I ran away to the seashore or the fields almost every Saturday, and
every day in the school vacations except Sundays, though solemnly
warned that I must play at home in the garden and back yard, lest I
should learn to think bad thoughts and say bad words. All in vain. In
spite of the sure sore punishments that followed like shadows, the
natural inherited wildness in our blood ran true on its glorious
course as invincible and unstoppable as stars.

My earliest recollections of the country were gained on short walks
with my grandfather when I was perhaps not over three years old. On
one of these walks grandfather took me to Lord Lauderdale's gardens,
where I saw figs growing against a sunny wall and tasted some of
them, and got as many apples to eat as I wished. On another memorable
walk in a hay-field, when we sat down to rest on one of the haycocks I
heard a sharp, prickly, stinging cry, and, jumping up eagerly, called
grandfather's attention to it. He said he heard only the wind, but I
insisted on digging into the hay and turning it over until we
discovered the source of the strange exciting sound,--a mother field
mouse with half a dozen naked young hanging to her teats. This to me
was a wonderful discovery. No hunter could have been more excited on
discovering a bear and her cubs in a wilderness den.

I was sent to school before I had completed my third year. The first
schoolday was doubtless full of wonders, but I am not able to recall
any of them. I remember the servant washing my face and getting soap
in my eyes, and mother hanging a little green bag with my first book
in it around my neck so I would not lose it, and its blowing back in
the sea-wind like a flag. But before I was sent to school my
grandfather, as I was told, had taught me my letters from shop signs
across the street. I can remember distinctly how proud I was when I