I began Latin at eight years--my first book a yellow paper primer.

I was always interested in chickens, and dosed all the indisposed as:

Dandy Dick
Was very sick,
I gave him red pepper
And soon he was better.

In spring, I remember the humming of our bees around the sawdust, and
my craze for flower seeds and a garden of my own.

Father had a phenomenal memory; he could recite in his classroom pages
of Scott's novels, which he had not read since early youth. He had no
intention of allowing my memory to grow flabby from lack of use. I
often repeat a verse he asked me to commit to memory:

In reading authors, when you find
Bright passages that strike your mind,
And which perhaps you may have reason
To think on at another season;
Be not contented with the sight,
But jot them down in black and white;
Such respect is wisely shown
As makes another's thought your own.

Every day at the supper table I had to repeat some poetry or prose and
on Sunday a hymn, some of which were rather depressing to a young
person, as: