There was one colored boy in school, who did not sit on a bench,
like the rest, but on a block of wood that looked like a backlog
turned endwise. Aunt Hannah often called him a "blockhead," and I
supposed it was because he sat on that block. Sometimes, in his
absence, a boy was made to sit in his place for punishment, for
being a "blockhead " too, as I imagined. I hoped I should never
be put there. Stupid little girls received a different treatment,
--an occasional rap on the head with the teacher's thimble;
accompanied with a half-whispered, impatient ejaculation, which
sounded very much like "Numskull!" I think this was a rare
occurrence, however, for she was a good-natured, much-enduring
woman.

One of our greatest school pleasures was to watch Aunt Hannah
spinning on her flax-wheel, wetting her thumb and forefinger at
her lips to twist the thread, keeping time, meanwhile, to some
quaint old tune with her foot upon the treadle.

A verse of one of her hymns, which I never heard anybody else
sing, resounds in the farthest corner of my memory yet:"--

"Whither goest thou, pilgrim stranger,
Wandering through this lowly vale?
Knowest thou not 't is full of danger?
And will not thy courage fail?"

Then a little pause, and the refrain of the answer broke in with
a change, quick and jubilant, the treadle moving more rapidly,
also: -