with great regularity. I do not remember that he ever read the
newspapers, or any other books than the Bible and the hymn-book.
When he was over eighty years, old he would woo the trout-streams
with great success, and between times would pore over the Book
till his eyes were dim. I do not think he ever joined the church,
or ever made an open profession of religion, as was the wont in
those days; but he had the religious nature which he nursed upon
the Bible. When a mere boy, as I have before told you, he was a
soldier under Washington, and when the War of 1812 broke out, and
one of his sons was drafted, he was accepted and went in his stead.
The half-wild, adventurous life of the soldier suited him better
than the humdrum of the farm. From him, as I have said, I get the
dash of Celtic blood in my veins--that almost feminine sensibility
and tinge of melancholy that, I think, shows in all my books.
That emotional Celt, ineffectual in some ways, full of longings
and impossible dreams, of quick and noisy anger, temporizing,
revolutionary, mystical, bold in words, timid in action--surely
that man is in me, and surely he comes from my revolutionary
ancestor, Grandfather Kelly.

I think of the Burroughs branch of my ancestry as rather retiring,
peace-loving, solitude-loving men--men not strongly sketched in
on the canvas of life, not self-assertive, never roistering or
uproarious--law-abiding, and church-going. I gather this
impression from many sources, and think it is a correct one.


Oh, the old farm days! how the fragrance of them still lingers
in my heart! the spring with its farm, the returning birds, and
the full, lucid trout-streams; the summer with its wild berries,