from their
hiding places. In the evenings Uncle Lyman and his wife at their several
sides of the fireplace, she with her knitting, and he with his pipe, and
I in a corner of the settle, talked of the days when my father was
alive, and of the labors they underwent to make a good farm, clearing
the brush and stones and building the fences. They told me of my birth
and my father's joy at having a son. Then when I inquired for Nahum,
their son, whom I remembered as a young man, when I was a child, a
sudden silence fell over the great kitchen. There was no reply and the
mother's head drooped over her work and tears fell upon it. I wondered,
but did not dare to speak, and shortly I climbed the attic stairs to my
bed. The next day Uncle Lyman cautioned me not to mention Nahum again
before his wife. He said he had run away, and they knew not where he
was. A guilty pang struck my heart; I became conscious of what I had
done, and thought perhaps at that very moment my sister might be weeping
for me.

Nothing was now wanting to complete the failure of my escapade, and I
was as eager to run back as I had been to run away. Memories, touched by
imagination, had come to naught in contact with reality. I learned my
first lesson in keeping it and ideals in their proper place. A bird in
the bush is worth two in the hand! Utopia is a far country, toward which
to travel is better than to arrive. It was some years before I restored
the Bellingham of my imagination. If experience be nothing but suffering
then I had experienced; over this transaction therefore I grant an act
of oblivion.

The return to Worcester was tedious. I was in no hurry, dreading my
reception; what should I say, what should I answer? I revolved many
explanations, but each I could think of contained a falsehood. With all
my waywardness I was never a good liar; the lie was manifest in my face
and I could feel it there as something not myself. I concluded to say
nothing and not attempt any apology. This proved the wiser plan. Few
questions were asked; reproachful looks were to be expected. Some
penalty I paid in the shop also; harder tasks were set for me and I was
kept more strictly to my work. The students of Prof. Lobelia were now
gone, the sessions of his medical school closing in April, and the house
seemed lonesome. In the course of the summer there came into the family
a young man who was preparing himself to be a missionary. For the first
time I heard of Greek an