In one house I
remember the bedstead was very shaky, and in the middle of the
night, as I turned over, it began to sway and lurch, and presently
all went down in a heap. But I clung to the wreck till morning,
and said nothing about it then.
I remember that a notable eclipse of the sun occurred that spring
on the 26th of May, when the farmers were planting their corn.
What books I read that summer I cannot recall. Yes, I recall
one--"The Complete Letter-Writer," which I bought of a peddler,
and upon which I modeled many of my letters to various persons,
among others to a Roxbury girl for whom I had a mild fancy. My
first letter to a girl I wrote to her, and a ridiculously stiff,
formal, and awkward letter it was, I assure you. I am positive
I addressed her as "Dear Madam," and started off with some sentence
from "The Complete Letter-Writer," so impressed was I that there
was a best way to do this thing, and that the book pointed it out.
Mary's reply was, "To my absent, but not forgotten friend," and was
simple and natural as girls' letters usually are. My Grandfather
Kelly died that season, and I recall that I wrote a letter of
condolence to my people, modeled upon one in the book. How absurd
and stilted and unreal it must have sounded to them!
Oh, how crude and callow and obtuse I was at that time, full of
vague and tremulous aspirations and awakenings, but undisciplined,
uninformed, with many inherited incapacities and obstacles to weigh
me down.
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