the Hudson and the Palisades. From its windows you can watch the great
vessels passing up and down the river, and the excursion steamers
flying many flags, and tiny pleasure-boats and great barges. There is
an open fireplace in this room, and in a corner formed by the book-
case, and next to the wood-box, was my favorite seat. My grandfather's
place was in a great leather chair beside the centre-table, and I used
to sit cross-legged on a cushion at his feet, with my back against his
knees and my face to the open hearth. I can still see the pages of
"Charles O'Malley" and "Midshipman Easy," as I read them by the
lifting light of that wood fire, and I can hear the wind roaring down
the chimney and among the trees outside, and the steamers signalling
to each other as they pushed through the ice and fog to the great city
that lay below us. I can feel the fire burning my face, and the cold
shivers that ran down my back, as my grandfather told me of the
Indians who had once hunted in the very woods back of our house, and
of those he had fought with on the plains. With the imagination of a
child, I could hear, mingled with the shrieks of the wind as it dashed
the branches against the roof, their hideous war-cries as they rushed
to some night attack, or the howling of the wolves in the snow. When I
think of myself as I was then I am very fond of that little boy who
sat shivering with excitement, and staring with open eyes at the
pictures he saw in the firelight, a little boy who had made no
enemies, no failures, who had harmed no one, and who knew nothing of
the world outside the walls that sheltered him, save the brave old
soldier who was his law and his example, his friend in trouble, and
his playmate.

I knew nothing then, and I know very little now, either of my father
or my mother. Whenever I asked my grandfather concerning them he
always answered vaguely that he would tell me some day, "when you are