tire, and he saw it crushing and killing the grass at the side of the
road, or rolling and flattening down the dust in long streaks.

Then they descended a hill. It was not a long hill, but seemed rather
steep. There was water at the bottom. He remembered seeing the bright,
sparkling wavelets and never forgot the impression they produced. There
was a boat at the bottom of the hill, and the wagon and horses were
driven into the boat. A man and boy began propelling the long sweeps or
oars. He watched the proceeding in infantile wonder and especially
remembered how the water dropped in sparkling crystals from the oar
blades. The boy had on a red cap or fez with a tassel. That boy, that
cap and that oar with the sparkling dripping water from the blade were
to him the brightest pictures and greatest wonders he had ever known.

He had not the least idea why the man and boy dipped those oars into the
water and pulled them out all dripping and pretty, unless it was to
amuse him. The oars were painted blue. He did not know where they were
going, or when this journey would end, or that it was a journey.

Thus Fernando Stevens began life. This was the first page in his
existence that he could recollect. In after years he knew he was
Fernando Stevens, that his father was Albert Stevens, a soldier in the
War of the Revolution, that his kind, sweet-faced mother was Estella
Stevens, and that the very first experience he could remember was that
of the family emigrating to the great Ohio valley.

Albert Stevens was married shortly after the close of the Revolutionary
War, and he tried hard to succeed in New England; but he had no trade
and no profession, and the best lands in the country were bought. Seven
years of his early life, with all his dawning manhood had been spent in