s called Nancy, "for long." I was the
fourth child in a very large family. The three elder were a brother and
two sisters. The first, very quick at books and figures, finished his
education at an early age, and seemed to me about as old and dignified
as my father. My sisters, Sarah and Mary, were exemplary in school and
out. The former, at eight, read Virgil; painted "Our Mother's Grave" at
eleven--'twas an imaginary grave judging from the happy children
standing by; wrote rhymes for all the albums, printed verses on
card-board and kept on living. Mary read every book she could find; had
a prize at six years of age for digesting "Rollins' Ancient History;"
had great mathematical talent, and though she sighed in her fourteenth
year that she had grown old, yet continues to add to her age, being one
of the oldest professors in a flourishing college.

With such precedences, it is not strange that my parents were astonished
when their fourth child developed other and less exaggerated traits,
with no inclination to be moulded. Within ten months of my eighth year,
my teacher, who had previously dealt with Sarah and Mary with great
success, made the following remark to me: "If thou wilt learn to answer
all those questions in astronomy," passing her pencil lightly over two
pages in _Wilkin's Elements_ "before next seventh day, I'll give thee
two cents and a nice note to thy parents" (my father was a scientific
man, and my mother a prime mover in our education).

"Two cents" did seem quite a temptation, but the lesson I concluded not
to get. "I worked wiser than I knew." I may have wanted a "two cents"
many a time since, but I never was sorry about that. Spelling,
arithmetic, grammar, geography, history and reading, though they were
the Peter-Parley edition, seemed about enough food for a child that was
hungering and thirsting for a doll like Judith Collin's, and for
capacity to outrun the neighboring boys. To be sure the recitation in
concert, where the names of the asteroids, only four in number (instead
of a million and four) were brought out by some of us, as "vesper,"
"pallid," "you know," and "serious" showed that we did not confine
ourselves too closely to the book.

Seventh-day afternoon was a holiday, and on one of these occasions I was
sent to stay with my grandmother, as my mother, as my maiden aunt (the
latter lived with my grandmother) were going to Polpis to a corn-pudding
party. I was too troublesome to be left a