Life has been sweeter and richer because
of it.
Down the road a piece is the place where this boy made a miniature
sawmill, sawing cucumbers for logs. On this very rock where we sit
he used to catch the flying grasshoppers early of an August
morning--"the big brown fellows that fly like birds"; they would
congregate here during the night to avail themselves of the warmth
of the rocks, and here he would stop on his way from driving the
cows to pasture, and catch them napping.
Yonder in the field by a stone wall, under a maple which is no longer
standing, in his early twenties he read Schlemiel's "Philosophy of
History," one of the volumes which, when a youth, he had found in an
old bookstall in New York, on the occasion of his first trip there.
"Off there through what we used to call the 'Long Woods' lies the
road along which Father used to travel in the autumn when he took
his butter to Catskill, fifty miles away. Each boy went in turn.
When it came my turn to go, I was in a great state of excitement
for a week beforehand, for fear my clothes would not be ready, or
else it would be too cold, or that the world would come to an end
before the time of starting. Perched high on a spring-seat, I made
the journey and saw more sights and wonders than I have ever seen
on a journey since.
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