re without genius, or the miserly rewards of
scholarship, or the disastrous conclusion in a majority of business
enterprises, I confess the life of a New England farmer is to be
preferred. It was so ordered that opportunities, which I never could
have made for myself, came to me unsought and without effort. Such
education as I have, a miscellany of odds and ends of learning, and such
things as I have accomplished, are the chance results of various and
disconnected impulses; and God himself has given me my beautiful
friends. I have found them waiting for me all along my path, and their
attachment has always filled me with astonishment and gratitude; for I
cannot think it is anything I have done that should deserve it. So I
relegate it to that indefinable, unconscious self which is hidden from
our own knowledge. On the whole, who is he, that would not rather be
loved for himself than for his book, his horses or his honors? He, who
is capable of friendship, and inspires it, is happier than Alexander
with worlds conquered and to be conquered.

After much counselling and agitating of the change, my mother moved from
Bellingham, which was her native place, to Hopkinton; and, from this
time forth to the end of her life, she continued to change her residence
from town to town as work, cheaper rent, or the persuasion of friends
induced her. My eldest sister and I went with her. The change filled me
with a pleasant excitement, although we were going to the same place and
the very same house where I had suffered so much from home-sickness. I
did not then know that in leaving my birthplace I left behind me the
fountain head of half my later musings, regrets and imaginings. In
returning now, I find naught but the graves of my family, the elm of my
childhood, fallen to the ground, its bleached trunk and larger limbs
reminding me of a skeleton, the well filled with stones, and the Red
House converted into a woodshed. The river still flows by; one great
pine still murmurs and wonders what has become of the children once
playing in its shade; the pond, the arched bridge which spanned its
outflow are unchanged. And Launa, I fear to inquire what has become of
her, though I never lost her. She followed and reappeared in all my
wanderings.

BOOTMAKING

In Hopkinton I began to feel myself too old to play with girls. Boys
were numerous and knew more than those I had met before. I soon caught
up with their manners and customs, and i