ook it was, unconsciously leaving an impress of
its musical speech on the ears of the embryo orator. Moreover, in its
quiet pools lurked watchful trout. Few country boys could walk along
such a stream unheeding its fascinations, especially when the doors
of a school house opened at the farther end, and many an hour when
studies should have claimed him, he was sitting by the brookside,
care-free and contented, delightedly fishing. Nor are any berries
quite so luscious as those which grow along the country road to
school. It takes long, long hours to satisfy the keen appetite of
a boy, and lessons suffered during the berry seasons. Another keen
excitement of the daily journey through a living world of mystery and
enchantment was the search for frogs. Woe to the unlucky frog that
fell in the way of the active, curious boy. Some one had told him that
old, old countryside story, "If you kill a frog, the cows will give
bloody milk." Eager to see such a phenomenon, he watched sharply. Let
an unlucky frog give one unfortunate croak, quick, sure-aimed, flew a
stone, and he raced home at night to see the miracle performed. He was
just a boy as other boys--mischievous, disobedient, fonder of play
than work or study. But underneath, uncalled upon as yet, lay that
vein of perseverance as unyielding as the granite of his native hills.

The schoolhouse inside was not unattractive. Six windows gave plenty
of light, and each framed woodland pictures no painter's canvas could
rival. The woods were all about and the voice of the little
brook floated in, always calling, calling--at least to one small
listener--to come out and see it dance and sparkle and leap from rock
to rock. If he gained nothing else from his first school days but a
love and appreciation of nature's beauties, it was a lesson well worth
learning. To feed the heart and imagination of a child with such
scenery is to develop unconsciously a love of the beautiful which
brings a pure joy into life never to be lost, no matter what stress
and storm may come. In the darkest, stormiest hours of his later life,
to think back to the serene beauty of those New England hills was as a
hand of peace laid on his troubled spirit.

This love and joy in nature--and the trait was already in his
blood--was at first all that he gained from his trips to school. Then
came a teacher with a new way of instructing, a Miss Salina Cole, who
had mastered the art of visual memory. She taught her pupi