The Project Gutenberg EBook of Confessions of Boyhood, by John Albee

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Confessions of Boyhood

Author: John Albee

Release Date: October 1, 2006 [EBook #19418]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFESSIONS OF BOYHOOD ***

Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
book was produced from scanned images of public domain
material from the Google Print project.)

CONFESSIONS OF BOYHOOD

By JOHN ALBEE

BOSTON
RICHARD G. BADGER
THE GORHAM PRESS
1910

Copyright 1920 by John Albee
All Rights Reserved
The Gorham Press, Boston, U.S.A.

CONTENTS

Introduction

The Walls of the World

Shadows and Echoes

Holidays

The Amputation

Country Funerals

My Mother's Red Cloak

My Uncle Lyman

The Dorr War and Millerism

Woods and Pastures

Apprenticeships

Home and Homesickness

The Saw Mill

Bootmaking

Love and Luxury

Shop Boy

Pistol Maker

The Awakening

Student Life

School Master

Farm Hand

Conclusion

Ave Atgue Vale

INTRODUCTION

For so many years Bellingham has had its abode in my fancy that I find
it hard to associate the town with a definite geographical location. I
connect it rather with the places of dreams and wonderland; the lost
cities of the Oxus and Hydaspes, the Hesperian Gardens and those
visionary realms visited and named by poets. My birthplace grows
unfamiliar when I take down an atlas and run my finger over the
parti-colored divisions of the Norfolk County of Massachusetts and trace
the perimeter which confines Bellingham to its oblong precinct,
surrounded by those mythical lands of Mendon, Milford and Medway. They
wear an authoritative appearance on the map; but for me they occupied no
such positions in my childhood and stand as stubborn realities hindering
my feet when I wish to return to the Red House of my fathers. Once
there, memory and fact are no longer conflicting. I find, as of old, the
gently undulating hills, the gently loitering stream.

The legends concerning the founding of Bel