strong for invalids, the bays a wonderful resort for aquatic birds,
the south-side meadows cover'd with salt hay, the soil of the island
generally tough, but good for the locust-tree, the apple orchard, and
the blackberry, and with numberless springs of the sweetest water in
the world. Years ago, among the bay-men--a strong, wild race, now
extinct, or rather entirely changed--a native of Long Island was
called a _Paumanacker_, or _Creole-'Paumanacker_."--_John Burroughs_.


MY FIRST READING--LAFAYETTE

From 1824 to '28 our family lived in Brooklyn in Front, Cranberry and
Johnson streets. In the latter my father built a nice house for a
home, and afterwards another in Tillary street. We occupied them, one
after the other, but they were mortgaged, and we lost them. I yet
remember Lafayette's visit.[4] Most of these years I went to the
public schools. It must have been about 1829 or '30 that I went with
my father and mother to hear Elias Hicks preach in a ball-room on
Brooklyn heights. At about the same time employ'd as a boy in an
office, lawyers', father and two sons, Clarke's, Fulton street, near
Orange. I had a nice desk and window-nook to myself; Edward C. kindly
help'd me at my handwriting and composition, and, (the signal event
of my life up to that time,) subscribed for me to a big circulating
library. For a time I now revel'd in romance-reading of all kinds;
first, the "Arabian Nights," all the volumes, an amazing treat. Then,
with sorties in very many other directions, took in Walter Scott's
novels, one after another, and his poetry, (and continue to enjoy
novels and poetry to this day.)