ons should reappear among us. I thought
that, if he had done all the dreadful things stated in the Declaration
of '76, he might come again, burn our houses, and drive us all into the
street. Sir William Johnson's mansion of solid masonry, gloomy and
threatening, still stood in our neighborhood. I had seen the marks of
the Indian's tomahawk on the balustrades and heard of the bloody deeds
there enacted. For all the calamities of the nation I believed King
George responsible. At home and at school we were educated to hate the
English. When we remember that, every Fourth of July, the Declaration
was read with emphasis, and the orator of the day rounded all his
glowing periods with denunciations of the mother country, we need not
wonder at the national hatred of everything English. Our patriotism in
those early days was measured by our dislike of Great Britain.

In September occurred the great event, the review of the county militia,
popularly called "Training Day." Then everybody went to the race course
to see the troops and buy what the farmers had brought in their wagons.
There was a peculiar kind of gingerbread and molasses candy to which we
were treated on those occasions, associated in my mind to this day with
military reviews and standing armies.

Other pleasures were, roaming in the forests and sailing on the mill
pond. One day, when there were no boys at hand and several girls were
impatiently waiting for a sail on a raft, my sister and I volunteered to
man the expedition. We always acted on the assumption that what we had
seen done, we could do. Accordingly we all jumped on the raft, loosened
it from its moorings, and away we went with the current. Navigation on
that mill pond was performed with long poles, but, unfortunately, we
could not lift the poles, and we soon saw we were drifting toward the
dam. But we had the presence of mind to sit down and hold fast to the
raft. Fortunately, we went over right side up and gracefully glided down
the stream, until rescued by the ever watchful Peter. I did not hear the
last of that voyage for a long time. I was called the captain of the
expedition, and one of the boys wrote a composition, which he read in
school, describing the adventure and emphasizing the ignorance of the
laws of navigation shown by the officers in command. I shed tears many
times over that performance.

CHAPTER II.

SCHOOL DAYS.

When I was eleven years old, two events occurred which change