same conditions, would probably spend his evenings reading novels
or the magazines. I spent mine poring over "The Rambler."


In April I closed the school and went home, again taking a young
fellow with me. I was then practically engaged to Ursula North,
and I wrote her a poem on reaching home. About the middle of
April I left home for Cooperstown Seminary. I rode to Moresville
with Jim Bouton, and as the road between there and Stamford was
so blocked with snowdrifts that the stage could not run, I was
compelled to walk the eight miles, leaving my trunk behind. From
Stamford I reached Cooperstown after an all-night ride by stage.

My summer at Cooperstown was an enjoyable and a profitable one.
I studied Latin, French, English literature, algebra, and geometry.
If I remember correctly, I stood first in composition over the
whole school. I joined the Websterian Society and frequently
debated, and was one of the three or four orators chosen by the
school to "orate" in a grove on the shore of the lake, on the
Fourth of July. I held forth in the true spread-eagle style.

I entered into the sports of the school, ball-playing and rowing
on the lake, with the zest of youth.

One significant thing I remember: I was always on the lookout for
books of essays. It was at this time that I took my first bite
into Emerson, and it was like tasting a green apple--not that he
was unripe, but I wasn't ripe for him. But a year later I tasted
him again, and said, "Why, this tastes good"; and took a bigger
bite; then soon devoured everything of his I could find.