pussy?" speculated my aunt. At that moment my father entered the room,
and my aunt rose to greet him. Then the massacre was revealed, for she
had been sitting upon the kittens. Their poor mother pounced upon them
with a yowl, but it was too late. My dear aunt was rather a heavy
woman, and she had been sitting there fifteen minutes. We all stood
appalled in the presence of the great mystery.


One day a big man, with a brown beard and shining brown eyes, who
bubbled over with enthusiasm and fun, made his appearance and talked
volubly about something, and went away again, and my father and mother
smiled at each other. The Scarlet Letter had been written, and James
T. Fields had read it, and declared it the greatest book of the age.
So that was the last of Salem.




II


Horatio Bridge's "I-told-you-so"--What a house by the sea might have
done--Unknown Lenox--The restlessness of youth--The Unpardonable Sin
and the Deathless Man--The little red house--Materials of culture--Our
best playmates--The mystery of Mrs. Peter's dough--Our intellectual
hen--Fishing for poultry--Yacht-building--Swimming with one foot on
the ground--Shipwreck--Our playfellow the
brook--Tanglewood--Nuts--Giants and enchanters--Coasting--Wet noses,
dark eyes, ambrosial breath--My first horseback ride--Herman
Melville's stories--Another kind of James--The thunder-storm--Yearning