y. The other staple
was fried meat. On the whole this was worse than pork and pone,
which, if not toothsome, was at least wholesome. As the days grew
into weeks, I wondered what Delaware College could give its students
to eat. To increase the perplexity, there were plenty of chickens
in the yard and vegetables in the garden. I asked the cook if she
could not boil some vegetables and bring them on the table.

"Mas'er Bowler don't like wegetable."

Then I found that the chickens were being consumed in the kitchen
and asked for one.

"Mas'er Bowler don't like chicken," was the reply, with an added
intimation that the chickens belonged to the denizens of the kitchen.

The mystery was now so dark and deep that I determined to fathom it.
I drew Mr. Bowler into conversation once more about Delaware College,
and asked him what the students had to eat when there.

He had evidently forgotten his former remark and described what
seemed to me a fairly well provided students' table. Now I came
down on him with my crusher.

"You told me once that the table was miserably poor, so that you
could hardly stand it. What fault had you to find with it?"

He reflected a moment, apparently recalling his impression, then
replied: "Oh, they had no shortcake there!"

In 1854 I availed myself of my summer vacation to pay my first
visit to the national capital, little dreaming that it would ever be
my home. I went as far as the gate of the observatory, and looked
wistfully in, but feared to enter, as I did not know what the rules
might be regarding visitors. I speculated upon the possible object
of a queer red sandstone building, which seemed so different from
anything else, and heard for the first time of the Smithsonian
Institution.

On the very beginning of my work at Massey's the improvement in my
position was so remarkable that I felt my rash step of a few months
before fully justified. I wrote in triumph to my favorite aunt,
Rebecca Prince, that leaving Dr. Foshay was the best thing I had
ever done. I was no longer "that boy," but a respectable young man
with a handle to my name.

Just what object I should pursue in life was still doubtful; the
avenues of the preferment I would have liked seemed to be closed
through my not being a college graduate. I had no one to advise me as
to the subjects I should pursue or the books I should study. On such
books as I could get, I passed every spare hour. My father sent me
Cob