ice in the horsetrough in order to perform my ablutions. I was, to be
sure, given to understand--and always when a child religiously
believed--that this was my father's unhappy fate. It may have been so,
but I have a lingering doubt on the subject that refuses to be
dissipated. I can hardly credit the idea that the son of the village
clergyman was obliged to go through any such rigorous physical
discipline as a child.

Even in 1820 there were such things as hired men and tradition declares
that the one in my grandparents' employ was known as Jonas, had but one
good eye and was half-witted. It modestly refrains from asserting that
he had only one arm and one leg. My grandmother did the cooking--her
children the housework; but Jonas was their only servant, if servant he
can be called. It is said that he could perform wonders with an ax and
could whistle the very birds off the trees.

Some time ago I came upon a trunkful of letters written by my
grandfather to my father in 1835, when the latter was in college. They
were closely written with a fine pen in a small, delicate hand, and the
lines of ink, though faded, were like steel engraving. They were
stilted, godly--in an ingenuous fashion--at times ponderously humorous,
full of a mild self-satisfaction, and inscribed under the obvious
impression that only the writer could save my father's soul from hell or
his kidneys from destruction. The goodness of the Almighty, as
exemplified by His personal attention to my grandfather, the efficacy of
oil distilled from the liver of the cod, and the wisdom of Solomon, came
in for an equal share of attention. How the good old gentleman must have
enjoyed writing those letters! And, though I have never written my own
son three letters in my life, I suppose the desire of self-expression is
stirring in me now these seventy-eight years later. I wonder what he