I was a victim of this elective-study craze, and with the usual
stupidity displayed by a child when left to decide what he shall do,
I chose Latin as my principal study in this common district school,
because I fancied it smacked of erudition.

The teacher, knowing no more than myself of the language, set me to
committing to memory the whole of Andrews' Latin Grammar. I gained
the important information that "_sto, fido, confido, assuesco_, and
_preditus_" govern the ablative, and other valuable lore; but when I
asked the teacher where the Latin vernacular came in, she replied that
that would come to me later--that I must "open my mouth and shut my
eyes while she gave me something to make me wise." A solemn awe not
unmixed with envy pervaded the schoolroom as I, parrot-like, rattled
off this valueless jargon of a people dead for hundreds of years.

As this study possessed no interest for me, I naturally dropped into
mischief, and being caught one day with a distorted picture of the
teacher on my slate with the following suggestive poem lines beneath
it:--"Savage by name and savage by nature, I hope the Lord will take
your breath before you lick us all to death,"--I was chased about the
room by the angry pedagoguess until I leaped through the back window,
and the hole made in the bank by my head is pointed out to this day as
a warning to recalcitrant pupils.

[Illustration: "Floating 'Neath the Trees of Mill River."]

I refused to return to this temple of wisdom, and digging a hole into
the haymow, secreted myself therein, pulling the hole in after me.
Here I would remain during school hours, watching through a crevice