tithing-man, herb-doctor, and fiddler for our section, grumbled a little
at the start; but either he had not the heart to take the bread from our
mouths, or his own lips were soon silenced by the persuasion of
our patrons.

It was out of respect for one of these, good old Douw Fonda, who came from
Schenectady to live at Caughnawaga when I was two years old, that I had
been named. But even more we all owed to the quiet, lonely man who had
built the log house opposite Aries Creek, and who used so often to come
over on Sunday afternoons in the warm weather and pay us a
friendly visit.

My earliest recollections are of this Mr. Stewart, out of whom my boyish
fancy created a beneficent sort of St. Nicholas, who could be good all the
year round instead of only at New Year's. As I grew older his visits
seemed more and more to be connected with me, for he paid little attention
to my sisters, and rarely missed taking me on his knee, or, later on,
leading me out for a walk. Finally I was asked to go over and stay with
him for a week, and this practically was the last of my life with my
mother. Soon afterward my aunt was engaged as his housekeeper, and I
tacitly became a part of the household as well. Last of all, on my eighth
birthday, in this same November of '57, I was formally installed as son of
the house.

It was a memorable day, as I have said, in that Tulp was given me for my
own. But I think that at the time I was even more affected by the fact
that I was presented with a coat, and allowed to forever lay aside my
odious aprons. These garments, made by my mother's own hands, had long
been the bane of my existence. To all my entreaties to be dressed as the
other boys of my age were, like Matthew Wormuth or Walter Butler instead