e," and my companions gave me nicknames according to their
likes or dislikes. I much affected the company of boys older than
myself, especially my cousins, whom I naturally looked up to and very
much admired. They would have none of me, called me "nuisance" and
"tag-tail." This last epithet wounded me sorely and made me slink away
like a whipped cur. Added to my mile-square world, I had now also the
germs of memory. Faintly and at long intervals I remembered my life in
Bellingham; but it seemed another planet, far off, indistinct, and I had
as yet no desire to return to it.

LOVE AND LUXURY

My mother had three daughters, one had died within a year of my father's
death. She was the belle of the neighborhood, fair-haired and blue-eyed,
not very tall, graceful and attractive. Every one admired her and her
friends loved her ardently. She had already ventured into verse,
religious in tone, and affectionate effusions to her girl friends. With
a little education she had begun to teach school. She was my first
teacher and the school her first. We were very fond of each other. Her
kiss was the only one I did not shrink from and try to escape. She took
most of the care of me, and I always slept in the same room with her.
Usually I went to sleep in her bed, and in the morning crept back into
it. When death came and took her away from me, when I found, in the
darkened room to which my mother led me where she lay in a white dress,
that she did not kiss me nor even speak, I was frightened and awed. In a
short time I forgot her; but before I grew to be a man I recovered her,
and shed the tears long due her love and loss. Another older sister was
already a successful teacher in the district schools of the region, so
successful indeed, that she taught winters as well as summers, which was
unusual for women teachers to attempt. Several winters she had
undertaken schools, the pupils of which were so unruly that no man could
be found who was able to control them. At length, through friends who
knew her success and abilities, she was invited to take charge of a
private school in Norwich, Connecticut. Her pupils were from the wealthy
and influential families of the upper, the aristocratic part of the
city, round about Savin Hill and along the Yantic riverside. After she
had become established there, she took me back with her at the end of a
spring vacation. I found myself among a very different class of children
from any I had ever