not due to dullness, for I made rapid progress in both my music and my
books.

And so for a couple of years my life was divided between my music and
my school books. Music took up the greater part of my time. I had
no playmates, but amused myself with games--some of them my own
invention--which could be played alone. I knew a few boys whom I had
met at the church which I attended with my mother, but I had formed no
close friendships with any of them. Then, when I was nine years old,
my mother decided to enter me in the public school, so all at once I
found myself thrown among a crowd of boys of all sizes and kinds;
some of them seemed to me like savages. I shall never forget the
bewilderment, the pain, the heart-sickness, of that first day at
school. I seemed to be the only stranger in the place; every other boy
seemed to know every other boy. I was fortunate enough, however, to be
assigned to a teacher who knew me; my mother made her dresses. She was
one of the ladies who used to pat me on the head and kiss me. She had
the tact to address a few words directly to me; this gave me a certain
sort of standing in the class and put me somewhat at ease.

Within a few days I had made one staunch friend and was on fairly good
terms with most of the boys. I was shy of the girls, and remained so;
even now a word or look from a pretty woman sets me all a-tremble.
This friend I bound to me with hooks of steel in a very simple way. He
was a big awkward boy with a face full of freckles and a head full of
very red hair. He was perhaps fourteen years of age; that is, four or
five years older than any other boy in the class. This seniority was
due to the fact that he had spent twice the required amount of time in
several of the preceding classes. I had not been at school many hours
before I felt that "Red Head"--as I involuntarily called him--and I