o read and write, to swim and
skate, to wrestle and box, to play marbles and make love. There I fought
my first fight, had the mumps and the measles, stole my first
watermelon, and received my first flogging. And I can never forget, that
within that tattered schoolroom my young heart first swelled with those
budding passions, whose full development in others has so often changed
the fortunes of the world. There eloquence produced its first throb,
ambition struck its first spark, pride mounted its first stilts, love
felt its first glow. There the eternal ideas of God and heaven, of
patriotism and country, of love and woman, germinated in my bosom; and
there, too, Poesy sang her first song in my enchanted ear, lured me far
off into the "grand old woods" alone, sported with the unlanguaged
longings of my boyish heart, and subdued me for the first time with that
mysterious sorrow, whose depths the loftiest intellect cannot sound, and
yet whose wailings mournfully agitate many a schoolboy's breast.

I reached the village of Woodville one afternoon in November, after an
absence of twenty-two years. Strange faces greeted me, instead of old,
familiar ones; huge dwellings stood where once I had rambled through
cornfields, groves of young pines covered the old common in which I had
once played at ball, and everything around presented such an aspect of
change, that I almost doubted my personal identity. Nor was my
astonishment diminished in the slightest degree when the landlord of the
inn announced his name, and I recognized it as once belonging to a
playmate famous for mischief and fleetness. Now he appeared bloated,
languid, and prematurely old. Bushy whiskers nearly covered his face, a
horrid gash almost closed up one of his eyes, and an ominous limp told
that he would run no more foot-races forever.

Unwilling to provoke inquiries by mentioning my own name, and doubly
anxious to see the old schoolhouse, which I had traveled many miles out
of my way to visit, I took my cane and strolled leisurely along the road
that my feet had hurried over so often in boyhood.

The schoolhouse was situated in a small grove of oaks and hickories,
about half a mile from the village, so as to be more retired, but at the
same time more convenient for those who resided in the country. My
imagination flew faster than my steps, and under its influence the half
mile dwindled to a mere rod. Passing a turn in the road, which concealed
it until within