oken. There my mother remained until December,
1884, when she returned to San Francisco, to visit her friends. My
father followed her five months later."

CHAPTER VII.

AN ALASKA KINDERGARTEN.

"In June, 1885, I was born, and soon became a very active member of the
Fenwick family. I was pronounced by all who saw me an offspring in every
way worthy of my noble father and my beautiful mother. When I was two
months old, my parents returned to Alaska, taking me with them. There I
remained until I was seven years old--seven years in that forbidding
clime, so near the Arctic Circle. Isolated from other children, yet how
happy and contented I was. Those years recall a troop of joyous
memories, with not a bitter one to mar the group. My beloved parents
were my only companions, playmates, teachers and confidants. I was
papa's own girl. He was very proud of me and wished me to be with him as
much as possible. He never wearied in the endless task of answering my
questions, always so skillfully directing them by suggestions, that in
my receptive mind there was soon unfolded a clear conception of the
outlines of the different branches of all useful knowledge. When I was
four years of age I knew the alphabet perfectly and could spell and
construct a great number of words with my lettered blocks, and then copy
them on my slate. When I was five years old, thanks to my mother's
patient teaching, I could read fairly well. My father's ingenious
methods soon made me familiar with the key-words of geology, chemistry,
(including the names of minerals, metals and gases) botany, history,
geography, physics and astronomy. I was unconsciously taught to
associate these words or names with the groups, or families, to which
they belong. I would spend hours with my father in the most delightful
game of separating and classifying a miscellaneous heap of different
colored blocks, bearing the names of minerals, metals and gases and the
key-words of the studies I have just mentioned. To illustrate: The
astronomy blocks were blue with the names in white letters; the geology
blocks were a deep reddish brown, with names in gray; chemistry, red,
lettered in black; botany, green, lettered in yellow; geography, gray,
lettered in blue; history, black, lettered in red; physics, a deep
orange yellow, lettered in white; mathematics was represented in a small
way by the cipher and nine digits, lettered in black upon ten plain
unpainted blocks, giving in