pale
olive, the lips full, short, and scornfully curved, and the eyes
large and bright, but too defiant, for his years, in their expression.
Beside him sat his physical opposite, — a redcheeked,
blue-eyed, laughing fellow of fourteen, as fresh
and sweet as a girl, but with an imp of mischief dodging
about his mouth, or lurking in the shadow of his light-brown
locks. I had not been at my desk fifteen minutes
before he stealthily threw over to me a folded slip of paper,
on which he had written, “What is your name?”

I looked up, and was so charmed by the merry brightness
of the eyes which met mine that I took a pen and wrote,
“John Godfrey. What is yours?”

Back came the answer, — “Bill Caruthers.”

It was several days before I discovered why he and all
the other boys who heard me address him as Bill Caruthers
laughed so immoderately. The little scamp had written the
name of my grave right-hand neighbor, his own name being
Oliver Thornton.

There was no recitation in the evening, so, after a few
questions, Dr. Dymond ordered me to prepare for the

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

grammar class in the morning. I attended to the task conscientiously,
and had even gone beyond it when bedtime came.
The Doctor himself mounted with us to the attic-story,
which was divided into four rooms, containing six beds
each. I had expected to sleep with Charley Rand, and was
quite dismayed to see him go off to another room with one
of his new playmates.

I stood, meanwhile, lonely and abashed, with my little
carpet-bag in hand, in the centre of one of the rooms, with
nine boys around me in various degrees of undress. Dr.
Dymond finally perceived my forlorn plight.

“Boys,” said he, “which beds here are not filled. You
must make room for Godfrey.”

“Whitaker's and Penrose's,” answered one, who sat in
his shirt on the edge of a bed, pulling off his stockings.

The Doctor looked at the beds indicated. “Where 's
Penrose?” he said.

“Here, sir,” replied Penrose, entering the room at that
moment. It was my vis-à-vis of the school-room.

“Godfrey will sleep with you.”

Penrose cast an indifferent glance towards me, and pulled
off his coat. I commenced undressing, feeling that all the
boys in the room, who were now comfortably in bed, were
leisurely watching me. But Dr. Dymond stood waiting,
lamp in hand, and I hurried, with numb fingers, to get off
my clothes. “A slim chance of legs,” I heard one of the
boys whisper, as I crept along the further side of the bed
and stole between the sheets. Penrose turned them down
immediately afterwards, deliberately stretched himself out
with his back towards me, and then drew up the covering.
Dr. Dymond vanished with the lamp, and closed the door
after him.

My situation was too novel, and — let me confess the exact
truth — I was too frightened, to sleep. I had once or twice
passed a night with Bob Simmons, at his father's house, but
with this exception had always slept alone. The silence

[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]

and indifference of my bedfellow troubled me. I envied
the other pairs, who were whispering together, or stifling
their laughter with the bedclothes, lest the Doctor might
hear. I tucked the edges of the sheet and blankets under
me, and lay perfectly still, lest I should annoy Penrose,
who was equally motionless, — but whether he slept or not,
I could not tell. My body finally began to ache from the
fixed posture, but it was a long time before I dared to turn,
moving an inch at a time. The glory of the school was
already dimmed by the experience of the first evening, and
I was too ignorant to foresee that my new surroundings
would soon become not only familiar, but pleasant. The
room was silent, except for a chorus of deep breathings,
with now and then the mutterings of a boyish dream, before
I fell asleep.

p714-044 CHAPTER III. IN WHICH I BEGIN TO LOOK FORWARD.

[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]

The bell in the cupola called us from our beds at the first
streak of dawn. The clang awoke me with a start, my
sleep having been all the more profound from its delay in
coming. For a minute or two I could not imagine where
or what I was, and even when the knowledge finally crept
through my brain, and I had thrust my spare legs out from
under the bedclothes, I mechanically kept my head bent
down lest it should bump against the rafters in my garret
at home. Penrose, who was already half dressed, seemed
to notice this; there was a mocking smile on his handsome
lips, but he said nothing. The other boys set up such a
clatter that I was overlooked, and put on my clothes with
less embarrassment than I had taken them off.

We then went down-stairs to a large shed — an appendage
to the kitchen — at the back of the house. There
was a pump in the corner, and some eight or ten tin washbasins
ranged side by side in a broad, shallow trough. Four
endless towels, of coarse texture, revolved on rollers, and
there was much pushing and hustling among the boys who
came from the basins with bent, dripping faces, and extended,
dripping hands. Towards the end of the ablutions,
as the dry spots became rare, the revolution of the towels
increased, and the last-comers painfully dried themselves
along the edges.

There was a fire in the school-room, but the atmosphere
was chilly, and the dust raised by the broom lay upon the

[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]

desks. My neighbor Caruthers, however, had taken his seat,
and was absorbed in the construction of a geometrical diagram.
I made a covert examination of him as I took my
place beside him. His features were plain, and by no means
intellectual, and I saw that his hands were large and hard,
showing that he was used to labor. I afterwards learned
that he was actually a carpenter, and that he paid for his
winter's instruction by the summer's earnings at his trade.
He was patient, plodding, and conscientious in his studies.
His progress, indeed, was slow, but what he once acquired
was never lost. In the course of time a quiet, friendly understanding
sprang up between us; perhaps we recognized
a similar need of exertion and self-reliance.

After breakfast the business of the school commenced
in earnest with me. Dr. Dymond, with some disqualifications,
had nevertheless correctly chosen his vocation. Looking
back to him now, I can see that his attainments were
very superficial, but he had at least a smattering of every
possible science, a clear and attractive way of presenting
what he knew, and great skill in concealing his deficiencies.
Though he was rather strict and exacting towards the
school, in its collective character, his manner was usually
friendly and encouraging towards the individual pupils.
He thus preserved a creditable amount of discipline, without
provoking impatience or insubordination. He was very
fond of discoursing to us, sometimes for an hour at a time,
upon any subject which happened temporarily to interest
him; and if the regular order of study was thereby interrupted,
I have no doubt we were gainers in the end. He
had the knack of exciting a desire for knowledge, which is
a still more important quality in a teacher than that of imparting
it. In my own case, I know, what had before been
a vague ambition took definite form and purpose under the
stimulus of his encouragement.

With the exception of Miss Hitchcock, there was no regular
assistant. One of the oldest pupils took charge of a

[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]

dozen of the youngest scholars, in consideration (as was
surmised in the school) of being received as a boarder
without pay. Mrs. Dymond — or Mother Dymond, as the
boys called her — was rarely seen, unless a scholar happened
to fall sick, when she invariably made her appearance
with a bowl of hot gruel or herb-tea. She was a mild,
phlegmatic creature, with weak eyes, very little hair on week-days,
and an elaborate cap and false front on Sundays. She
had no children.

My first timidity on entering the school was considerably
alleviated by the discovery that I was not behind any of
the scholars of my age in the most important branches.
Dr. Dymond commended my reading, chirography, and
grammar, and gave me great delight by placing me in the
“composition” class. I had a blank book for my exercises,
which were first written on a slate and then carefully copied
in black and white. The mysteries of amplification, condensation,
and transposition fascinated me. I don't know
in how many ways I recorded the fact that “Peter, the
ploughman, ardently loved Mary, the beautiful shepherdess.”
I drew the stock comparisons between darkness and
adversity, sunshine and prosperity, plunged into antithesis,
and clipped away pleonasms with a boldness which astonished
myself. Penrose was in the same class. I thought,
but it may have been fancy, that his lip curled a little when
I went forward with him to the recitation. He looked at me
gravely and steadily when my turn came; I felt his eye,
and my voice wavered at the commencement. It seemed
that we should never become acquainted. I was too timid
to make the least advance, though attracted, in spite of myself,
by his proud beauty; and he retained the same air of
haughty indifference. At night we lay down silently side
by side, and it was not until the fourth morning that he addressed
a single word to me. I heard the bell, but lingered
for one sweet, warm minute longer. Perhaps he thought
me asleep; for he leaned over the bed, took me by the

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

shoulder, and said, “Get up!” I was so startled that I
sprang out of bed at one bound.

I noticed that young Thornton, though a very imp of mischief
towards the other boys, never dared to play the least
prank upon Penrose. Something had happened between
the two, during a previous term, but what it was, none except
themselves knew. No one, I was told, could cope
with Penrose in muscular strength, yet there was nothing
of the bully about him. He was respected, without being
popular; his isolation, unlike that of Caruthers, had something
offensive about it. I was a little vexed with myself
that he usurped so prominent a place in my thoughts: but
so it was.

Charley Rand took on the ways of the school at the
start, and was at home in every respect before two days
were over. I could not so easily adapt myself to the new
circumstances, but slowly and awkwardly put off my first
painful feeling of embarrassment. Fortunately, before the
week was over, another new scholar was introduced, and
he served at least to turn the attention of the school away
from me. I was older than he by three days' experience,—
a fact which gave me a pleasant increase of confidence.
Nevertheless, the time wore away very slowly; months
seemed to have intervened since my parting with my
mother, and I was quite excited with the prospect of
returning, when the school was dismissed, early on Saturday
afternoon.

“Oh, Charley!” I cried, as we passed over the ridge
beyond Honeybrook, and Dr. Dymond's school sank out of
sight, “only think! in an hour we shall be at home.”

“If 't was n't for the better grub I shall get, Godfrey,
I 'd as lief stay over Sunday with the boys,” said he. He
had already dropped the familiar “Jack,” but this shocked
me less than his indifference to the homestead, where, I
knew, he was always petted and indulged. It was not
long before I, in turn, learned to call him “Rand.”

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

He continually detained me by stopping to search for
chestnuts in the edges of the groves, or to throw stones at
the squirrels scampering along the top-rails of the fences.
Finally I grew impatient, and hurried forward alone, for
the houses of our little village were in sight, and I knew
mother would be expecting me every moment. I felt sure
that I should see her face at the window, and considered a
moment whether I should not jump into the next field and
cross it to the rear of our garden, so as to take her by surprise.
I gave up this plan, and entered by the front-door,
but I still had my surprise, for she had not expected me so
soon.

“Well, mother, have you been very lonely?” I asked,
as soon as the first joyous greeting was over.

“No, Johnny, not more than I expected; but it 's nice
to have you back again. I 'll just see to the kitchen, and
then you must tell me everything.”

She bustled out, but came back presently with red
cheeks and sparkling eyes, moved her chair beside mine,
and said, “Now” —

I gave the week's history, from beginning to end, my
mother every now and then lifting up her hands and saying,
“You don't say so!” I concealed only my own feelings
of strangeness and embarrassment, which it was mortifying
enough to confess to myself. The account I gave
of the studies upon which I had entered was highly satisfactory
to my poor mother, and I have no doubt that the
pride she felt, or foresaw she should feel, in my advancement,
helped her thenceforth to bear her self-imposed sacrifice.
My description of Miss Hitchcock's singular questions
and phrenological remarks seemed to afford her great
pleasure, and I am sure that the picture which I drew of
Dr. Dymond's erudition must have been overwhelming.

“I 'm glad I 've sent you, Johnny!” she exclaimed when
I had finished. “It seems to be the right place, and I
don't begrudge the money a bit, if it helps to make a man

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

of you. I 've been more troubled this week on your account
than my own. Some boarding-schools are rough places for
a boy like you, that has n't been knocked about and made
to fight his way. I was afraid I 'd kept you too long at
home, maybe, but I guess you 're not spoiled yet, — are
you?”

“No, indeed, mother!” I cried, jumping up to smooth
one of her puffs. How glad I was of the bit of boyish
swagger which had so happily deceived her.

We had “short cakes” and currant-jam for supper that
night. How cosy and delightful it was, to be sure! I had
brought along the book in which my exercises in composition
were written, and read them aloud, every one. Poor
mother must have been bewildered by the transpositions;
perhaps she wondered what upon earth it all meant; but
she said, “And did you do all that yourself?” with an air
of serious admiration which made my heart glow. After
supper, Neighbor Niles came in, and I must read the
exercises all over again for her benefit, my mother every
now and then nodding to her and whispering, “All his
own doing.”

“It 's a deal for a boy o' his age,” said Neighbor Niles;
“though, for my part, I 've got so little book-larnin', that I
can't make head nor tail of it. Neither my old man nor
my boys takes to sich things. Brother Dan'l, — him that
went out to the backwoods, you know, comin' ten year next
spring, — he writ some verses once't on the death of 'Lijah
Sykes, cousin by the mother's side, that was — but I disremember
'em, only the beginnin': —


“Little did his parents think, and little did his parents know,
That he should so soon be called for to go.”
If Dan'l 'd ha' had proper schoolin', he might ha' been the
schollard o' the fam'ly. When Johnny gits a little furder,
I should n't wonder if he could write somethin' about my
Becky Jane, — somethin' short and takin', that we could

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

have cut on her tombstone. You know it costs three cents
a letter.”

“Think of that, Johnny!” cried my mother, triumphantly:
“if you could do that, now! Why, people would
read it long after you and I are dead and gone!”

My ambition was instantly kindled to produce, in the
course of time, a “short and takin'” elegy on Becky Jane.
This was my first glimpse of a possible immortality. I
looked forward to the day when my fame should be established
in every household of the Cross-Keys, to be freshly
revived whenever there was a funeral, and the inscriptions
on the tombstones were dutifully read. Perhaps, even, I
might be heard of in Honeybrook, and down the Philadelphia
road as far as Snedikersville! There was no end
to the conceit in my abilities which took possession of me;
I doubt whether it has ever since then been so powerful.
When I went into the garden the next morning, I looked
with contempt at the little corner behind the snowball-bush.
What a boy I had been but a few weeks ago! — and
now I was a man, or the next thing to it. I instinctively
straightened myself in my new boots, and felt either cheek
carefully, in the hope of finding a nascent down; but, alas!
none was perceptible. Bob Simmons told me in confidence,
the last time we met, that the hostler at the Cross-Keys had
shaved both him and Jackson Reanor, and had predicted
that he would soon have a beard. I must wait another
year, I feared, for this evidence of approaching manhood.

Bob, I found, was not to commence his apprenticeship
until early in the spring. I longed to see him and talk
over my school experiences, but I was not thoughtless
enough to leave mother during my first Sunday at home,
especially as I saw that the dear little woman was becoming
more and more reconciled to the change. The day
was passed in a grateful quiet, and we went early to bed,
in order that I might rise by daybreak, and be ready to
join Charley Rand.

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

Thus week after week of the new life went by, until the
pangs of change were conquered to both of us. I began to
put forth new shoots, like a young tree that has been taken
from a barren hill-side and set in the deep, mellow soil of a
garden. My progress for a time was astonishing, for all
the baffled desires of my later childhood became so many
impelling forces. Mother soon ceased to be the oracle she
had once been; but I think she felt this (if, indeed, she
was aware of it) as one joy the more. Her hope was to
look up to and be guided by me. She possessed simply
the power of enduring adverse circumstances, not the
energy necessary to transform them. In my advancement
she saw her own release from a maternal responsibility,
always oppressive, though so patiently and cheerfully borne.

The books I required were an item which had been overlooked
in her estimate of the expenses, and we had many
long and anxious consultations on this subject. I procured
a second-hand geometry, at half-price, from Walton, the
young man who taught for his board, and so got on with
my mathematics; but there seemed no hope of my being
able to join the Latin class, for which three new books were
required, at the start. By Christmas, however, mother
raised the necessary funds, having obtained, as I afterwards
discovered, a small advance upon the annual interest of the
fifteen hundred dollars, which was not due until April. This
money had been placed in the hands of her brother-in-law,
Mr. Amos Woolley, a grocer, in Reading, for investment.
She had never before asked for any part of the sum in advance,
and I suspect it was not obtained without some difficulty.

Dr. Dymond was too old a teacher to let his preferences
be noticed by the scholars, but I knew that both he and
Miss Hitchcock were kindly disposed towards me. He was
fond of relating anecdotes of Franklin, Ledyard, Fulton,
and other noted men who had risen from obscurity, and inciting
his pupils to imitate them. Whatever fame the latter

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

might achieve would of course be reflected upon him and his
school. The older boys — who were mostly plodding youths
of limited means, ambitious of culture — were also friendly
and encouraging, and I associated almost exclusively with
them. The pranks of the younger ones were no longer
formidable, since there was so little opportunity of their
practical application to me. I had spirit enough to resent
imposition, and my standing as a scholar prevented me from
becoming a butt suitable for torment: so, upon the whole,
I was tolerably happy and satisfied, even without the existence
of an intimate friendship. My childish faith in the
truth and goodness of everybody had not yet been shaken.

Punctually, every Saturday afternoon, Charley and I returned
to the Cross-Keys, on foot when the weather was
good, and in Mr. Rand's “rockaway” when there was rain
or mud. For three weeks in succession the sleighing was
excellent, and then we had the delight of a ride both ways,—
once (shall I ever forget it?) packed in with the entire
Rand family, Emily, Charley, and myself on the front seat,
with our arms around each other to keep from tumbling off.
Emily was very gracious on this occasion; I suppose my
blue cap and gray jacket made a difference. She wore a
crimson merino dress, which I thought the loveliest thing I
had ever seen, and the yellow ringlets gushed out on either
side of her face, from under the warm woollen hood. We
went home in the twinkling of an eye, and I forgot my carpet-bag,
on reaching the front gate, but Charley flung it
into Niles's yard.

I find myself lingering on these little incidents of my
boyhood, — clinging to that free, careless, confident period,
as if reluctant to march forward into the region of disenchantments.
The experiences of boys differ perhaps as
widely as those of men, but they float on a narrow stream,
and, though some approach one bank and some the other,
the same features are visible to all. How different from
the open sea, where millions of keels pass and repass day

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

and night, rarely touching the moving circles of each other's
horizons, — some sailing in belts of prosperous wind, between
the tracks of tempest, — some foundering alone, just
out of sight of the barks that would have flown to their rescue!
I must not forget that the details of my early history
are naturally more interesting to myself than to the reader,
and that he is no more likely to deduce the character of my
later fortunes from them than I was at the time. Even in
retrospect, we cannot always decipher the history of our
lives. The Child is Father of the Man, it is true: but few
sons are like their fathers.

The only circumstance which has left a marked impression
upon my memory occurred towards the close of the
winter. Both Dr. Dymond and Miss Hitchcock were
obliged to leave the school one afternoon, on account of
some important occurrence in Honeybrook, — I think a funeral,
though it may have been a wedding. Walton was
therefore placed at the central desk, on the platform, and
we were severely enjoined to preserve order during the absence
of the principal. We sat very quietly until the Doctor's
carriage was seen to drive away from the door, whereupon
Thornton, Rand, and a number of the other restless,
mischievous spirits began to perk up their heads, exchange
winks and grins, and betray other symptoms of revolt.
Walton knew what was coming: he was a meek, amiable
fellow, sweating under his responsibility, and evidently bewildered
as to the course he ought to pursue. He knit his
brows and tried to look very severe; but it was a pitiful sham,
which deceived nobody. Thornton, who had been dodging
about and whispering among his accomplices, immediately
imitated poor Walton's expression. The corrugation of his
brows was something preternatural. The others copied his
example, and the aspect of the school was most ludicrous.
Still, there had been no palpable violation of the rules, and
Walton was puzzled what to do. To notice the caricature
would be to acknowledge its correctness. He drew his left

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

shoulder up against his ear and thrust his right hand into
his back hair, — a habit which was known to the school. A
dozen young scamps at once did the same thing, but with
extravagant contortions and grimaces.

The effect was irresistible. There was a rustling and
shaking of suppressed laughter from one end of the school-room
to the other — the first throes of an approaching
chaos. For the life of me, I could not help joining in it,
though sympathizing keenly with Walton's painful position.
His face flushed scarlet as he looked around the room; but
the next instant he became very pale, stood up, and after
one or two convulsive efforts to find a voice, — which was
very unsteady when it came, — addressed us.

“Boys,” said he, “you know this is n't right. I did n't
take Dr. Dymond's place of my own choice. I have n't got
his authority over you, but you 'd be orderly if he was here,
and he 's asked you to be it while he 's away. It 's his rule
you 're breaking, not mine. I can't force you to keep it,
but I can say you 're wrong in not doing it. I 'm here to
help any of you in your studies as far as I can, and I 'll attend
to that part faithfully if you 'll all do your share in
keeping order.”

He delivered these sentences slowly, making a long pause
between each. The scholars were profoundly silent and
attentive. Thornton and some of the others tried a few
additional winks and grimaces, but they met with no encouragement;
we were waiting to see what would come
next. When Walton finally sat down he had evidently little
hope that his words would produce much effect; and
indeed there was no certainty that the temporary quiet
would be long preserved.

We were all, therefore, not a little startled when Penrose
suddenly arose from his seat, and said, in a clear, firm
voice, — “I am sure I speak the sentiments of all my fellow-scholars,
Mr. Walton, when I say that we will keep
order.”

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

The older boys nodded their assent and resumed their
studies. Thornton hung down his head, and seemed to
have quite lost his spirits for the rest of the day. But the
business of the school went on like clock-work. I don't
think we ever had so quiet an afternoon.

p714-056 CHAPTER IV. CONTAINING FEATS IN THE CELLAR AND CONVERSATIONS UPON THE ROOF.

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

With the end of March the winter term of the school
came to a close. I had established my position as an apt
and rapidly advancing scholar; others had the start of me,
but no one made better progress. I had mastered, among
other things, Geometry and a Latin epitome of Sacred History.
The mystic words — “Deus creavit cœlum et terram”—
which I had approached with wonder and reverence, as
if they had been thundered out of an unseen world, were
now become as simple and familiar as anything in Peter
Parley. Miss Hitchcock, with the air of a queen conferring
the order of the Shower-Bath, promised me Cornelius Nepos
and Fluxions for the summer term; and Dr. Dymond
hinted to the composition-class that we might soon try our
hands at original essays. Something was also said about a
debating club. The perspective lengthened and brightened
with every forward step.

The close of the term was signalized by a school exhibition,
to which were invited the relatives of the pupils and
the principal personages in Honeybrook, — two clergymen,
the doctor, the “squire,” the teacher of the common school,
and six retired families of independent means. To most
of us boys it was both a proud and solemn occasion. I was
bent upon having mother to witness my performance, and
hoped she could come with the Rands, but their biggest
and best carriage would hold no more than themselves.
At the last moment Neighbor Niles made the offer of an

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

ancient horse and vehicle, which she used for her own occasional
visits in the neighborhood. As the horse had frequently
been known to stop in the road, but never, of his
own will, to go faster than a creeping walk, it was considered
safe for mother to drive him over alone and take
me home with her for my month's vacation.

At the appointed time she made her appearance, dressed
in the brown silk that dated from her wedded days, and the
venerable crape shawl which had once covered the shoulders
of Aunt Christina. She was quite overawed on being
presented to Dr. Dymond and Miss Hitchcock, but made
speedy acquaintance with Mother Dymond, and, indeed,
took a seat beside her in the front row of spectators. The
exercises were very simple. Specimens of our penmanship
and geometrical diagrams (which few of the guests understood)
were exhibited; we were drilled in mental arithmetic,
and answered chemical, pneumatic, hydraulic, and astronomical
questions. But the crowning pride and interest of
the day was reserved for the declamations, in which at least
half the pupils took part. From the classic contents of the
“Columbian Orator,” we selected passages from Robert
Emmet, William Pitt, Patrick Henry, and Cicero; Byron,
Joel Barlow, and Milton; Addison and Red Jacket. Dr.
Dymond assigned to me the part of “David,” from Hannah
More's dramatic poem. I did n't quite like to be addressed
as “girl!” by Bill Dawson, — the biggest boy in the school,
who was Goliath, — or to be told to


“Go,
And hold fond dalliance with the Syrian maids:
To wanton measures dance; and let them braid
The bright luxuriance of thy golden hair.”—
especially as Thornton and the younger fellows snickered
when he came to the last line. My hair might still have
had a reddish tinge where the sun struck across it, but it
was growing darker from year to year. I gave it back to
Goliath, however, when it came to my turn to say, —

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

“I do defy thee,
Thou foul idolater!”
or when, dilating into prophecy, I screamed, —


“Nor thee alone, —
The mangled carcasses of your thick hosts
Shall spread the plains of Elah!”
I think I produced an effect. I know that mother looked
triumphant when I swung a piece of leather with nothing
in it, and Bill Dawson tumbled full length on the platform,
occasioning mild exclamations and shuddering among the
female spectators; and I fancied that Emily Rand (in the
crimson merino) must have been favorably impressed. I
certainly made a better appearance than Charley, who
rushed through his share of the debate in the Roman Senate,
in this wise, —

“MythoughtsImustconfessareturnedonpeace.”

The great, the auspicious day of Cato and of Rome came
to an end. I said good-bye to the boys: Caruthers was going
off to his carpenter-work, and would not return. I liked
him and was sorry to lose him. We never met again, but
I have since heard of him as State senator in a Western
capital. Even the dark eyes of Penrose looked upon me
kindly as he shook hands, bestowing a side-bow, as he did
so, upon my mother. Miss Hitchcock gave me a parting
injunction of “Remember, Godfrey! — Fluxions and Cornelius
Nepos!” and so we climbed into the creaking vehicle
and set off homewards.

We might have walked with much more speed and comfort.
The horse took up and put down his feet as gently
as if he were suffering from corns; at the least rise in the
road he stopped, looked around at us, and seemed to expect
us to alight, heaving a deep sigh when forced to resume his
march. Then he had an insane desire of walking in the
gutter on the left side of the road, and all my jerking of
the reins and flourishing of a short dogwood switch produced
not the slightest effect. He merely whisked his

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

stumpy tail, as much as to say, “That for you!” We
reached the Cross-Keys at last, long after sunset; but the
abominable beast, who had been so ready to stop anywhere
on the way, now utterly refused to be pulled up at our gate,
and mother was obliged to ride on to the bars at the end
of Niles's lane, before she could get down. Our good
Neighbor thereupon sallied out and took us in to tea; so
the end of the journey was pleasant.

The vacation came at a fortunate time. I succeeded in
getting our garden into snug trim: the peas were stuck and
the cabbages set out before my summer term commenced;
nor were the studies neglected which I had purposed to
continue at home. Bob Simmons had finally left, and I
missed him sadly: Rand's great house, whither I was now
privileged to go occasionally, with even the attraction of
Emily, could not fill up the void left by his departure. I
was not sorry when the month drew to an end. The little
cottage seemed to have grown strangely quiet and lonely;
my nest under the roof lost its charm, except when the
April rains played a pattering lullaby upon the shingles;
looking forward to Cornelius Nepos and Fluxions, I no
longer heard my mother's antiquated stories with the same
boyish relish, and something of this new unrest must have
betrayed itself in my habits. I never, in fact, thought of
concealing it — never dreamed that my mind, in breaking
away from the government of home ideas and associations,
could give a pang to the loving heart, for which I
was all, but which, seemingly, was not all for me.

I returned to Dr. Dymond's with the assured, confident
air of a boy who knows the ground upon which he stands.
My relations with the principal had been agreeable from
the commencement, and the contact with my fellow-students
had long since ceased to inspire me with shyness or
dread. I had many moderate friendships among them, but
was strongly attracted towards none, except, perhaps, him
whose haughty coldness repelled me. I was at a loss, then, to

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

comprehend this magnetism: now it has ceased to be obscure.
I was impressed, far more powerfully than I suspected, by
his physical beauty. Had those short, full, clearly-cut lips
smiled upon me, I should not have questioned whether the
words that came from them were good or evil. His influence
over me might have been boundless, if he had so
willed it — but he did not. The tenderer shoots of feeling
were nipped as fast as they put forth. He was always just
and considerate, and perhaps as communicative towards
myself as towards any of the other boys; but this was
far from being a frank, cordial companionship. His reticence,
however, occasionally impressed me as not being
entirely natural; there was about him an air of some sad
premature experience of life.

Few of the quiet, studious, older pupils remained during
the summer, while there was an accession of younger ones,
principally from Philadelphia. The tone of our society
thus became gay and lively, even romping, at times. I
was heartily fond of sport, and I now gave myself up to it
wholly during play-hours. I was always ready for a game
of ball on the green; for a swim in the shallow upper part
of Honeybrook Pond; for an excursion to the clearings
where wild strawberries grew; for — not at first, I honestly
declare, and not without cowardly terrors and serious
twinges of conscience — for a midnight descent into the
cellar, a trembling groping in the dark until the pies were
found, and then a rapid transfer of a brace of them to our
attic. The perils of the latter exploit made it fearfully attractive.
Had the pies been of the kind which we abominated, —
dried-apple, — we should have stolen them all the
same. Nay, such is the natural depravity of the human
heart, that no pies were so good (or ever have been since)
as those which we divided on the top of a trunk, and ate
by moonlight, sitting in our shirts.

The empty dishes of course told the tale, and before
many days a stout wooden grating was erected across the

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

cellar, in front of the pastry shelves. This device merely
stimulated our ingenuity. Various plans were suggested,
and finally two of the boldest boys volunteered to descend
and test a scheme of their own. They were absent half
an hour, and we were beginning to be more amused than
apprehensive at their stay, when they appeared with the
coveted pies in their arms. They had secreted matches
and a bit of candle, found the oven-shovel, and thrust it
through the grating, after which it was an easy matter to
reach the dish, withdraw the pie perpendicularly, and replace
the dish on the shelf. I fancy Mother Dymond must
have opened her silly eyes unusually wide the next morning.

The enemy now adopted a change of tactics which came
near proving disastrous. Thornton and myself were chosen
for the next night's foray. We had safely descended the
stairs (which would creak tremendously, however lightly you
stepped), and I, as the leader, commenced feeling my way
in the dark across the dining-room, when I came unexpectedly
upon a delicately piled pyramid of chairs. I no sooner
touched the pile than down it crashed, with the noise of artillery.
Thornton whisked out of the door and up-stairs
like a cat, I following, completely panic-struck. I was none
too quick, for another door suddenly opened into the passage
and the light of a lamp struck vengefully up after us.
By this time I had cleared the first flight, and all that Dr.
Dymond could have seen of me was the end of a flag of
truce fluttering across the landing-place. He gave chase
very nimbly for his years, but I increased the advantage
already gained, and was over head and ears in bed by the
time he had reached the attic-floor. Thornton was already
snoring. The Doctor presently made his appearance in
his dressing-gown, evidently rather puzzled. He looked
from bed to bed, and beheld only the innocent sleep, knitting
up the ravelled sleave of care. If he had been familiar
with Boccaccio (a thing not to be for a moment suspected),
he might have tried the stratagem of King Agilulf with

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

triumphant success. Even the test which Lady Derby applied
to Fenella might have been sufficient. I fancy, however,
that he felt silly in being foiled, and thought only of
retreating with dignity.

He finally broke silence by exclaiming, in a stern voice,
“Who was it?”

Bill Dawson, who had really been asleep, started, rubbed
his eyes, and finally sat up in bed, looking red and flustered.
The Doctor's face brightened; he moved a step nearer to
Bill, and again asked: “Who made the disturbance?”

“I — I 'm sure I don't know,” Bill stammered: “I did
n't hear anything.”

“You did not hear? There was a dreadful racket, sir.
I thought the house was coming down. It roused me out
of my sleep” (as if he had not been watching in the adjoining
room!) “and then I heard somebody running up
and down stairs. Take care, Dawson; this won't do.”

Bill made a confused and incoherent protestation of innocence,
which the Doctor cut short by exclaiming: “Don't
let it happen again, sir!” and vanishing with his lamp.
Whether he was really so little of a detective as to suspect
the first boy whom his voice brought to life, or merely made
use of Dawson as a telegraphic wire to transmit messages
to the rest of us, I will not decide. At dinner the following
day, and for several succeeding days, Bill was furnished,
in accordance with private instructions to the waiting-maids,
with an immense slice of pie, which he devoured in convulsive
haste, Dr. Dymond's sharp eye on him all the time,
and Dr. Dymond's thumbs revolving around each other at
double speed. It was great fun for us, although it put a
stop to our midnight excursions to the cellar.

A few weeks later, however, we found a substitute which
was more innocent, although quite as irregular. The
weather had become very hot, and our attic was so insufferably
close and sultry that we not only kept the window open
all night, but kicked off the bedclothes. Frequently one

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

or the other of us, unable to sleep, would sit in the window
and cool his heated body. And so it happened one night,
when we were all tossing restlessly and exchanging lamentations,
that Thornton's voice called in to us from the outer
air, “I say, boys, come out here; it 's grand.”

The roof of the house was but slightly pitched, with a
broad gutter at the bottom. Thornton had stepped into
this and walked up to the comb, where he sat in his breezy
drapery, leaning against a chimney. The prospect was so
tempting that all of us who were awake followed him.

It was a glorious summer night. The moon, steeped in
hazy warmth, swam languidly across the deep violet sky, in
which only the largest stars faintly sparkled. The poplarleaves
rocked to and fro on their twisted stems and counterfeited
a pleasant breeze, though but the merest breath
of air was stirring. Stretching away to the south and
southwest, the whole basin of the valley was visible, its
features massed and balanced with a breadth and beauty
which the sun could never give. The single spire of Honeybrook
rose in darker blue above the shimmering pearly
gray of the distance, and a streak of purest silver was
drawn across the bosom of the pond. Those delicate, volatile
perfumes of grass and leaves and earth which are
only called forth by night and dew, filled the air. On such
a night, our waste of beauty in the unconsciousness of slumber
seems little less than sin.

We crowded together, sitting on the sharp comb (which,
gradually cutting into the unprotected flesh, suggested the
advantage of being a cherub) or lying at full length on the
gentle slope of the roof, and unanimously declared that it
was better than bed. Our young brains were warmed and
our fancies stimulated by the poetic influences of the night.
We wondered whether the moon was inhabited, and if so,
what sort of people they were; and finally, whether the
lunar school-boys played ball, and bought pea-nuts with
their pocket-money, and stole pies.

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

“By George!” exclaimed one of the composition-class,
“that 's a good idea! Next week, the Doctor says, we may
choose our own subjects to write about. Now I 'm going
to write about the inhabitants of the moon, because, you
know, a fellow can say just what he pleases, and who 's to
prove it may n't be true?”

“I guess I 'll write a poem, or a tragedy, or something
of that sort,” said Brotherton, sticking up one leg into the
air as he lay upon his back.

“What is a tragedy?” asked Jones.

“Pshaw! don't you know that?” broke in Thornton,
with an air of contempt. “They 're played in the theatres.
I 've seen 'em. Where the people get stabbed, or poisoned,
and everything comes out dreadful at the end, it 's tragedy;
and where they laugh all the time, and play tricks, and get
married, and wind up comfortable, it 's comedy.”

“But I was at the theatre once,” said Brotherton, “and
two of them were killed, and he and she got married for
all that. I tell you, she was a beauty! Now, what would
you call that sort of a play?”

“Why, a comic tragedy, to be sure,” answered Thornton.

“Where do the theatres get them?”

“Oh, they have men hired to write them,” Thornton
continued, proud of a chance to show his superior knowledge.
“My brother Eustace told me all about it. He 's a
lawyer, and has an office of his own in Seventh Street. He
knows one of the men, and I know him too, but I forget
his name. I was in Eustace's office one afternoon when he
came; he had a cigar in his mouth; he was a tragedician.
A tragedician 's a man that writes only tragedies. Comedicians
write comedies; it 's great fun to know them. They
can mimic anybody they choose, and change their faces into
a hundred different shapes.”

“How much do they get paid for their tragedies?” asked
the inquisitive Jones.

“Very likely a hundred dollars a piece,” I suggested.

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

“A hundred dollars!” sneered Thornton; “tell that to
the marines! Why, I suppose my brother Eustace could
write one a day, — he writes like a book, I tell you, — and
he 'd make tragedies quick enough, at that price. We had
a boy, once, in father's store, that swept and made fires,
and he went into the theatre for a soldier in the fighting-plays,
for two dollars a week, — uniforms found. I should
think if a regular tragedician got twenty dollars a week,
he 'd be lucky.”

“Why don't your brother write them?” I asked.

“He? Oh, he could do it easy, but I guess it is n't
exactly respectable. A lawyer, you know, is as good as any
man.”

“Shut up, you little fool!” exclaimed a clear, deep voice,
so good-humored in tone that we were slightly startled, not
immediately recognizing Penrose, who had come up on the
other side of the dormer-window, and was seated in the
hip of the roof. His shirt was unbuttoned and the collar
thrown back, revealing a noble neck and breast, and his
slender, symmetrical legs shone in the moonlight like
golden-tinted marble. His lips were parted in the sensuous
delight of the balmy air-bath, and his eyes shone like
dark fire in the shadow of his brows. I thought I had
never seen any human being so beautiful.

“You forget, Oliver,” he continued, in a kindly though
patronizing tone, “that Shakspeare was a writer of tragedies.”

“I know, Penrose,” Thornton meekly answered, “that
Shakspeare was a great man. His books are in my
brother's library at the office in Seventh Street, but I 've
never read any of 'em. Eustace says I could n't understand
'em yet.”

“Nor he, either, I dare say,” Penrose remarked.

“Boys,” he added, after a pause, “Brotherton has had
an idea, and now I 've got one. This is a good time and
place for selecting our themes for composition. We are in

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

the higher regions of the atmosphere, and where the air
expands I should n't wonder if the brain expanded too.
Moonlight brings out our thoughts. Who 'd have supposed
that Thornton knew so much about `tragedicians' and
`comedicians'?”

We all laughed, even Thornton himself, although he
was n't sure but that Penrose might be “chaffing” him.
The latter's suggestion was at once taken up, and the
themes discussed and adopted. I believe mine was “The
Influence of Nature,” or something of the kind.

“Why could n't we get up a Fourth-of-July Celebration
among ourselves? We have lots of talent,” Penrose
further suggested, in a mocking tone; but we took it seriously
and responded with great enthusiasm. We appealed
to him as an authority for the order of exercises, each one
anxious for a prominent part.

“It might do, after all,” he said, reflectively; “they
usually arrange it so: — First, prayer; that 's Dr. Dymond,
of course, always provided he 's willing. Then, reading the
Declaration; we want a clear, straightforward reader for
that.”

“You 're the very fellow!” exclaimed Thornton. We
all thought and said the same thing.

“Well — I should n't mind it for once, — so you don't ask
me to spout and make pump-handles of my arms. That 's
fixed, we 'll say. What 's next? Song — `The Star-Spangled
Banner,' of course; hard to sing, but four voices
will do, if we can get no more. Then the Oration; don't
all speak at once! I think, on the whole, Marsh would do
tolerably.”

“Marsh is n't here,” Jones interrupted.

“What if he is n't! Are we to have a school celebration,
or only a fi'penny-bit concern, got up by this bare-legged
committee, holding a secret session on the Academy
roof? Let me alone till I 've finished, and then say and
do what you please. Oration — after that, recitation of

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

What-d'-you-call-him's `Ode to the American Eagle'; one
or two more addresses — short — to give the other Daniel
Websters a chance; then, we ought to have an original
poem, but who 'd write it?”

This seemed to us beyond the combined powers of the
school. We were silent, and Penrose continued, —

“I don't know about that, I 'm sure. But it 's part of
the regular programme, — no gentleman's Fourth of July
complete without it. If Godfrey would try, perhaps he
might grind out something.”

“Godfrey?” and “Me?” were simultaneous exclamations,
uttered by Jones, Brotherton, and myself.

“Yes, I can't think of anybody else. You could try
your hand at the thing, Godfrey, and show it to Dr. Dymond.
He 'll put a stopper on you if you don't do credit
to the school. There 's nothing else that I know of, except
a song to wind up with; `Old Hundred' would do.
But before anything more is done, we must let the rest of
the boys know; that 's all I 've got to say.”

While the others eagerly entered into a further discussion
of the matter, I rolled over on the roof and gave myself
up to a fascinating reverie about the proposed poem.
How grand, how glorious, I thought, if I could really do
such a thing! — if I could imitate, though at a vast distance,
the majestic march of Barlow's “Vision of Columbus”!
“Marco Bozzaris” I considered hopelessly beyond
my powers. The temptation and the dread were about
equally balanced; but the idea was like a tropical sandflea.
It had got under my skin, and the attempt to dislodge
it opened the germs of a hundred others. I had
never seriously tried my hand at rhyme, for the school-boy
doggerel in which “Honeybrook” was coupled with “funny
brook” and “Dymond” with “priming,” was contemptible
stuff. I am glad that the foregoing terminations are all
that I remember of it.

It was long past midnight before the excitement

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

subsided. Two boys, who had meanwhile gone to sleep on
their backs, with their faces to the moon, were aroused,
and we returned through the window. I got into bed,
already linking “glory” with “story,” though still tremblingly
uncertain of my ability.

“Oh, Penrose,” I whispered, as I lay down beside my
bedfellow, “do you really think I can do it?”

“Don't bother me!” was all the encouragement he gave,
then or afterwards.

Our airy conclaves were repeated nightly, as long as the
warm weather lasted. The boys in the other rooms were
let into the secret, and issued from their respective windows
to join us. I remember as many as twenty-five,
scattered about in various picturesque and sculpturesque
attitudes. Dr. Dymond, apparently, did not suspect this
new device: if we sometimes fell asleep over our books in
the afternoon, the sultry weather, of course, was to blame.
We afterwards learned, however, that we had been once
or twice espied by late travellers on the neighboring highway.

The plan of our patriotic celebration matured and was
finally carried out in a modified form. Our principal made
no objection, and accepted our programme, with a few
slight changes, such as the substitution of the Rev. Mr.
Langworthy, of Honeybrook, for himself, in the matter of
the prayer. There was some competition in regard to the
orations, but Marsh justified Penrose's judgment by producing
the best. No one competed with me, nor do I
believe that any one supposed I would be successful. It
was a terrible task. I had both ardor and ambition, but
a very limited vocabulary, and, unfortunately, an ear for the
cadences of poetry far in advance of my power to create
them. After trying the heroic and failing utterly, I at
last hit upon an easy Hemans-y form of verse, which I
soon learned to manage. I was very well satisfied with
the result. It was a glorification of the Revolutionary

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

heroes, in eight-line stanzas, with a refrain, which is the
only portion of it I can remember, —

“Not bad, not bad,” said Dr. Dymond, when he had finished
reading this effusion, and I stood waiting, with fast-beating
heart, to hear his decision. “`Great oaks from
little acorns grow,' even if the acorn is not perfectly round.
Ha!” he continued, smiling at the smartness of his own
remark, “the Academy has never yet turned out a poet.
We have two Members of Congress and several clergymen,
but we are not yet represented in the world of letters.
It is my rule to encourage native genius, not to
suppress it; so I 'll give you a chance this time, Godfrey.
Mind, I don't say that you are, or can be, a genuine poet;
if it 's in you, it will come out some day, and when that day
comes, remember that I did n't crush it in the bud. These
verses are fair, — very fair, indeed. They might be pruned
to advantage, here and there, but you can very well repeat
them as they are, only changing `was' into `were,' — subjunctive
mood, you know, — and `them' into `they' —
`did' understood. The line will read so: —

“`If 't were given to us to fight as they.'

Miss Hitchcock would have preferred one of the classic
metres, only I was not far enough advanced to comprehend
them. She repeated to me Coleridge's translation
of Schiller's illustrations of hexameter and pentameter.
I thought they must be very fine, because I had not the
least idea of the meaning.

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

When I took the verses home to mother, she thought
them almost as good as “Alcanzor and Zayda,” the only
poem she knew. I was obliged to make her an elegant
copy, in my best hand, which she kept between the leaves
of the family Bible, and read aloud in an old-fashioned
chant to Neighbor Niles or any other female gossip.

When the celebration came off, the effect I produced
was flattering. The excitement of the occasion made my
declamation earnest and impassioned, and the verdict of
the boys was that it was “prime.” Penrose merely nodded
to me when I sat down, as if confirming the wisdom of his
own suggestion. I was obliged to be satisfied with whatever
praise the gesture implied, for I got nothing else.

p714-071 CHAPTER V. WHICH BRINGS A STERNER CHANGE IN MY FORTUNES.

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

It is scarcely necessary to say that I was both proud and
vain of the little distinction I had achieved. My pulse
began to flutter with coy expectation whenever any of the
boys mentioned the poem, — which happened several times
during the two succeeding days. I was backward to say
much about it myself, but I dearly liked to hear others
talk, except when they declared, as Bill Dawson did, “Oh,
he got it out of some book or other.” It was the author's
experience in miniature, — extravagant praise, conceit, censure,
exasperation, indifference.

Of course, I made other and more ambitious essays.
Several of the boys caught the infection, and for a fortnight
the quantity of dislocated metre, imperfect rhyme, and
perfect trash produced in the Honeybrook Academy was
something fearful. Brotherton attempted an epic on the
discovery of America, which he called “The Columbine”;
Marsh wrote a long didactic and statistical poem on “The
Wonders of Astronomy”; while Jones, in whom none of
us had previously detected the least trace of sentiment,
brought forth, with much labor, a lamentable effusion,
entitled, “The Deserted Maiden,” commencing, —

Gradually, however, the malady, like measles or smallpox,
ran its course and died out, except in my own case,
which threatened to become chronic. My progress in the

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

graver studies was somewhat interrupted thereby, but I
prosecuted Latin with ardor, tempted by the promise of
Virgil, and began to crave a higher literary culture. I am
not sure but that it was a fortunate accident which turned
my mind in this direction. The course of study at Honeybrook
was neither thorough nor methodical. A piece of
knowledge was hacked off this or that branch, and thrown
to us in lumps. There was a lack of some solvent or assimilating
element, to equalize our mental growth, and my
new ambition, to a certain extent, supplied the need.

A week or so after the Fourth, three of us had permission
to go to Honeybrook during the noon recess. My
errand was to buy a lead-pencil for three cents, and Thornton's
to spend his liberal supply of pocket-money in pea-nuts
and candy, which he generously shared with us. As
we were returning up the main street, we paused to look
at a new brick house, — an unusual sight in the quiet
village, — the walls of which had just reached the second
story. A ringing cry of “Mort!” at the same moment
came from an active workman, who was running up one of
the corners. I recognized the voice, and cried out in great
joy, “Bob! oh, Bob, is that you?”

He dropped his trowel, drew his dusty sleeve across his
brow to clear his eyes from the streaming sweat, and looked
down. The dear old fellow, — what a grin of genuine delight
spread over his face! “Blast me if 't is n't John!”
he cried. “Why, John, how 're you gettin' on?”

“Oh, finely, Bob,” I answered; “may I come up there
and shake hands with you?”

“No; I 'll come down.”

He was down the gangway in three leaps, and gave me a
crushing grip of his hard, brick-dusted hand. “I 've only
got a minute,” he said; “the boss is comin' up the street.
How you 've growed! and I hear you 're a famous scholar
already. Well — you 're at your trade, and I 'm at mine.
I like it better 'n I thought I would. I can lay, and p'int,

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

and run up corners, right smart. That 's my corner: is n't
it pretty tolerable straight?”

I looked at it with the eye of a connoisseur, and remarked,
“It's very well done, indeed, Bob.”

“Well, good-bye. I 've got another thousand to lay before
I knock off. Take care of yourself!”

He was back on the scaffold in no time. My two companions,
standing beside me, had witnessed our interview
with curiosity; so I said, by way of explanation, as we
moved on, “It 's Bob Simmons; he 's a first-rate fellow.”

“A relation of yours, Godfrey?” asked Thornton, rather
impertinently.

“Oh, no! I wish he was. I have no relations except
mother, and my uncle and aunt in Reading.”

“I 've got lots,” Thornton asserted. “Six — no, five
uncles and six aunts, and no end of cousins. I don't think
a fellow 's worth much that has n't got relations. Where
are you going to get your money if they don't leave it to
you?”

“I must earn mine,” I said, though, I am ashamed to
say, with a secret feeling of humiliation, as I contrasted my
dependence with Thornton's assured position.

“Earn?” sneered Thornton. “You 'll be no better than
that bricklayer. Catch me earning the money I spend;
I 'm going to be a gentleman!”

I might here pause in the reminiscences of my schooldays,
and point a moral from poor Thornton's after-fate, —
but to what end? Some destinies are congenital, and cut
their way straight through all the circumstances of life:
their end is involved in their beginning. Let me remember
only the blooming face, the laughing eyes, and the
sunny locks, nor imagine that later picture, which, thank
God! I did not see.

Thornton did not fail to describe my interview with Bob,
with his own embellishments, after our return; and some
of the boys, seeing that I was annoyed, tormented me with

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

ironical references to my friend. The annoyance was less,
however, than it would have been in a more aristocratic
school, for we had not only the sons of farmers, but sometimes
actual mechanics, among us. It was rumored, indeed,
that Dr. Dymond, now an LL. D. of the Lackawanna
University, had commenced life as a chair-maker in Connecticut.

So my school-life went on. The summer passed away,
and the autumn, and the second winter. My mental
growth was so evident, that, although the expenses of the
school proved to be considerably more than had been
estimated, my mother could not think of abridging the full
time she had assigned to my studies. The money was
forthcoming, and she refused to tell me whence it came.
“You shall help me to pay it back, Johnny,” was all she
would say.

I believed, at least, that she was not overtasking her own
strength in the effort to earn it. There was but limited
employment for her needle in so insignificant a place as
the Cross-Keys, and she was, moreover, unable at this time
to do as much as formerly. The bright color, I could not
help noticing, had faded from her face, and was replaced
by a livid, waxen hue; thick streaks of gray appeared in
her dark puffs, and her round forehead, once so smooth,
began to show lines which hinted at concealed suffering.
She confessed, indeed, that she had “spells of weakness”
now and then; “but,” she added, with a smile which reassured
me, “it 's nothing more than I 've been expecting.
We old people are subject to such things. There 's Neighbor
Niles, now, — to hear her talk, you would think she
never had a well day in her life, yet what a deal of work
she does!”

This was true. Our good neighbor was never free from
some kind of “misery,” as she expressively termed it. One
day she would have it in the small of the back; then it
would mount to a spot between the shoulder-blades; next,

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

perhaps, she would find it in her legs, or elbows, or even
on the top of her head. After a day of hard scrubbing,
she would run over to our cottage, drop into mother's rocking-chair,
and exclaim, “I feel powerful weak; the misery
's just got into every bone o' my body.”

Thus, though at times I noticed with apprehension the
change in my mother's appearance, the feeling was speedily
dismissed. My own prospects were so secure, so glowing,
that any shadow of unwelcome change took from them an
illuminated edge as it approached. But there came, in the
beginning of summer, one Sunday, when a strange, restless
spirit seemed to have entered the cottage. Every incident
of that day is burned upon my memory in characters so
legible that to recall them brings back my own uncomprehended
pain. The day was hot and cloudless: every plant,
bush, and tree rejoiced in the perfect beauty of its new
foliage. The air was filled, not with any distinct fragrance,
but with a soft, all-pervading smell of life. Bees were
everywhere, — in the locust-blossoms, in the starry tuliptrees,
on the opening pinks and sweet-williams of the garden;
and the cat-bird sang from a bursting throat, on his
perch among the reddening mayduke cherries. The harmony
of such a day is so exquisite that the discord of a
mood which cannot receive and become a portion of it is a
torture scarcely to be borne.

This torture I first endured on that day. What I feared—
whether, in fact, I did fear — I could not tell. A vague,
smothering weight lay upon my heart, and, though I could
not doubt that mother shared the same intolerable anxiety,
it offered no form sufficiently tangible for expression. She
insisted on my reading from the Psalms, as usual when we
did not go to church, but interrupted me every few minutes
by rising from her seat and going into her own room,
or the kitchen, or the garden, without any clear reason.
Sometimes I caught her looking at me with eyes that so
positively spoke that I asked, involuntarily, “Mother, did

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

you say anything?” Then a faint color would come into
her face, which had lost none of its roundness, so that she
suddenly seemed to be her old, bright, cheerful self.

“I believe I was going to say something, Johnny,” she
would answer, “but it can't make much odds what it was,
for I 've forgotten it already.”

As the day wore on, her restlessness increased. When
it was necessary for her to leave the room, on some household
errand, she would call to me, soon afterwards, “Johnny,
are you there?” or come back to the room in flushed
haste, as if fearful of some impending catastrophe. She
prepared our tea with a feverish hurry, talking all the time
of my hunger (though I had not the least) and my appetite,
and how pleasant it was to have me there, and how
she always looked forward to Sunday evening, and how
fast the time had gone by, to be sure, since I first went to
Dr. Dymond's school, and what progress I had made, and
she wished she could send me to college, but it could n't
be, no, there was no use in thinking of it — with such
earnestness and so many repetitions that I became at last
quite confused. Yet, when we sat down to the table she
became silent, and her face resumed its waxen pallor.

During the evening she still talked about the school,
and what I should do the following winter, after leaving it.
“Perhaps Dr. Dymond might want an assistant,” she said;
“you 're young, John, it 's true, but I should think you
could do as well as Walton, and then you could still study
between whiles. I would n't have you mention it — the
idea just came into my head, that 's all. If you were only
two years older! I 'm sure I 'd keep you there longer if I
could, but” —

“Don 't think of that, mother!” I interrupted; “we
really can't afford it.”

“No, we can't,” she sighed, “not even if I was to give
up the cottage and go somewhere as housekeeper. I did
think of that, once, but it 's too late. Well, you 'll have the
two years I promised you, Johnny.”

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

Much more she said to the same purport, interrupting
herself every now and then with, “Stop, there was something
else I had to say!” — which, when recalled, generally
proved to be something already mentioned.

When I went to bed, I lay awake for a long time, trying
to explain the singular unrest which had come upon the
house. It finally occurred to me that mother had probably
gotten into some trouble on account of the expense of my
schooling. I could hear her, in the room below me, walking
about uneasily, opening and shutting drawers, talking
to herself, it seemed. Once or twice something like a
smothered groan reached my ear. I resolved that the following
Sunday should not go by without my knowing to
what extent she had drawn upon her resources for my
sake, and that the drain should be stopped, even if I had
to give up the remainder of my summer term. After congratulating
myself on this heroic resolution, I fell asleep.

When I came down stairs in the morning, I found that
breakfast was already prepared. Mother seemed to have
recovered from her restless, excited condition, but her eyelids
were heavy and red. She confessed that she had
passed a sleepless night. When I heard Charley Rand's
hail from the road, I kissed her and said good-bye. She
returned my kiss silently, and went quietly into her bedroom
as I passed out the door.

The vague weight at my heart left me that morning, to
return and torment me during the next two days. It was
but a formless shadow, — the very ghost of a phantom, —
but it clung to and dulled every operation of my mind,
muffled every beat of my heart.

Wednesday evening, I recollect, was heavy and overcast,
with a dead, stifling hush in the atmosphere. The tension
of my unnatural mood was scarcely to be endured any
longer. Oh, if this be life, I thought, let me finish it now!
There was not much talk in our attic that night: the other
boys tumbled lazily into bed and soon slept. I closed my

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

eyes, but no sleep came. The constriction about my heart
crept up towards my throat and choked me. I clenched
my hands and ground my teeth; the muscles of my face
twitched, and with a spasm which shook me from head to
foot and took away my breath, I burst into a passion of tears.
I hid my head under the bedclothes, and strove to stifle the
gasps that threatened to become cries — to subdue the
violence of the crisis which had seized me. Penrose was
such a quiet bedfellow that I forgot his presence until I
felt that he was turning over towards me. Then, thoroughly
alarmed, I endeavored to lie still and counterfeit
sleep: but it was impossible. I could no longer control
the sobs that shook my body.

Presently Penrose stirred again, thrust himself down in
the bed, and I heard his voice under the clothes, almost at
my ear.

“Godfrey,” he whispered, with a tender earnestness,
“what is the matter?”

“My mother!” was all the answer I could make.

“Is she sick — dangerous?” he whispered again, laying
one arm gently over my shoulder. Its very touch was
soothing and comforting.

“I don't know, Penrose,” I said at last. “Something is
the matter, and I don't know what it is. Mother has a hard
time to raise money for my schooling: I am afraid it 's too
hard for her. I did n't mean to cry, but it came all at once.
I think I should have died if it had n't.”

He drew me towards him as if I had been a little child,
and laid my head against his shoulder. “Don't be afraid,”
he then whispered, “no one has heard you but myself. We
are all so, at times. I recollect your mother; she is a good
woman; she reminds me, somehow, of mine.”

My right hand sought for Penrose's, which it held firmly
clasped, and I lay thus until my agitation had subsided. A
grateful sense of sympathy stole into my heart; the strange
mist which seemed to have gathered, blotting out my

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

future, began to lift before a breeze which blew from the
stronger nature beside me. At last, with a final pressure,
which was answered, I released his hand and turned to my
own pillow. Next morning he was silent as ever, but his
silence no longer repelled or annoyed me. I was beginning
to learn that the heart lies much deeper than the lips.

In the afternoon Dr. Dymond was called into the reception-room.
I paid no attention to this circumstance, for it
was of frequent occurrence, but when he opened the door
directly afterwards and called “Godfrey!” I started as if
struck. Penrose darted a glance of keen, questioning interest
across the intervening desk, and I felt that his eye
was following me as I walked out of the school-room.

I was quite surprised to find “Old Dave,” as we generally
called him, — Neighbor Niles's husband, — waiting for
me. He was standing awkwardly by the table, his battered
beaver still upon his head.

“Well, Johnny,” said he, giving me his hand, which felt
like a piece of bark dried for tanning, “are you pretty well?
I 've come for to fetch you home, because, you see — well,
your mother — she 's ailin' some, that is, and so we thought
the Doctor here 'd let you off for a day or two.”

“Of course, sir,” Dr. Dymond bowed. “Godfrey, this
gentleman has explained to me the necessity of allowing
you to be absent for a short time during the term. I sincerely
regret the occasion which calls for it. You need not
return to the school-room. Good-bye, for the present!”

I took his hand mechanically, ran up-stairs and brought
my little carpet-bag, and was very soon seated at Niles's
side, bouncing down the lane in a light, open wagon.

“I took the brown mare, you see,” he said, as we turned
into the highway. “She 's too free for the old woman to
drive, but she knows my hand. This is Reanor's machine:
he lent it to me at once't. Rolls easy, don't it?”

“But, Dave!” I cried, in an agony of anxiety, “you have
not told me what has happened to mother!”

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

He fidgeted uneasily on his seat, addressed various remarks
to the brown mare, and finally, when my patience
was almost exhausted, said, in a confused way, “Well, you
see, it has n't jist happened altogether now. 'Pears it 's
been comin' on a good while, — a year or two, maybe
more. The Doctor says it ought to ha' been done sooner,
but I don't wonder much if she could n't make up her mind
to it.”

My distress increased with every one of these slowly
drawled, incoherent sentences. “For God's sake,” I exclaimed,
“tell me what ails her!”

Dave started at my vehemence, and blurted out the
dreadful truth at once. “Cancer!” said he: “they cut it
out, yisterday — Dr. Rankin, and Dr. Lott, here, in Honeybrook.
They say she bore it oncommon, but she 's mighty
low, this mornin'.”

I turned deathly sick and faint. I could not utter a word,
but wrung my hands together and groaned. Dave pulled
a small, flat bottle out of his breast-pocket, drew the cork
with his teeth, and held the mouth to my lips, saying,
“Take a swaller. You need n't say anything about it before
the old woman.”

The fluid fire which went down my throat partially restored
me; but the truth was still too horrible to be fully
comprehended. In spite of the glowing June-day, a chill
struck to the marrow of my bones, as I thought of my poor,
dear little mother, mangled by surgeons' knives, and perhaps
at that very moment bleeding to death. Then a bitter
feeling of rage and resistance took possession of my heart.
“Why does God allow such things?” cried the inward
voice: “why make her suffer such tortures, who was always
so pure and pious, — who never did harm to a single creature?”
The mystery of the past four days was now clear
to me: but how blind the instinct that predicted misfortune
and could not guess its nature! If mother had but told
me, or I had not postponed the intended explanation! It

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

was now too late: I dared not chide her who had endured
so fearfully. If any such thought arose, I asked pardon for
it of the same God I had accused a moment before. But
the Recording Angel does not open his book for the blind
words of the young.

Dave had been talking, I suppose, but I was unconscious
of his words. Now that the truth had been told, he was
ready enough to give all the particulars, and even attempt,
in his rough way, to administer consolation.

“You must n't take on so,” he said, patting me on the
knee; “maybe she 'll git well, after all. While there 's life
there 's hope, you know. Some has been cured that
seemed jist about as bad as they could be. The wust of
cancer is, it mostly comes back agin. It 's like Canada
thistles: you may dig trenches round 'em, and burn 'em,
and chop the roots into mince-meat, and like as not you 've
got 'em next year, as thick as ever.”

His words made me shudder. “Please go on fast,
Dave,” I entreated; “never mind telling me any more; I
want to get home.”

“So do I,” he answered, urging the mare into a rapid
trot. “I did n't much keer to come, but there was nobody
else handy, and th' old woman said you must be fetched,
right away.”

As we approached the cottage, Neighbor Niles came out
and waited for us at the gate. Her eyes were red, and they
began to flow again when I got down from the wagon.
She wiped them with her apron, took me by the hand, and
said, in a whisper louder than the ordinary voice of most
women, —

“I 'll go in and tell her you 're here. Wait outside until
I come back. The Doctor 's with her.”

It was not long before she returned, followed by Dr.
Rankin. I knew him, from the days of my sprained ankle,
and was passing him with a hasty greeting, when he seized
me by the arm. “Control yourself, my boy!” said he;
“she must not be excited.”

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

I walked into the bedroom. It was very well to say,
“Control yourself!” but the sight of my mother, with half-closed
eyes, her face as white as the pillow beneath it, so
unnerved me that I sank, trembling, upon the chair at the
head of the bed, and wept long and bitterly. I felt her
fingers upon my hair: “Poor boy!” she sighed.

“Oh, mother!” I cried, “why did n't you tell me?”

“'T would have done no good, Johnny,” she feebly
answered. “I was glad to know that you were unconscious
and happy all the time. Besides, it 's only this spring that
I grew so much worse. I tried to bear up, my dear child,
that I might see you started in life; but I am afraid it 's
not to be.”

“Don't say that, mother. I can't live without you.”

“I have lived ten years without your father, child, — and
they were not unhappy years. God does not allow us to
grieve without ceasing. You will have some one to love,
as I have had you. You will soon be a man, and if I
should live, it would be to see some one nearer to you than
I am. I pray that you may be happy, John; but you will
not forget your old mother. When you have children of
your own upon your knees, you will talk to them sometimes—
will you not? — of the Grandmother Godfrey who
died before she could kiss and bless them for your sake?”

Her own tears flowed freely as she ceased to speak,
exhausted, and paused to recover a little strength. “I 've
been blessed,” she said at last, “and I must not complain.
You 've been a good boy, Johnny; you 've been a dutiful
and affectionate son to me. You 're my joy and my pride
now, — it can't be wrong for me to take the comfort God
sends. There would be light upon the way I must go, if I
knew that you could feel some of the resignation which I
have learned.”

“Mother,” I sobbed, “I can't be resigned to lose you. I
will stay with you, and take care of you. I should never
have gone away to school, — but I thought only of myself!”

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

Her face was suddenly touched with a solemn beauty,
and her gentle voice had a sacred authority which I accepted
as if it had truly spoken across the mysterious gulf
which was soon to separate us. “My dear child,” she said,
“listen to me. I know how you feel in this moment. I
can foresee that you may torture yourself after I am gone
with the recollection of this or that duty omitted, of some
hasty word spoken, perhaps some impatient thought which
merely passed through your mind. After your father died,
I called aloud, in anguish and prayer, for his spirit to speak
down from heaven and forgive me all things wherein I had
failed of my duty towards him. But I know now that the
imperfections of our conduct here are not remembered
against us, if the heart be faithful in its love. If you were
ever undutiful in word or thought, the sun never went
down and left you unforgiven. Remember this, and that
all I have tried to do for you has been poor payment for
the blessing you have always been to me!”

Blessed words, that fell like balm on my overwhelming
sorrow! I took them to my heart and held them there, as
if with a presentiment of the precious consolation they
were thenceforth to contain. I pressed her pale hand tenderly,
laid my cheek upon it, and was silent, for it seemed
to me that an angel was indeed present in the little room.

After a while, Neighbor Niles softly opened the door,
drew near, and whispered, “Mr. Woolley 's here — from
Readin'; — shall I bring him in?”

My mother assented.

I had not seen my uncle for some years, and retained
but an indistinct recollection of his appearance. He had
been sent for, early in the morning, at my mother's urgent
request, as I afterwards learned. When the door opened,
I saw a portly figure advancing through the gathering dusk
of the room, bend over my head towards my mother, and
say, in a husky voice, “How do you feel, Barbara?”

“I am very weak,” mother replied. “This is John,

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

Amos. John, shake hands with your uncle, and then leave
me for a little while. I have something to say to him.”

I rose. A fat hand closed upon mine, and again I heard
the husky voice, “Well, really, as tall as this? I had no
idea, Barbara.”

I do not know whether he was aware of my mother's
condition. Perhaps not; but it was impossible for me, at
the moment, to credit him with the doubt. To my ear, his
words expressed a cruel coldness and indifference; and I
went forth from the room with a spark of resentment
already kindled in the midst of my grief. I threw myself
into my accustomed seat by the front window, and gave
myself up to the gloomy chaos of my emotions.

Neighbor Niles was preparing the table for supper,
stopping now and then to wipe her eyes, and “sniffling”
with a loud, spasmodic noise, which drove me nearly to distraction.
My excited nerves could not bear it. Once she
put down a plate of something, crossed the room to my
chair, and laid her hand on my shoulder. “Johnny,” —
she began —

“Let me be!” I cried, fiercely, turning away from her
with a jerk.

The good woman burst into fresh tears, and instantly
left me. “Them 's the worst,” I heard her mutter to herself;
“I 'd ruther he 'd half break his heart a-cryin'.”
And, indeed, I was presently sorry for the rude way in
which I had repelled her sympathy, though I could not
encourage her to renew it.

Supper was delayed, nearly an hour, waiting for my
uncle. When he appeared, it was with a grave and solemn
countenance. I took my seat beside him very reluctantly:
it seemed dreadful to me to eat and drink while my
mother might be dying in the next room. Neighbor Niles,
however, would hear of nothing else. She had already
lifted the tea-pot, in her haste to serve us, when my uncle
suddenly bowed his head and commenced a grace.

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

Neighbor Niles was so confused that she stood with the tea-pot
suspended in the air until he had finished. I, who with
difficulty swallowed a little tea, was shocked at the appetite
he displayed, forgetting that he was human, and that it was
a long drive from Reading.

“I am afraid, John,” he finally said, “that the Lord is
about to chasten you. It is some comfort to know that
your mother seems to be in a proper frame of mind. Her
ways were never the same as mine, but it is not too late,
even at the eleventh hour, to accept the grace which is
freely offered. It is not for me to judge, but I am hopeful
that she will be saved. I trust that you will not delay to
choose the safe and the narrow path. Do you love your
Saviour?”

“Yes,” I answered, — somewhat mechanically, I fear.

“Are you willing to give up everything and follow
Him?”

“Uncle Amos,” I said, “I wish you would n't ask me
any more questions.” I left the table, and stole quietly
into mother's room. As I was passing out of the door I
heard Neighbor Niles say, “This is no time to be preachin'
at the poor boy.”

That night my uncle took possession of my bed in the
attic. I refused to sleep, and the considerate nurse allowed
me to watch with her. Mother's condition seemed to be
stupor rather than healthy slumber. There was no recuperative
power left in her system, and the physician had
already declared that she would not recover from the shock
of the operation. He informed me, afterwards, that the
strength of her system had been reduced, for years, by the
lack of rich and nourishing food, — which circumstance, if
it did not create the disease, had certainly very much accelerated
its progress. “She was not a plant that would
thrive on a poor soil,” he said, in his quaint way; “she
ought to have been planted in fowl and venison, and
watered with Port.”

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

The long, long night dragged away, and when the black
mass of the lilac-bush at the window began to glimmer in
dusky green, and some awakening birds cheeped in the
branches of the plum-tree, mother seemed to revive. I
was shocked to see, in the wan light, how her round cheeks
had already fallen in, and what a ghastly dimness dwelt in
her dark eyes. The nurse administered some stimulating
mixture, smoothed the pillow, and, obeying some tender
instinct, left us together. Mother's eyes called me to her;
I stooped down and kissed her lips.

“John,” she said, “I must tell you now, while I have
strength, what your uncle and I have agreed upon. The
money, you know, is in his hands, and it is better that he
should keep it in trust until you are of age. You are to
stay at school until the fall. I borrowed the money of
Mr. Rand. There is a mortgage on the house and lot, and
the doctors must be paid: so all will be sold, except some
little things that you may keep for my sake. When you
leave school, your uncle will take you. He says you can
assist in his store and learn something about business.
Your aunt Peggy is my sister, you know, and it will be a
home for you. I could n't bear to think that you must go
among strangers. When you 're of age, you 'll have a
little something to start you in the world, and if my blessing
can reach you, it will rest upon you day and night.”

The prospect of living with my uncle was not pleasant,
but it seemed natural and proper, and not for worlds would
I have deprived the dear sufferer of the comfort which she
drew from this disposition of my fortunes. She repeated
her words of consolation, in a voice that grew fainter and
more broken, and then lay for a long time silent, with her
hand in mine. Once again she half opened her eyes, and,
while a brief, shadowy smile flitted about her lips, whispered
“Johnny!”

“I am here, with you, mother,” I said, fondling the listless
hand.

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

She did not reply: this was the last sign of consciousness
she gave. The conquered life still lingered, hour
after hour, as if from the mere mechanical habit of the
bodily functions. But the delicate mechanism moved more
and more slowly, and, before sunset, it had stopped forever.

p714-088 CHAPTER VI. IN WHICH I DISCOVER A NEW RELATIVE.

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

Why should I enter into all the dreary details of the
funeral preparations, — of those black summer days, which
still lie, an unfaded blot, in the soft and tender light of
resignation now shining over my sorrow? I passed through
the usual experience of one struck by sudden and bitter
calamity: my heart was chilled and benumbed by its inability
to comprehend the truth. My dull, silent, apathetic
mood must have seemed, to the shallow-judging neighbors,
a want of feeling; only Neighbor Niles and her husband
guessed the truth. I saw men and women, as trees, come
and go; some of them spoke to me, and when I was forced
to speak in turn, it was with painful unwillingness. I
heard my voice, as if it were something apart from myself;
I even seemed, through some strange extraverted sense, to
stand aside and contemplate my own part in the solemnities.

When I look back, now, I see a slender youth, dressed
in an ill-fitting black suit, led through the gate in the low
churchyard wall by my uncle Woolley. It is not myself;
but I feel at my heart the numb, steady ache of his, which
shall outlast a sharper grief. His eyes are fixed on the
ground, but I know — for I have often been told so — that
they are like my mother's. His hair cannot be described
by any other color than dark auburn, and hangs, long and
loose, over his ears; his skin is fair, but very much
freckled, and his features, I fancy, would wear an earnest,
eager expression in any happier mood. I see this boy as

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

some mysterious double of mine, standing, cold and pale,
beside the open grave; but the stupor of his grief is harder
to bear, even in memory, than the keen reality to which I
afterwards awoke.

I let things take their course, knowing that the circumstances
of my immediate future were already arranged.
My uncle Woolley, as my guardian and the executor of my
mother's little estate, assumed, without consulting me, the
disposal of the cottage and furniture. Mr. Rand purchased
the former, as a convenient tenant-house for some of his
farm-hands, and the latter, with the exception of mother's
rocking-chair, which she bequeathed to Neighbor Niles, was
sold at auction. This, however, took place after my return
to the school, and I was spared the pain of seeing my home
broken to pieces and its fragments scattered to the winds.
My uncle probably gave me less credit for a practical comprehension
of the matter than I really deserved. His first
conversation with me had been unfortunate, both in point
of time and subject, and neither of us, I suspect, felt inclined,
just then, to renew the attempt at an intimacy befitting
our mutual relation.

In a few days I found myself back again at Honeybrook
Academy. The return was a relief, in every way. The
knowledge of my bereavement had, of course, preceded me,
and I was received with the half-reverential kindness which
any pack of boys, however rough and thoughtless, will never
fail to accord, in like circumstances. Miss Hitchcock, it is
true, gave me a moment's exasperation by her awkward attempt
at condolence, quoting the hackneyed “pallida mors,”
&c., but Mother Dymond actually dropped a few tears from
her silly eyes as she said, “I 'm so sorry, Godfrey; I quite
took to her that time she was here.”

Penrose met me with a long, silent pressure of the hand,
and the stolid calm with which I had heard the others
melted for the first time. My eyes grew suddenly dim, and
I turned away.

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

I had already profited by nearly two years' experience of
human nature, or, rather, boy-nature, and was careful not
to let my knowledge of his sympathy lead me into advances
which might, notwithstanding all that had happened, be
repelled. I had a presentiment that he esteemed me because
I imitated his own reticence, and that he was suspicious
of any intimacy which did not proceed from himself.
In spite of his beauty, which seemed to be dimly felt and
respected by the whole school, and the tender spot in my
heart, kindling anew whenever I recalled the night he had
taken me to his breast, I was not sure that I could wholly
like and trust him — could ever feel for him the same open,
unquestioning affection which I bestowed, for example, on
Bob Simmons.

In my studies I obtained, at least, a temporary release
from sorrow. The boys found it natural that I should not
join in the sports of play-hours, or the wild, stolen expeditions
in which I had formerly taken delight. When I closed
my Lempriere and Leverett, I wandered off to the nearest
bit of woodland, flung myself on the brown moss under
some beech-tree, and listened idly to the tapping of the
woodpecker, or the rustle of squirrels through the fallen
leaves.

There was a little shaded dell, in particular, which was
my favorite haunt. A branch of Cat Creek (as the stream
in the valley was called) ran through it, murmuring gently
over stones and dead tree-trunks. Here, in moist spots,
the trillium hung its crimson, bell-like fruit under the horizontal
roof of its three broad leaves, and the orange orchis
shot up feathery spikes of flowers, bright as the breast of
an oriole. In the thickest shade of this dell, a large tree
had fallen across the stream from bank to bank, above a
dark, glassy trout-pool. One crooked branch, rising in the
middle, formed the back of a rough natural chair; and hither
I came habitually, bringing some work borrowed from Dr.
Dymond's library. I remember reading there Mrs.

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

Hemans's “Forest Sanctuary,” with a delight which, alas! the
poem can never give again, even with such accessories.

One day I was startled from my book by hearing the
dead twigs on the higher bank snap under the step of some
one descending into the glen. I looked up and saw Penrose
coming leisurely down, cutting now and then at a woodmoth
or dragon-fly with a switch of leather-wood. Almost
at the same moment he espied me.

“Hallo, Godfrey! Are you there?” he said, turning
towards my perch. “You show a romantic taste, upon my
word!”

The irony, if he meant it for such, went no further. The
mocking smile vanished from his lips, and his face became
grave as he sprang upon the log and took a seat carelessly
against the roots. For a minute he bent forward and looked
down into the glassy basin.

“Pshaw!” said he, suddenly, striking the water with his
switch, so that it seemed to snap like the splitting of a real
mirror, — “only my own face! I 'm no Narcissus.”

“You could n't change into a flower, with your complexion,
anyhow,” I remarked.

“Curse my complexion!” he exclaimed; “it 's a kind
that brings bad blood, — my father has it, too!”

I was rather startled at this outbreak, and said nothing.
He, too, seemed to become conscious of his vehemence.
“Godfrey,” he asked, “do you remember your father?
What kind of a man was he?”

“Yes,” I answered, “I remember him very well. I was
eight years old when he died. He was quiet and steady.
I can't recall many things that he said; but as good
and honest a man as ever lived, I believe. If he had n't
been, mother could n't have loved him so, to the very end
of her life.”

“I have no doubt of it,” he said, after a pause, as if
speaking to himself; “there are such men. I 'm sorry you
lost your mother, — no need to tell you that. You 're

[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]

going to leave school at the end of the term. Where will
you go? You have other relations, of course?”

Encouraged by the interest which Penrose showed in my
condition, I related to him what had been decided upon by
my mother and my uncle, without concealing the unfavorable
impression which the latter had made upon me, or my
distaste at the prospect before me.

“But you must have other aunts and uncles,” he said,
“or relatives a little further off. On your father's side, for
instance?”

“I suppose so,” I answered; “but they never visited
mother, and I shall not hunt them up now. Aunt Peggy is
mother's only living sister. Grandfather Hatzfeld had a
son, — my uncle John, after whom I was named, — but he
never married, and died long ago.”

“Hatzfeld? Was your mother's name Hatzfeld?”

“Yes.”

Penrose relapsed into a fit of silence. “It would be
strange,” he said to himself; then, lifting his head, asked:

“Had your grandfather Hatzfeld brothers and sisters?”

“Oh, yes. Aunt Christina was his sister: she left mother
our little place at the Cross-Keys when she died. Now, I
recollect, I have heard mother speak of another aunt, Anna,
who married and settled somewhere in New Jersey; I forget
her name, — it began with D. Grandfather had an
older brother, too, but I think he went to Ohio. Mother
never talked much about him: he did n't act fairly towards
grandfather.”

“D?” asked Penrose, with a curious interest. “Would
you know the name if you were to heart it? Was it Denning?”

“Yes, that 's it!” I exclaimed; “why, how could you
guess” —

“Because Anna Denning was my grandmother — my
mother's mother! When you mentioned the name of Hatzfeld,
it all came into my mind at once. Why, Godfrey,

[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]

your mother and mine were first cousins, — we are cousins,
therefore!”

He sat upright on the log and stretched out his hand,
which I took and held. “Penrose!” I exclaimed, “can it
be possible?”

“Plain as a pike-staff.”

“Oh, are you serious, Penrose? I can hardly believe it.”

I still held his hand, as if the newly-found relationship
might slip away on releasing it. The old mocking light
came into his eyes.

“Do you want me to show the strawberry-mark on my
left arm?” he asked; “or a mole on my breast, with three
long black hairs growing out of it? Cousins are plenty,
and you may n't thank me for the discovery.”

“I am so glad!” I cried; “I have no cousin: it is the
next thing to a brother!”

His face softened again. “You 're a good fellow, Godfrey,”
said he, “or Cousin John, if you like that better.
Call me Alexander, if you choose. Since it is so, I wish I
had known it sooner.”

“If my poor mother could have known it!” I sighed.

“That 's it!” he exclaimed, — “the family likeness between
your mother and mine. It puzzled me when I saw
her. My mother has been dead three years, and there 's
a — I won't say what — in her place. As you 're one of
the family now, Godfrey, you may as well learn it from me
as from some one else, later. My father and mother did n't
live happily together; but it was not her fault. While she
lived, my sister and I had some comfort at home; she has
it yet, for that matter, but I — There 's no use in going
over the story, except this much: it was n't six months after
my mother's death before my father married again. Married
whom, do you think? His cook! — a vulgar, brazen
wench, who sits down to the table in the silks and laces of
the dead! And worse than that, — the marriage brought
shame with it, — if you can't guess what that means, now,

[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]

you 'll find out after a while; don't ask me to say anything
more! I am as proud as my mother was, and do you think
I could forgive my father this, even if he had not always
treated me like a brute?”

Penrose's eyes flashed through the indignant moisture
which gathered in them. The warm olive of his skin had
turned to a livid paleness, and his features were hard and
cruel. I was almost afraid of him.

“He to demand of me that I should call her `mother'!”
he broke out again, his lip quivering, but not with tenderness, —
“it was forbearance enough that I did not give her
the name she deserved! And my sister, — but I suppose
she is like most women, bent in any direction by anybody
stronger than themselves. She stays at home, — no, not at
home, but with them, — and writes me letters full of very
good advice. Oh, yes, she 's a miracle of wisdom! She 's
a young lady of twenty-one, and — and — The Cook finds
it very convenient to learn fashionable airs of her, and how
to eat, and to enter a room, and hold her fan, and talk without
yelling as if at the house-maid, and all the rest of their
damnable folly! There! How do you like being related
to such a pleasant family as that?”

I tried to stay the flood of bitterness, which revealed to
me a fate even more desolate than my own. “Penrose,” I
said, — “Cousin Alexander, you are so strong and brave,
you can make your own way in the world, without their
help. I 'm less able than you, yet I must do it. I don't
know why God allows some things to happen, unless it 's to
try us.”

“None of that!” he cried, though less passionately;
“I 've worried my brain enough, thinking of it. I 've
come to the conclusion that most men are mean, contemptible
creatures, and their good or bad opinion is n't worth
a curse. If I take care of myself and don't sink down
among the lowest, I shall be counted honest, and virtuous,
and the Lord knows what; but I sometimes think that, if

[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]

there are such things as honesty and virtue, we must look
for them among the dregs of society. The top, I know, is
nothing but a stinking scum.”

I was both pained and shocked at the cynicism of these
utterances, so harshly discordant with the youth and the glorious
physical advantages of my cousin. Yes! the moment
the new relation between us was discovered and accepted,
it established the bond which I felt to be both natural and
welcome. It interpreted the previous sensation which he
had excited in my nature. Some secret sympathy had
bent, like the hazel wand in the hand of the diviner, to
the hidden rill of blood. But the kinship of blood is not
always that of the heart. “A friend is closer than a
brother,” say the Proverbs; I did not feel sure that he
could be the friend I needed and craved, but cousinship
was a familiar and affectionate tie, existing without our volition,
justifying a certain amount of reciprocal interest,
and binding neither to duties which time and the changes
of life might render embarrassing. The confidence which
Penrose had reposed in me came, therefore, in some degree,
as the right of my relationship. I had paid for it, in
advance, by my own.

Hence I was saved, on the one hand, from being drawn,
during the warm, confiding outset of life, into a sneering
philosophy, which I might never have outgrown, and on the
other hand, from judging too harshly of Penrose's inherent
character. It would do no good at present, I saw, to protest
against his expressions; so I merely said, —

“You know more of the world than I do, Alexander;
but I don't like to hear you talk in that strain.”

“Perhaps you 're right, old fellow,” said he; “any way,
I don't include you among the rabble. I might have held
my tongue about my grandmother, if I had chosen; but I
guess you and I are not nearly enough related to fall out.
There goes the bell; pick up your Eclogues, and come
along!”

[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]

We went back to the school, arm in arm, talking familiarly.
From that time forward the recognized, mysterious
circle of Family enclosed us, and Penrose's manner towards
me was commensurate with the change. Never demonstrative,
never even positively affectionate, he stood at least on
level ground with me, and there was no wall between us.
The other boys, of course, noticed the difference in our
relations, and it was not long before the inquisitive Thornton
said, —

“I say, Pen, how is it that you 've got to calling Godfrey
`John,' all at once?”

“Because he is my cousin.”

Thornton's eyes opened very wide. “The devil he is!”
he exclaimed. (Thornton was unnecessarily profane, because
he thought it made him seem more important.)
“When did you find that out?”

“It 's none of your business,” said Penrose, turning on
his heel. Thornton thereupon went off, and communicated
the fact to the whole school in less than ten minutes.

After this, my cousin and I frequently walked out to the
glen together. I was glad to see that the kinship, so inexpressibly
welcome to myself, was also satisfactory to him.
His first fragmentary confidence was completed by the details
of his life, as he recalled them from time to time; but
his bitter, disappointed, unbelieving mood always came to
the surface, and I began to fear that it had already predetermined
the character of his after-life.

One day, when he had been unusually gloomy in his
utterances, he handed me a letter, saying, “Read that.” It
was from his sister, and ran, as nearly as I can recollect, as
follows: —

“— Street, Philadelphia.

“My dear Brother, — Yours of the 10th is received.
I am now so accustomed to your sarcastic style, that I always
know what to expect when I open one of your epistles.
I wish you joy of your — well, I must say our new

[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]

cousin, though I am sorry you did not let me know of the
discovery before telling him. He must be gauche and unpresentable
in a degree; but then, I suppose, there 's no
likelihood of his ever getting into our set. It is time your
schooling was finished, so that I might have you for awhile as
my chevalier. Between ourselves, I 'm rather tired of going
about with” (here the word “Mamma” had evidently been
written and then blotted out) “Mrs. Penrose. Not but
what she continues to improve, — only, I am never certain
of her not committing some niaiserie, which quite puts me
out. However, she behaves well enough at home, and I
hope you will overcome your prejudice in the end, for my
sake. When you know as much about Society as I do, you
will see that it 's always best to smooth over what 's irrevocable.
People are beginning to forget the scandal, since
that affair of Denbigh has given them something else to
talk about. We were at Mrs. Delane's ball on Wednesday;
I made her put on blue cut velvet, and she did not
look so bad. Mrs. Vane nodded, and of course she was
triumphant. I think Papa gives me the credit for all that
has been done, — I 'm sure I deserve it. It 's a race between
Mrs. P. and myself which shall have the new India
shawl at Stokes's; but I shall get it, because Mrs. P. knows
that I could teach her to blunder awfully as well as to behave
correctly, and would do it, in spite of Papa's swearing,
if she drives me to desperation. By the by, he has just
come into the room, and says, `You are writing to the cub,
as usual, I suppose, Matilda.' So there you have him, to
the life.”

There was much more, in the same style. I must have
colored, with offended pride, on reading the opening lines,
for on looking up, involuntarily, I saw my cousin smile, but
so frankly and pleasantly that it instantly healed the wound
his sister made. I confess the letter disgusted me; but it
was written by my own cousin also, and I did not dare to

[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]

express to her brother what I felt. I handed the letter
back to him in silence.

“Come now, John,” said he, — “out with the truth!
Would you not as lief be out of our family again?”

“Not while you are in it, Alexander,” I replied.

p714-099 CHAPTER VII. IN WHICH UNCLE AND AUNT WOOLLEY TAKE CHARGE OF ME.

[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]

As the close of my last term at the Honeybrook Academy
approached, I felt none of the eagerness for change,
of the delight in coming release from study, which would
have been natural to a boy of my age. On the contrary, I
grew more and more reluctant to leave a spot which was
now so familiar, and to give up the advantages of instruction
at a time when I began to understand their importance.
Both Miss Hitchcock and Dr. Dymond were sorry
to lose me, — the former because there was no other Latin
pupil far enough advanced to read her expurgated Horace,
and the latter because my original dialogues and speeches
were beginning to constitute a feature in the semi-annual
exhibitions. If, among the boys, I had contracted no
strong, permanent friendship, I had at least encountered
no more than transient enmities; besides, I was getting to
be one of the older and more conspicuous scholars, and
thus enjoyed a certain amount of authority.

It was hardest of all to part with Penrose. I could talk
with him of my mother, — could ask his counsel, as a relative,
in regard to my proposed plans of life. The latter were
still indefinite, it is true; but they pointed towards teaching
as a preliminary employment. Behind that crowded a
host of ambitious dreams, upon which I secretly fed my
mind. Penrose, however, was to leave the school in the
spring, and I should therefore have lost him six months
later, in any case.

[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]

On the last Sabbath before my departure, I walked over
to the Cross-Keys, and spent the day with the Niles family.
The shutters of the little cottage were still closed; I was
glad of it. If strange faces had gazed from the windows, I
should have passed with averted head; but I could now
stop and look over the paling, and peer under the boughs
of the plum-tree for a glimpse of the garden in the rear.
Weeds were growing apace, and in the narrow strip of the
“front yard” I missed a dainty little rose-bush — mother's
pet — which used to be covered with diminutive double
crimson blossoms. Neighbor Niles always called it the
“fi'penny-bit rose.” I afterwards found it in the churchyard,
so carefully transplanted that it was already blooming
on mother's grave. It was not necessary to ask whose
pious hand had placed it there.

The good Neighbor and “Dave” gave me an honest and
hearty welcome. She insisted on opening the best room,
though I would have preferred the kitchen, where I could
hear her cheery voice alternately from the vicinity of cookstove,
cupboard, and table. For dinner we had the plain,
yet most bountiful fare of the country, and she heaped my
plate far beyond my powers of eating, saying, with every
added spoonful, “I expect you 're half starved at the
school.”

“Dr. Dymond does n't look as if he ett much, anyhow,”
Dave remarked, with a chuckle.

“It seems quite nateral to have you here ag'in, Johnny,”
said the Neighbor. “Dear me! to think how things has
changed in the last two year. Poor Neighbor Godfrey! —
as good a woman as ever lived, though I say it to your face,—
dead and gone, and you movin' away to Readin', like as
not never to come back ag'in. Well, you must n't forgit
your old neighbors, them that 's always wished you well.
Out of sight out of mind, they say; but I guess it don't hold
true with everybody, — leastways not with me. I can't
git over thinkin' about Becky Jane yit: it comes on to me

[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]

powerful hard sometimes. She 'd ha' been sixteen last
August, if she 'd ha' lived. I often go up and scrub off her
tombstone, and scrape the rust out o' the letters.”

“Oh, Neighbor Niles!” I cried, “you asked me once to
write a few lines to put on the stone. I 'll do it yet, before
I leave.”

The good woman's face glowed with gratitude. “I 'll
see that it 's put on — whatever you write,” she said, “if it
takes the vally of every turkey I 've raised!”

I kept my promise. Four lines, containing a simile
about a broken flower being laid beneath this sod, to bloom
above in the garden of God, were sent to Neighbor Niles,
and whoever takes the trouble to visit Cross-Keys churchyard
will find them on Becky Jane's tombstone to this
day.

It was some twenty miles to Reading, and accordingly,
on the day after the closing exhibition at the academy, a
horse and light vehicle, despatched by my uncle, arrived to
convey me to my new home. Nearly all the scholars were
leaving for the autumn vacation, and my departure lost its
solemnity in the hurry and confusion that prevailed. Penrose
promised to correspond with me, and Charley Rand
said, “Don't be astonished if you find me in Reading next
summer.” Mother Dymond gave me something wrapped
up in a newspaper, saying, “Take it, now; you 'll want
them before you get there.” “Them” proved to be six
large and very hard ginger-cakes. My trunk — an old
one, which had once belonged to my father — was tilted
up on end in front of the seat, occasioning much misery
both to my legs and the driver's; and so I left Honeybrook,
the magnificent tin cupola sparkling a final farewell
as we dashed up the “Reading pike.”

The inevitable step having been taken, — the fibres I had
put out during the second stage of my boyhood torn loose,—
I began to speculate, with some curiosity, on the coming
phase of my life. I found this attraction at least: I should

[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]

live in a much larger and more important town than I had
ever visited — a town with a river, a canal, and a new railroad.
At the Cross-Keys, people always spoke of Reading
as being inferior only to Philadelphia, and one of the Honeybrook
boys, Detweiler, hotly and constantly proclaimed
its glories, to the discomfiture of Marsh, who was from Lancaster.
As the afternoon wore away, and the long miles
slowly diminished down the teens, and then more slowly
down the units, and the unsocial driver fell asleep every
ten minutes, of which fact the horse took base advantage,
I grew weary and impatient. My uncle's house became a
less unwelcome terminus to the journey.

At last we approached some bold hills — wonderful, astonishing
mountains, I thought them. Our road stretched
forward through a hollow between; a scattering village
came into view, and a toll-gate barred the road. The
driver awoke with a start. “Here 's Gibraltar!” he said;
“we 'll soon be there, now!”

“Are those the Alleghany Mountains?” I asked.

“Guess you 're green in these parts,” said he: “them
a'n't mountains.”

“Well, what are their names?” I asked again, in much
humiliation.

“This'n ha'n't no proper name, — `Penn's Mount' some
call it. T' other, on the left, is Neversink. You 'll see
Readin' in two minutes.”

We presently emerged upon a slope, whence a glorious
landscape opened upon my eyes. Never had I seen or
imagined anything so beautiful. The stately old town lay
below, stretched at full length on an inclined plane, rising
from the Schuylkill to the base of the mountain; the river,
winding in abrupt curves, disclosed itself here and there
through the landscape; hills of superb undulation rose and
fell, in interlinking lines, through the middle distance,
Scull's Hill boldly detaching itself in front, and far in the
north the Blue Ridge lifted its dim wall against the sky.

[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]

The sinking sun turned the smokes of the town and the
vapors of the river to golden dust, athwart which faintly
gleamed the autumn coloring of distant woods. The noises
of the scene were softened and mellowed, and above them
all, clear, sweet, and faint, sounded the bugle of a boatman
on the canal. It was not ignorant admiration on my part;
for one familiar with the grandest aspects of Nature must
still confess that few towns on this side of the Atlantic are
so nobly environed.

As we entered the place I could scarcely turn my head
rapidly enough to the right and left, in my inspection of
signs, houses, and people. The brick sidewalks seemed to
be thronged, but nobody paid any particular attention to
us. In Honeybrook every one would have stopped and
looked at us, so long as we were in sight. The driver turned
into the broad main avenue of Penn Street, with its central
line of markets, then downward towards the river, and drew
up, a few blocks further, at a corner. It was a low, old-fashioned
brick house, with a signboard over the front door
and window, upon which was inscribed, in faded letters,
“A. Woolley's Grocery Store.” There were boxes of
candles, some bottles, a rope of onions, half a dozen withered
lemons, and a few other articles in the window; a
woman was issuing from the door with a basket full of
brown paper parcels on her arm. On the other side of the
portly window a narrow door was squeezed into the wall.
The driver, having alighted, jerked my trunk out of the
wagon, brought it down with a crash on the upper step, and
rang the bell. The door was opened by Aunt Peggy, in
person: she had been one of the shadows which had haunted
my mother's funeral, and I therefore recognized her.

My trunk was brought in and stood on end in the narrow
passage, which it almost blocked up. “You won't want
it before bedtime, I reckon,” said my aunt; “so leave it
there, and Bolty will help you carry it up. Come into the
settin'-room.”

[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]

Following her I found myself presently in a small room
behind the store. It was comfortably furnished, but somewhat
chill and unfriendly in its atmosphere, — stiff, almost,
although nothing could have been less so than my aunt's
appearance. She wore a limp calico dress, of some dark
pattern, and a cap, the strings of which were untied and
hung over her breast. Her face was long and thin, and her
hair, many shades lighter than my mother's, fell in straight,
lank lines over her ears. There was usually a tuft of it
sticking out somewhere about the back of her neck. Her
eyes were small and gray, her nose long and pointed, and
her lips thin and sunken at the corners, from the loss of
most of her back teeth. Add to this a weak, lamenting
voice, — rather, indeed, a whine, — and it will readily be
conceived that my aunt Peggy was not a person to inspire
a young man with enthusiasm for the female sex. Never
were two sisters more unlike than she and mother. I presume
there must have been a family likeness somewhere,
but I was really unable to discover it.

In a few minutes Uncle Amos came in from the store.
He shook hands with me with more cordiality than I had
anticipated. “We 'll have things fixed, in the course of a
day or two,” he said. “Now, Peggy, I guess you had better
get tea ready: John will be hungry, after his ride. Will
you come into the store, John, and look around a little?”

I preferred that to sitting alone in the back room. After
stumbling over some coffee-bags, — for it was getting dusky,
and the lamps were not yet lighted, — I came forth into the
open space behind the counter, where a boy of my own age
was very busily engaged in weighing and “doing up” various
materials. Uncle Amos stepped forward to assist him,
leaving me to play the spectator. For a little while, both
were actively employed; then, the rush of custom having
suddenly subsided, my uncle said, “Here, Bolty, this is my
nephew, John Godfrey. John, this is my assistant, Bolty
Himpel.”

[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]

Bolty grinned and nodded, but said nothing. He was
larger in every way than myself, but looked younger. His
hair, so blond as to be almost white, was cut close to his
head; his forehead was low, his eyes large, wide apart, and
pale blue; his nose short, thick, and flattened in the middle,
and his mouth larger and partly open. He was of the pure
peasant-blood of Southern Germany, his name, Bolty, being
simply a contraction of Leopold, with a little confusion
of kindred consonants. I was a good deal surprised at my
uncle's choice of an assistant, but I afterwards found that
Bolty understood the business, and nothing else. His
round, unmeaning face was a perpetual advertisement of
simple honesty to the customers. He knew it, and profited
thereby. Besides, he spoke fluently that remarkable language,
the Pennsylvania German, — a useful accomplishment
in a town where many native families were almost
wholly ignorant of English.

In a quarter of an hour my aunt whined out of the
gloom at the back of the store, “Tea, Amos!” and we
obeyed the melancholy summons. The table was set in
the kitchen behind the sitting-room, and so near the stove
that Aunt Peggy could reach the hot water with her right
hand, without rising from her chair. The board looked
very scantily supplied, to my eyes, accustomed to country
profuseness, but there proved to be enough.

After we were seated, Uncle Amos bent, or rather
plunged forward, over his plate, waving his hands with the
palms outward, before bringing them together in the attitude
of prayer. There was a certain ostentation in this
gesture, which struck me at once. It seemed to say,
“Take notice, Lord: I am about to ask Thy blessing.”
This was a very irreverent fancy of mine, I confess; but
there it was: I could n't help it.

Most people — as we find them — would have considered
Uncle Amos a man of imposing presence. He was both
tall and stout, and the squareness in his outlines, both of

[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]

head and body, suggested a rough, massive strength. His
head was bald from the forehead to the crown, but the
side-hair was combed upwards so as to overlap and partially
conceal it. His eyes were hard, and shot forth a
steely twinkle from under their fat lids; the corners were
channelled with a multitude of short, sly wrinkles. The
skin of his cheeks was unpleasantly threaded here and
there by fine, dark-purple veins, and always had a gloss
like varnish when he was freshly shaven. I half suspect,
now, that part of my instinctive dislike to him arose from
the jar which his appearance occasioned to my sense of
beauty. As a matter of conscience, I tried to like him;
but I am afraid the exertion was not very severe.

After tea, I went back to the sitting-room, while my
uncle took Bolty's place and allowed the latter to get his
meal in turn. Then it was necessary to wait until the
store should be closed for the night, and, to divert the
time, Aunt Peggy brought me the “Life of Henry Martyn,”
which I read with hearty interest. “A good model,” said
my uncle, looking over my shoulder, as he came in, after
the shutters had been duly fastened and bolted.

“Shut it up now,” he continued. “We go early to bed,
and get up early, in this house. Bolty, come here, and
help John up-stairs with his trunk.”

Bolty seized one end of the unwieldy box, and we slowly
bumped and stumbled up two flights of stairs, into a large
room under the roof, with a single window in the gable. I
remarked, with a disagreeable sensation, that there was
only one bed, and that one not remarkably broad. The
big, coarse fellow would be sure to usurp the most of it,
and his broad nose and open mouth indicated an immense
capacity for snoring. Besides, I was always, from a very
child, exceedingly sensitive to what I may call, for want of
a better term, human electricity; that is to say, certain
persons attract me, or impart a sense of comfort, by their
physical nearness, while others repel or convey an

[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]

impression of vague discomfort. This feeling seems to have no
connection with beauty or ugliness, health or disease, or even
affection or enmity. It arises from some subtle affinity of
physical temperament, like that which we occasionally notice
in the vegetable world. There are certain plants which
flourish or droop in the neighborhood of certain others. I
think this delicate, intangible sense is general among cultivated
persons, but I have never found it developed to the
same extent as in my own case.

I could not justly class Bolty Himpel among those
strongly repellant natures whose approach to me was like
that of a poisonous wind, but there was sufficient of the feeling
to make the necessity of lying all night in his “atmosphere”
very distasteful. However, there was no help for
it; he had already asked me, —

“Which side 'll you take?”

I chose that nearest the window, and soon fell asleep,
wearied with the changing excitements of the day. It was
not long, apparently, before the bedstead creaked and
shook, and a loud voice yelled, “Tumble out!”

The dawn was glimmering through the window. Bolty
was already hauling on his trousers, and I rose and looked
out. To my delight I could see the long, majestic outline
of Penn's Mount above the houses, its topmost trees making
a dark fringe against the morning sky. The view became
a part of my garret-furniture, and changed the aspect
of the room at once.

“Boss is pretty sharp,” said Bolty to me, as I commenced
dressing; “he opens half an hour sooner and keeps open
half an hour later than any other grocery in the town.
'T a'n't a bad plan. People get to know it, and they come
to us when they can't go nowhere else. It keeps us on the
go, though. You ha'n't done nothin' at business, ha'n't
you?”

“No,” I answered; “I 've been at school. 'T was Uncle
Amos's plan that I should come here, and I don't know
how I 'll like it.”

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

“Oh, you 'll soon git the hang of it. I don't s'pose he 'll
put you to rollin' o' bar'ls and openin' o' boxes. Y' a'n't
built for that.”

Whereupon Bolty deliberately squeezed and twisted the
muscles of my upper arm, in such wise that they were sore
for the rest of the day. “That 's the crow-bar,” said he,
bending and stiffening his own right arm, until the flexor
rose like an arch; “and them 's the death-mauls,” shaking
his clenched fists. These expressions he had evidently
picked up from some canal boatman. Their force and
fierceness contrasted comically with the vacant good-humor
written on his face.

We went down to the shop and opened the shutters.
There was little custom before breakfast, so I lounged
about behind the counter, pulling open drawers of spices
and reading the labels on bottles and jars. After all, I
thought, there are more disagreeable avocations in the
world than that of a grocer, — bricklaying, for instance. I
determined to do my share of the work faithfully, whether
I liked it or not. I was in my nineteenth year, and, at the
worst, would be my own master at twenty-one.

Bolty was right in his conjecture. He had not only more
strenght than myself, but greater mechanical dexterity, and
consequently the heavy work fell to his share. My uncle,
finding that I wrote a neat hand and was a good arithmetician,
gradually initiated me into the mysteries of day-book
and ledger. I also assisted in waiting upon the customers,
and in a few days became sufficiently expert at sliding
sugar or coffee out of the scoop, so as to turn the scale by
the weight of a grain or single bean, settling the contents
in paper bags, and tying them squarely and compactly. My
uncle was too shrewd a business-man to let me learn at the
expense of customers: I was required to cover the counter
with packages of various weights, the contents of which
were afterwards returned to the appropriate bins or barrels.
Thus, while I was working off my awkwardness, the grocery

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

presented an air of unusual patronage to its innocent visitors.

Many of our customers were farmers of the vicinity, who
brought their eggs, butter, and cheese, to exchange for groceries.
This was a profitable part of the business, as we
gained both in buying and selling. There was a great demand
among these people for patent medicines, which
formed a very important branch of my uncle's stock, and
he could have found no better salesman than Bolty Himpel.
The latter discovered, in an incredibly short time, from
what neighborhood a new customer came, and immediately
gave an account of the relief which somebody, living in an
opposite direction, had derived from the use of certain pills
or plasters.

“Weakness o' the back, eh?” he would say to some melancholy-faced
countrywoman; “our Balm of Gilead 's the
stuff for that. Only three levies a bottle; rub it in with
flannel, night and mornin'. Mr. Hempson — you know
him, p'r'aps, down on Poplar Neck? —was bent double
with the rheumatiz, and two bottles made him as straight
as I am. Better take some o' the Peruvian Preventative,
while you 're about it, ma'am, — keeps off chills and fevers.
Deacon Dingey sent all the way down from Port Clinton
t' other day for some: they don't keep it there. Lives in
a ma'shy place, right on to the river, and they ha'n't had a
chill in the family since they use 'em. I reckon we 've
sold wheelbarra loads.”

I noticed, in the course of time, that Uncle Amos never
interfered with Bolty's loquacity, unless (which happened
very rarely) his recommendation was overdone and the customer
became suspicious. Sometimes, indeed, he said, with
a gravity not wholly natural, “Rather too strong. Don't
tell more than you know.”

“Oh,” Bolty would answer, “'t won't kill if it don't cure.”

This youth had an astonishing memory of names and
faces, — a faculty in which, probably from want of practice,

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

I was deficient. His German also made him indispensable
to many of the country people. My uncle possessed a
tolerable smattering of the language, and insisted that I
should endeavor to learn it. “It 's more use than the heathenish
Latin you learned in school,” said he.

“Why, Uncle Amos,” I retorted, “I read Sacred History
in Latin.”

“Then it was n't the Word of God, which was inspired
in Hebrew,” he answered.

I had determined to go on alone with my Latin studies,
and his disapprobation of the language troubled me. I
could not, as I proposed, bring the books down to the desk
behind the counter, and devote the end of the evening to
them, without incurring his pious censure. Against German
he would have no such scruples, and I decided, though
with regret, to take that language instead. I remembered
that Grandfather Hatzfeld, who had been educated in
Bethlehem, spoke it habitually, and that my mother retained
her knowledge of it to the last. Among her books
was an old edition of Herder and Liebeskind's “Palmblatter,”
which she had often read to me, as a child, and I had
then understood. This early knowledge, however, had long
since faded to a blank, but it left the desire to be renewed,
and perhaps unconsciously smoothed the first difficulties of
the study.

I saw little of Aunt Peggy, except at meals and on Sundays.
Having never had any children of her own, she
would scarcely have been able to assume a motherly attitude
towards me; but I do not think she tried. Her share
in the conversation was generally of a discouraging cast,
and the subject which most seemed to excite her interest
was a case of backsliding which had recently occurred in
my uncle's church. For several days the latter added to
his tri-daily grace a prayer “that them which have forsaken
the light may be brought back to it, and that them which
wander in darkness may be led to seek it!” He was

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

undoubtedly sincere in this prayer, and I could have joined
in it, had I not been suspicious enough to guess that the
latter clause must be aimed at myself.

On Sundays, Bolty and I went twice to church with my
uncle and aunt, dutifully joining in the hymns, as I had
been accustomed to do with my mother. I declined taking
a class in the Sunday-school, much to my uncle's displeasure;
but, after being confined to the store all the week, I
felt an urgent craving for a mouthful of fresh air and the
freedom of the landscape. Sometimes I climbed high up
the sides of Mount Penn, whence the brown tints of the
coming winter vanished far off in delicious blue; but more
frequently I walked northward to the knoll now covered
by the Cemetery, and enjoyed the luxury of a wide lookout
on all sides. In the evening, Bolty was allowed to visit
his father, an honest, hard-working shoemaker, living on
the eastern edge of the town, and I occasionally accompanied
him. The family conversation was entirely in German,
so that these visits were not much of a recreation,
after all.

I soon saw that the literary performances which had
been my pride and delight at school must be given up, at
least for the winter. There was no fire in the garret bedroom,
and I was not likely to be left in possession of the
sitting-room behind the store more than once a month.

p714-112 CHAPTER VIII. DESCRIBING CERTAIN INCIDENTS OF MY LIFE IN READING.

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The winter, having fairly set in, dragged on its monotonous
round. During the cold weather there was less to
do in the store, and I had frequent hours of leisure, which I
passed on my high stool at the desk, reading such books as
I could procure, and a few which I bought. The sale of
the cottage and furniture left a surplus of sixty-seven dollars,
after paying the expenses of my mother's funeral and
my last term at Dr. Dymond's. On making this statement,
as my guardian, my uncle said, —

“You don't need any more clothes this winter, and you 'd
better let me put this out for you. You 'll have no expenses
here, as I count that what you do in the store will
about balance your board.”

I greatly longed to have the whole sum in my hands, but
offered to let him “put out” fifty dollars and give me the
remainder. He consented, though with an ill grace, saying,
“It is n't good to give boys the means of temptation.”

I had never before had one tenth part as much money
in my pocket, and it gave me a wonderfully comfortable
feeling of wealth and independence. My first step was to
buy an octavo volume, containing the poems of Milton,
Young, Gray, Beattie, and Collins, every word of which I
faithfully read. (I wonder whether anybody else ever did
the same thing.) I also purchased a blank diary, with
headings for every day in the year, and kept it in the breast-pocket
of my coat, with fear and trembling lest it should
be left lying where my uncle might find and read it. For

[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]

a month or two the entries were very regular, then more
and more fragmentary, and before summer they ceased
altogether. The little volume, with its well-worn cover
and embrowned paper, is now lying before me. I turn its
pages with a smile at its extravagant sentiment and immature
reflections. Can it be that I really wrote such stuff
as this? —

“Jan. 28. — Cold and cloudy — emblematic of my life.
In the afternoon, gleams of sunshine, flashing like the
wings of angels. Would I too could soar above these sublunary
cares! Read `Childe Harold' while uncle was
out. Is it wrong to steal one's intellectual food? No; the
famishing soul must have nourishment!”

As I became familiar with the routine of my duties, and
Uncle Amos found that the accounts could be safely intrusted
to my care, he frequently left the store to Bolty
and myself, and made short trips into the country for the
purpose of procuring supplies and perfecting his system of
exchange. In this way he snapped up many a pound of
butter and dozen of eggs, which would have found their
way to other groceries; and during the season when those
articles were rather scarce he was always well supplied, —
a fact which soon became known and brought a notable
increase of custom. He also went to Philadelphia, to make
his purchases of the wholesale dealers in person, instead
of ordering them by letter. We, of course, felt a greater
responsibility during his absence, and were very closely
confined to our duties. Bolty had no other ambition than
to set up in business for himself, some day; it was an aim
he never lost sight of, and I was sure he would reach it.
For my part, having been forced into my present position,
I longed for the coming of the day which would release
me, but I was too conscientious either to break loose from
it or to slight my share of the labor.

About the beginning of April, either from the close confinement
within-doors to which I had been subjected, or to

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some change in my system, — for I was still growing, and
had now attained the average height of men, — I was attacked
with fever. The malady was not severe nor dangerous,
but stubborn; and though, after a week's confinement
to the spare bedroom on the second story, I was able
to sit up and move about again, the physician prescribed
rest for a fortnight longer, with moderate exercise when
the weather was fine. Aunt Peggy waited upon me as well
as she was able: that is, when her household duties had
been performed, she brought her knitting and sat by the
stove at the foot of my bed, asking occasionally, in a tearful
voice, “How do you feel, John?” Fortunately, I required
no watching at night, for there was no element of
tenderness in the house to make it endurable. My uncle
took my place in the store, though it must have been a serious
interruption to his outside plans. He acquiesced, without
apparent impatience, in the doctor's prescription of
further rest.

During those days of convalescence I experienced a
delicious relief and lightness of heart. Spring had burst
suddenly upon the land with a balmy brightness and
warmth which lingered, day after day, belying the fickle
fame of the month. Walking down Penn Street and crossing
the bridge, I would find a sunny seat on the top of the
gray cliff beyond, and bask in the soft awakening of the
landscape around. The bluebird sang like the voice of
the season; below me, in gardens and fields, I saw how the
dark brown of the mellow earth increased for the planting,
and how sheets or cloudy wafts of green settled over the
barrenness of winter. Again I became hopeful, joyous,
confident of the future. Time and the tenderness of memory
had softened my grief: I often recalled mother's words
on her death-bed, and allowed no unavailing sting of remorse
for neglected duties to cloud the serenity of my resignation.
It was thus, I felt, that she would have me to feel,
and her sainted spirit must rejoice in the returning buoyancy
of mine.

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On one of those lovely April afternoons, as I was musing
on the cliff, — my thoughts taking a vague, wandering
rhythm from the sound of a boatman's horn down the
river, — the idea of writing something for publication came
into my mind. A poem, of course, — for “Childe Harold,”
“Manfred,” and “The Corsair” had turned the whole drift
of my ideas into a channel of imagined song. To write
some verses and have them printed would be joy — triumph—
glory. The idea took possession of me with irresistible
force. Two dollars out of my seventeen had gone for a
subscription to the Saturday Evening Post, — an expense
at which Uncle Amos had grumbled, until he found that
Aunt Peggy took stealthy delight in perusing the paper.
In its columns I found charming poetry by Bessie Bulfinch
and Adeliza Choate, besides republications from contemporary
English literature, especially Dickens. B. Simmons,
T. K. Hervey, and Charles Swain became, for me, demigods
of song: I could only conceive of them as superior
beings, of lofty stature and majestic beauty. I had never
seen a man who had written a book. Even the editors
of the Gazette and Adler, in Reading, were personages
whose acquaintance I did not dare to seek. There was
always a half-column in the Post, addressed “To Correspondents,”
containing such messages as, — “Ivanhoe's
story contains some sweet passages, but lacks incident: declined
with thanks;” or, “The `Fairy's Bower,' by `Cecilia,
' is a poem of much promise, and will appear next
week.” I invariably read the articles thus accepted, and,
while I recognized their great merit, (for were they not
printed?) it seemed to me that, by much exertion, I might
one day achieve the right to appear in their ranks.

After having given hospitality to the idea, I carried pencil
and paper with me, and devoted several afternoons to
the poem. It was entitled, “The Unknown Bard” (meaning
myself, of course), written in heroic lines, after I had
vainly attempted the Spenserian stanza. As nearly as I

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can recollect, there were fifty or sixty lines of it, describing
my intellectual isolation, and how I must stifle the burning
thoughts that filled my bosom, lest the cold world should
crush me with its envenomed scorn! I signed myself
“Selim,” a name which I found in Collins's First Eclogue,
and particularly admired. How I used to wish that some
good genius had inspired my mother to give me the name
of “Selim,” or “Secander,” instead of “John”! However,
as “Selim” I would be known in the world of letters and
on the tablets of fame — Selim, the Unknown Bard!

Finished, at last, and copied in my distinctest hand, there
came the question — how should I send it? The clerk at
the post-office knew me, because I went there for my uncle's
letters, and also, weekly, for my beloved newspaper.
Perhaps he also read the paper, and would be sure to find
a connection between my letter and the editorial answer to
Selim of Reading. Not for the world would I have intrusted
the awful secret to a single soul, — not even to Penrose
or Bob Simmons. Perhaps I should still have run
the risk, as I fancied it to be, of using the post, but for a
most lucky and unexpected chance. Uncle Amos suggested
that I should go to Philadelphia in his stead, on
some business relating to sugar, with the details of which I
was acquainted. I was almost too demonstrative in my
delight; for my suspicious uncle shook his head, and made
it a condition that I should go down in the morning-train,
accomplish my mission at once, and return the same evening.

On reaching the right-angled city, I found my way with
little difficulty to “Simpson & Brother,” Market Street,
near Second, and, after very faithfully transacting the business,
had still two hours to spare before the departure of
the return-train. The newspaper office was near at hand,—
Chestnut, above Third, — and thither I repaired, with
flushed face and beating heart, the precious epistle held
fast in my hand, yet carefully concealed under my sleeve,

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lest any one, in passing by, should read the superscription
and guess the contents. I do not smile at myself, as I recall
this experience. The brain, like the heart, has its virginity,
and its first earnest utterance is often as tremulously
shy as the first confession of love.

My intention had been to deliver the letter at the office
of the paper, as if I had been simply its bearer and not its
author. But after I had mounted two dark, steep flights
of steps, and found myself before the door, my courage
failed me. I heard voices within: there were several persons,
then. They would be certain to look at me sharply—
to notice my agitation — perhaps to question me about
the letter. While I was standing thus, twisting and turning
it in my hand, in a veritable perspiration from excitement,
I heard footsteps descending from an upper story.
Desperate and panic-stricken, I laid the letter hastily on
the floor, at the door of the office, and rushed down to the
street as rapidly and silently as possible. Without looking
around, I walked up Chestnut Street with a fearful impression
that somebody was following me, and turning the corner
of Fourth, began to read the titles of the books in
Hart's window. Five minutes having elapsed, I knew that
I was not discovered, and recovered my composure; though,
now that the poem had gone out of my hands, I would
have given anything to get it back again.

When the next number of the paper arrived, I tore off
the wrapper with trembling fingers and turned to the fateful
column on the second page. But I might as well have
postponed my excitement: there was no notice of the poem.
Perhaps they never received the letter, — perhaps it had
been trodden upon and defaced, and swept down-stairs by
the office-boy! These were, at least, consoling possibilities,—
better that than to be contemptuously ignored. By the
following week my fever was nearly over, and I opened the
paper with but a faint expectation of finding anything; but
lo! there it was, — “Selim” at the very head of the

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announcements! These were the precious words: “We are
obliged to `Selim' for his poem, which we shall publish
shortly. It shows the hand of youth, but evinces a flattering
promise. Let him trim the midnight lamp with diligence.”

If the sinking sun had wheeled about and gone up the
western sky, or the budding trees had snapped into full leaf
in five minutes, I don't believe it would have astonished
me. I was on my way home from the post-office when I read
the lines, and I remember turning out of Penn Street to go
by a more secluded and circuitous way, lest I should be
tempted to cut a pigeon-wing on the pavement, in the sight
of the multitude. I passed a little brick building, with a tin
sign on the shutter, — “D. J. Mulford, Attorney-at-Law.”
“Pooh!” I said to myself; “what 's D. J. Mulford? He
never published a poem in his life!” As I caught a
glimpse of his head, silhouetted against the back window,
I found myself, nevertheless, rather inclined to pity him for
being unconscious that the author of “The Unknown Bard”
was at that moment passing his door.

This disproportionate exultation, the reader will say, betrayed
shallow waters. Why should I not admit the fact?

My mind was exceedingly shallow, at that time, but,
thank Heaven! it was limpid as a mountain brook. It
could have floated no craft heavier than a child's toy-sloop,
but the sun struck through it and filled its bed with light.
If it is expected that we should feel ashamed of our intellectual
follies, we must needs regret that we were ever young.

When the poem at last appeared, after a miserably weary
interval of two or three weeks, I was a little mortified to
find that some liberty had been taken with the language.
Where I had written “hath” I found “has” substituted,
and, what was worse, “Fame's eternal brow,” which I thought
so grand, was changed into “Fame's resplendent brow.”
The poem did n't seem quite mine, with these alterations:
they took the keen edge off my pride and my happiness.

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

However, Selim was at last the companion, if not the equal,
of Bessie Bulfinch and Adeliza Choate, — that was a great
point gained. I determined that he should not relapse into
silence.

My next essay was a tale, called “Envy; or, the Maiden
of Ravenna.” I am ashamed to say that I placed the city
upon the summit of a frightful precipice, the base of which
was washed by the river Arno! Laurelia, the maiden of
the story, fell from the awful steep, but fortunately alighted
on the branch of a weeping willow, which gently transferred
her to the water, whence she was rescued by the Knight
Grimaldi. But this story proved too much even for the
kindly editor, whose refusal was so gentle and courteous
that it neither wounded my pride nor checked my ambition.

One day in early summer I happened to pass again by
the office of D. J. Mulford. I glanced at the sign mechanically,
and was going on, when a terrible thumping on
the window-panes startled and arrested me. I stopped: the
window was suddenly raised, and who but Charley Rand
poked his head out!

“I say, Godfrey!” he cried; “come in here a minute!
Mulford 's out, and I have the office to myself.”

“Why, Rand,” said I, as he opened the door for me,
“how did you get here?”

“Sit down, and I 'll tell you all about it. Father said,
you know, that I might be a lawyer, if I had a mind. Well,
this spring, when he found I had Latin enough to tell him
what posse comitatus meant, and scire facias, and venditioni
exponas, and so on, — such as you see in the sheriff's advertisements, —
he thought I was ready to begin the study. I
had no objections, for I knew that the school would be dull,
with Penrose, Marsh, Brotherton, and most of the older
boys gone, and, besides, it 's time I was seeing a little more
life. Many fellows set up in business for themselves at my
age. Mulford 's father's lawyer, whenever he 's obliged to

[figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]

have one; I suppose he 'll be my first client, after I pass.
I 've been here ten days, and was just thinking I must find
you out, when I saw you go by the window. Have a cigar?”

I declined the offer, and politely, considering my abhorrence
of the custom.

“You 've grown, Godfrey,” Rand continued, hauling a
second chair towards him and hoisting his feet upon the
arms, “and I see you 're getting some fuzz on your chin.
You 'll be a man soon, and I should n't wonder if you 'd
make your mark some day.”

I overlooked the patronizing manner of this remark in its
agreeable substance. And here I should explain that Charley
Rand was now by no means the same youth as on the day
when we were together intrusted to Dr. Dymond's care.
Until then he had been petted and humored in every possible
way, and was selfish and overbearing in his manner.
A few months among forty or fifty boys, however, taught
him to moderate his claims. He was brought down to the
common level, and with that flexibility of nature which was
his peculiar talent, or faculty, leaped over to the opposite
extreme of smooth-tongued subservience. What he had
ceased to gain by impudence, he now endeavored to obtain
by coaxing, flattering, and wheedling. In the latter art he
soon became an adept. Many a time have I worked out
for him some knotty problem, in violation of the rules of
the school, and in violation, also, of my own sense of right,
cajoled by his soft, admiring, affectionate accents. I do not
describe his character as I understood it then, but as I
afterwards learned it. I was still his dupe.

In the space of half an hour he managed to extract from
me the particulars of my life and occupation in Reading.
He already knew, in ten days, much more about the principal
families of the place than I had learned in eight
months. After this interview, I soon got the habit of walking
around to Mulford's office on Sunday afternoons and
spending an hour or two with him. We sat in the

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backroom, which opened on a little yard covered with weeds,
boards, and broken bottles, so that the proprieties of the
street-side of the building were carefully respected. I
felt less lonely, now that there was a schoolmate within
hail.

In my uncle's house things went on very much as usual.
Bolty and I had scarcely any taste in common, (unless it
was a fondness for pea-nuts, which I retain to this day,)
but we never quarrelled. As we were strictly attentive to
our respective duties, my uncle seemed to be satisfied with
us, and was, for this reason perhaps, forbearing in other
respects. Aunt Peggy adhered to her monotonous household
round, and made no attempt to control my actions,
except when I bought white linen instead of nankeen, for
summer wear. “There 'll be no end to the washin' of it,”
she said, in a voice so suggestive of tears that I expected
to see her take out her handkerchief.

It was plain to me that Uncle Amos intended to enlarge
his business as rapidly as was consistent with his prudent
and cautious habits. I had good reason to believe that my
services were included in his plans; yet, though I was
more firmly fixed than ever in my determination to leave
when his legal guardianship should cease, I judged it best
to be silent on this point. It would only lead to tedious
sermons, — discussions in which neither could have the
least sympathy with the other's views, and possibly a permanent
and very disagreeable disturbance in our relations
towards each other. I do not think he recognized, as I
did, that I had quietly established an armistice, which I
could at any time annual.

In one sense, Bolty was my aid. He never mentioned
the subject, but I understood then as well as I do now that
he knew my want of liking for the business, and was satisfied
that it should be so. After the weather grew warm
enough, I resumed my Latin studies in the garret; thither
also I took prohibited books, and filled quires of paper with

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extracts and comments, feeling, instinctively, that my companion
would never betray me.

This sort of life was not what I would have chosen. It
was far from satisfying the cravings of heart and brain;
but I bore it with patience, looking forward to the day of
release.

p714-123 CHAPTER IX. IN WHICH I OUGHT TO BE A SHEEP, BUT PROVE TO BE A GOAT.

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There was one point upon which I was always apprehensive
that Uncle Amos would assail me. It dated from
that first evening in the little cottage at the Cross-Keys,
the previous summer. What I have said of my shrinking
delicacy of feeling with regard to my poetic attempts will
equally apply to the religious sentiment. A dear and tender
friend might have found me willing to open my heart
to him concerning sacred things; but I could not, dared
not, admit a less privileged person to the sanctuary. I had
not the courage or the independence necessary to arrest
my uncle's approach to the subject, and was therefore preternaturally
watchful and alert in retreating. Very often,
I suspect, I fancied an ambush where none existed. My
uncle probably saw that he must tread cautiously, and feel
his way by degrees, for I only remember one conversation
in the course of the summer which really disturbed me.

My poor mother had been an earnest Lutheran, of the
hearty, cheerful, warm-blooded German sort. She always
preferred thanksgiving for God's mercies to fear of His
wrath, and had brought me up in the faith that the beauties
and blessings of this life might be enjoyed without forfeiting
one's title as a Christian. At the age of fourteen I
had been confirmed, and was therefore to be considered as
a member of the Church. At least, I supposed that the
principal religious duty thenceforth required of me was to
follow God's commandments as nearly as my imperfect

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human nature would allow. I never closed my eyes in
sleep without invoking the protection of my only Father,
with a grateful feeling in my heart of hearts that He did
indeed hear and heed me. I did not fear damnation,
because I had not the slightest liking for the Devil.

I knew little or nothing of the slight partitions which
divide the multitudinous sects of the Christian world, and
was not the least troubled in conscience at attending my
uncle's church instead of my own. Whatever was doctrinal
in the latter I had forgotten since my confirmation,—
probably because it had then made very little impression
on my mind. My uncle's clergyman was a mild, amiable
man, whose goodness it was impossible to doubt, and I
listened to his sermons with proper reverence.

Something, I know not what, — possibly some memory
of my mother, — led me, one Sunday in summer, to attend
the Lutheran church. The well-known hymns fell on my
ear with a home-like sound, and the powerful tones of the
organ seemed to lift me to new devotional heights. In the
sermon I felt the influence of a strong, massive intellect,
the movements of which I could not always follow, but
which stimulated and strengthened me. After this, I
divided my Sundays nearly equally between the two
churches. On informing my uncle and aunt, at dinner,
where I had been, the former was at first silent; but, after
some grave reflection, asked me, —

“Are you a member of that persuasion?”

“Oh, yes,” I answered, “just the same as mother and
Aunt Peggy.”

I struck a blow without intending it. Aunt Peggy
looked startled and uneasy; a strong color came into her
face; then, after a quick glance at uncle, she lifted her
hands and exclaimed, “No! Praise and Glory, not now!”

“Hem!” coughed Uncle Amos; “never mind, Peggy;
blessed are them that see!” Then, turning to me, he
added, “Do you mean that you have professed faith and
been baptized?”

[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]

“I was baptized when I was a baby,” I answered, “and
confirmed when I was fourteen.”

“Have you experienced a change of heart?”

“No,” I boldly said, thinking that he meant to indicate
infidelity, or some kind of backsliding, by this term.

Uncle Amos, to my surprise, uttered a loud groan, and
Aunt Peggy made that peculiar clucking noise with her
tongue against her teeth, which some women employ to
signify disaster or lamentation.

“You feel, then,” said Uncle Amos, after a long pause,
“that you nature is utterly corrupt and sinful. Do you
not see what a mockery it is to claim that you are a follower
of the Lamb?”

“No, uncle!” I cried, indignantly; “I am not corrupt
and sinful. I don't pretend to be a saint, but no one has a
right to call me a sinner. I have kept all the commandments,
except the tenth, and I never broke that without
repenting of it afterwards. Mother belonged to the Lutheran
Church, and I won't hear anything said against
it!”

For a moment an equally earnest reply seemed to be
hovering on my uncle's tongue; but he checked himself
with a strong effort, groaned in a subdued way, and remarked
with unusual gravity, “Darkness! darkness!” His
manner towards me, for a day or two afterwards, was unusually
solemn. The exigencies of business, however, soon
restored our ordinary relations.

In the autumn, my uncle's church was visited by a noted
“revival” preacher, whose coming had been announced
some time in advance. He was a Kentuckian, of considerable
fame in his own sect, and even beyond its borders,
so that his appearance never failed to draw crowds together.
As this was his first visit to Reading, it was an event
which could not, of course, be allowed to go by without giving
the church the full benefit of the impression he should
produce, and a large increase of the congregation was
counted upon as a sure result.

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