the joys and sorrows
of that institution. When in family council it was decided to send me to
that intellectual Mecca, I did not receive the announcement with unmixed
satisfaction, as I had fixed my mind on Union College. The thought of a
school without boys, who had been to me such a stimulus both in study
and play, seemed to my imagination dreary and profitless.

The one remarkable feature of my journey to Troy was the railroad from
Schenectady to Albany, the first ever laid in this country. The manner
of ascending a high hill going out of the city would now strike
engineers as stupid to the last degree. The passenger cars were pulled
up by a train, loaded with stones, descending the hill. The more
rational way of tunneling through the hill or going around it had not
yet dawned on our Dutch ancestors. At every step of my journey to Troy I
felt that I was treading on my pride, and thus in a hopeless frame of
mind I began my boarding-school career. I had already studied everything
that was taught there except French, music, and dancing, so I devoted
myself to these accomplishments. As I had a good voice I enjoyed
singing, with a guitar accompaniment, and, having a good ear for time, I
appreciated the harmony in music and motion and took great delight in
dancing. The large house, the society of so many girls, the walks about
the city, the novelty of everything made the new life more enjoyable
than I had anticipated. To be sure I missed the boys, with whom I had
grown up, played with for years, and later measured my intellectual
powers with, but, as they became a novelty, there was new zest in
occasionally seeing them. After I had been there a short time, I heard a
call one day: "Heads out!" I ran with the rest and exclaimed, "What is
it?" expecting to see a giraffe or some other wonder from Barnum's
Museum. "Why, don't you see those boys?" said one. "Oh," I replied, "is
that all? I have seen boys all my life." When visiting family friends in
the city, we were in the way of making the acquaintance of their sons,
and as all social relations were strictly forbidden, there was a new
interest in seeing them. As they were not allowed to call upon us or
write notes, unless they were brothers or cousins, we had, in time, a
large number of kinsmen.

There was an intense interest to me now in writing notes, receiving
calls, and joining the young men in the streets for a walk, such as I
had never known when in constant association