oking. If caught in the act, you were called up to her desk
and forfeited the contents of your pocket. It might be returned to you
if you had behaved yourself meanwhile and had not whispered, thrown spit
balls, or pinched the little girl who sat next to you. There were two
kinds of walnut trees in the neighborhood; the common name of one was
shagbark, of the other pignut. The shagbark was the walnut of the
market, a nut with a rich, oily kernel; the pignut was smaller with a
very thick shell and correspondingly small meat, hard to separate from
the shell. They were of little worth, not salable and we gathered them
only when the other kind was scarce. It took a hard frost, several times
repeated, to loosen them from the tree. We often clubbed them down. It
was a perilous undertaking to climb a walnut tree, for the limbs began
to grow high up and the trunk was covered with a rough bark, hence the
name shagbark; to shin up, and still more to descend, was apt to make
patches or a new seat to your trousers your mother's evening work after
you had gone to bed. Where grew anything good to eat and free to all, a
boy was sure to have it, although it cost him subsequent patches,
whippings and tears. Shall the squirrel hunt for nuts and the little
sons of men be forbidden, just to save a new pair of breeches, or an old
jacket? But the woes of country boyhood are naught in comparison to its
joys, and a day in a berry field, or a morning among the chestnut trees,
under the blue sky and a west wind, with merry companions, is a memory
that outshines all the purchased pleasures of later life. Confess to me,
ye humble and trivial things, confess what charms were yours, which
never the flood of years submerges. Alas, they have no speech. I hear
but a strain of imperishable music.

APPRENTICESHIPS

HOME AND HOMESICKNESS

It was thought best in New England country towns that boys, who were not
needed on the farm and were not to be educated beyond the common school,
should learn some trade. As my mother possessed no land nor any means to
send me to academy and college, it was early decided to apprentice me to
a trade with some good master. There was another reason; she did not
feel able nor competent to manage me when I should be older. She had a
presentiment that it would require a stronger hand than her own gentle
one to guide me in a straight path. Always after the death of her
husband, her only means of meeting her diffi