of emotion in me. I remember finishing it one morning and then
going out to work in the hay-field, and how the homely and familiar
scenes fairly revolted me. I dare say the story took away my taste
for Locke and Johnson for a while.

In early September I again turned my face Jerseyward in quest of a
school, but stopped on my way in Olive to visit friends in Tongore.
The school there, since I had left it, had fared badly. One of
the teachers the boys had turned out of doors, and the others had
"failed to give satisfaction"; so I was urged to take the school
again. The trustees offered to double my wages--twenty-two dollars
a month. After some hesitation I gave up the Jersey scheme and
accepted the trustees' offer.


It was during that second term of teaching at Tongore that I first
met Ursula North, who later became my wife. Her uncle was one of
the trustees of the school, and I presume it was this connection
that brought her to the place and led to our meeting.

If I had gone on to Jersey in that fall of '55, my life might have
been very different in many ways. I might have married some other
girl, might have had a large family of children, and the whole
course of my life might have been greatly changed. It frightens
me now to think that I might have missed the Washington life, and
Whitman, . . . and much else that has counted for so much with me.
What I might have gained is, in the scale, like imponderable air.

I read my Johnson and Locke that winter and tried to write a little
in the Johnsonese buckram style. The young man to-day, under the