heard only the wind, but I
insisted on digging into the hay and turning it over until we
discovered the source of the strange exciting sound,--a mother field
mouse with half a dozen naked young hanging to her teats. This to me
was a wonderful discovery. No hunter could have been more excited on
discovering a bear and her cubs in a wilderness den.

I was sent to school before I had completed my third year. The first
schoolday was doubtless full of wonders, but I am not able to recall
any of them. I remember the servant washing my face and getting soap
in my eyes, and mother hanging a little green bag with my first book
in it around my neck so I would not lose it, and its blowing back in
the sea-wind like a flag. But before I was sent to school my
grandfather, as I was told, had taught me my letters from shop signs
across the street. I can remember distinctly how proud I was when I
had spelled my way through the little first book into the second,
which seemed large and important, and so on to the third. Going from
one book to another formed a grand triumphal advancement, the memories
of which still stand out in clear relief.

The third book contained interesting stories as well as plain
reading-and spelling-lessons. To me the best story of all was
"Llewellyn's Dog," the first animal that comes to mind after the
needle-voiced field mouse. It so deeply interested and touched me and
some of my classmates that we read it over and over with aching
hearts, both in and out of school and shed bitter tears over the brave
faithful dog, Gelert, slain by his own master, who imagined that he
had devoured his son because he came to him all bloody when the boy
was lost, though he had saved the child's life by killing a big wolf.
We have to look far back to learn how great may be the capacity of a
child's heart for sorrow and sympathy with animals as well as with
human friends and neighbors. This auld-lang-syne story stands out in
the throng of old schoolday memories as clearly as if I had myself
been one of that Welsh hunting-party--heard the bugles blowing, seen
Gelert slain, joined in the search for the lost child, discovered it
at last happy and smiling among the grass and bushes beside the dead,
mangled wolf, and wept with Llewellyn over the sad fate of his noble,
faithful dog friend.

Another favorite in this book was Southey's poem "The Inchcape Bell,"
a story of a priest and a pirate. A good priest in order to warn
seamen in