"
On the drive up from the village he showed me the place, a mile
or more from their haunts on the breezy mountain lands, where the
sheep were driven annually to be washed. It was a deep pool then,
and a gristmill stood near by. He said he could see now the
huddled sheep, and the overhanging rocks with the phoebes' nests
in the crevices.
"Down in the Hollow," as they call the village of Robbery, he drew
my attention to the building which was once the old academy, and
where he had his dream of going to school. He remembers as a lad
of thirteen going down to the village one evening to hear a man,
McLaurie, talk up the academy before there was one in Roxbury. "I
remember it as if it were yesterday; a few of the leading men of
the village were there. I was the only boy. I've wondered since
what possessed me to go. In his talk the man spoke of what a
blessing it would be to boys of that vicinity, pointing me out and
saying, 'Now, like that boy, there.' I recall how I dropped my
head and blushed. He was a small man, very much in earnest.
When I heard of his death a few years ago, it gave me long, long
thoughts. He finally got the academy going, taught it, and had a
successful school there for several years, but I never got there.
The school in the West Settlement, Father thought, was good enough
for me.
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