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

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

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

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

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