ossibility of doing so presented itself. I had no idea that it
would be imbued with sympathy for a boy outside of it who wanted to
learn. True, I had once read in some story, perhaps fictitious, how
a nobleman had found a boy reading Newton's "Principia," and not only
expressed his pleased surprise at the performance, but actually got
the boy educated. But there was no nobleman in sight of the backwoods
of Nova Scotia. I read in the autobiography of Franklin how he had
made his way in life. But he was surrounded with opportunities from
which I was cut off. It does seem a little singular that, well known
as my tastes were to those around me, we never met a soul to say,
"That boy ought to be educated." So far as I know, my father's
idea of making me a lawyer met with nothing but ridicule from the
neighbors. Did not a lawyer have to know Latin and have money to
pursue his studies? In my own daydreams I was a farmer driving his
own team; in my mother's a preacher, though she had regretfully to
admit that I might never be good enough for this profession.

[1] The actual sixth was my late excellent and esteemed cousin,
Judge Simon Bolivar Newcomb, of New Mexico.

[2] He had evidently forgotten the home instruction from my aunts,
received more than a year previous to the date he mentions.

[3] The grandfather of President Schurman of Cornell University.
I retain a dreamy impression of two half-grown or nearly grown boys,
perhaps between fourteen and eighteen years of age, one of whom
became, I believe, the father of the president.

II

DOCTOR FOSHAY

In the summer of 1851, when I had passed the age of sixteen, we
lived in a little school district a mile or two from the town of
Yarmouth, N. S. Late in the summer we had a visit from a maternal
uncle and aunt. As I had not seen Moncton since I was six years old,
and as I wanted very much to visit my grandfather Prince once more,
it was arranged that I should accompany them on their return home.
An additional reason for this was that my mother's health had quite
failed; there was no prospect of my doing anything where I was, and it
was hoped that something might turn up at Moncton. There was but one
difficulty; the visitors had driven to St. John in their own little
carriage, which would hold only two people; so they could not take
me back. I must therefore find my own way from St. John to Moncton.

We crossed the Bay of Fundy in a little sailing vesse