of the country are gentle and flowing. The valleys are long, open,
and wide; the hills broad and smooth, no angles or abruptness, or
sharp contrasts anywhere. Hence it is not what is called a
picturesque land--full of bits of scenery that make the artist's
fingers itch. The landscape has great repose and gentleness, so
far as long, sweeping lines and broad, smooth slopes can give this
impression. It is a land which has never suffered violence at
the hands of the interior terrestrial forces; nothing is broken
or twisted or contorted or thrust out or up abruptly. The strata
are all horizontal, and the steepest mountain-slopes clothed with
soil that nourishes large forest growths.


I stayed at home, working on the farm in summer and going to school
in winter, till I was seventeen. From the time I was fourteen I
had had a desire to go away to school. I had a craving for knowledge
which my brothers did not share. One fall when I was about fifteen I
had the promise from Father that I might go to school at the Academy
in the village that winter. But I did not go. Then the next fall
I had the promise of going to the Academy at Harpersfield, where
one of the neighbor's boys, Dick Van Dyke, went. How I dreamed of
Harpersfield! That fall I did my first ploughing, stimulated to
it by the promise of Harpersfield. It was in September, in the lot
above the sugar bush--cross-ploughing, to prepare the ground for
rye. How many days I ploughed, I do not remember; but Harpersfield
was the lure at the end of each furrow, I remember that. To this day
I cannot hear the name without seeing a momentary glow upon my mental
horizon--a finger of enchantment is for an instant laid upon me.

But I did not go to Harpersfield. When the time drew near for