dent there was only one
Frederic Ingham's name on the voting-list; and as I was quite busy that
day in writing some foreign letters to Halle, I thought I would forego
my privilege of suffrage, and stay quietly at home, telling Dennis that
he might use the record on the voting-list, and vote. I gave him a
ticket, which I told him he might use, if he liked to. That was that
very sharp election in Maine which the readers of the Atlantic so well
remember, and it had been intimated in public that the ministers would
do well not to appear at the polls. Of course, after that, we had to
appear by self or proxy. Still, Naguadavick was not then a city, and
this standing in a double queue at town-meeting several hours to vote
was a bore of the first water; and so when I found that there was but
one Frederic Ingham on the list, and that one of us must give up, I
stayed at home and finished the letters (which, indeed, procured for
Fothergill his coveted appointment of Professor of Astronomy at
Leavenworth), and I gave Dennis, as we called him, the chance. Something
in the matter gave a good deal of popularity to the Frederic Ingham
name; and at the adjourned election, next week, Frederic Ingham was
chosen to the legislature. Whether this was I or Dennis I never really
knew. My friends seemed to think it was I; but I felt that as Dennis had
done the popular thing, he was entitled to the honor; so I sent him to
Augusta when the time came, and he took the oaths. And a very valuable
member he made. They appointed him on the Committee on Parishes; but I
wrote a letter for him, resigning, on the ground that he took an
interest in our claim to the stumpage in the minister's sixteenths of
Gore A, next No. 7, in the 10th Range. He never made any speeches, and
always voted with the minority, which was what he was sent to do. He
made me and himself a great many good friends, some of whom I did not
afterwards recognize as quickly as Dennis did my parishioners. On one or
two occasions, when there was wood to saw at home, I kept him at home;
but I took those occasions to go to Augusta myself. Finding myself often
in his vacant seat at these times, I watched the proceedings with a good
deal of care; and once was so much excited that I delivered my somewhat
celebrated speech on the Central School-District question, a speech of
which the "State of Maine" printed some extra copies. I believe there is
no formal rule permitting strangers to speak; but no