CHAPTER I ABOUT MY STORY

I begin this story with the personal pronoun. To begin it in any other way would be only a commonplace assumption of a modesty that I do not really have. It is most natural that the personal pronoun should stand as the first word of this tale, for I cannot remember a time when my chief thoughts and emotions did not concern myself, or were not in some way related to myself. I look back through the years that have passed, and find that the first consciousness of my being and the hazy indistinct memories of my childhood are all about myself,—what the world, and its men and its women, and its beasts and its plants, meant to me. This feeling is all there is of the past and all there is of the present; and as I look forward on my fast shortening 2path, I am sure that my last emotions, like my first, will come from the impressions that the world is yet able to make upon the failing senses that shall still connect me with mortal life.

So why should I not begin this tale with the personal pronoun? And why should I not use it over and over again, with no effort to disguise the fact that whatever the world may be to you, still to me it is nothing except as it influences and affects my life and me?

I have been told that I was born a long time ago, back in the State of Pennsylvania, on the outskirts of a little struggling town that slept by day and by night along a winding stream, and between two ranges of high hills that stood sentinel on either side. The valley was very narrow, and so too were all the people who lived in the little town. These built their small white frame houses and barns close to the river-side, for it was only near its winding banks that the soil would raise corn, potatoes, and hay,—potatoes for the people, and hay and corn for the other inhabitants, who were almost as important to the landscape and almost as close to my early life as the men 3and women who gathered each Sunday in the large white church, and who had no doubt that they were different from the horses and cattle, and would live in some future world that these other animals would never reach. Even then I felt that perhaps, if this was true, the horses and cattle had the best of the scheme of the universe, for the men and women never seemed to enjoy life very much, excepting

here and there some solitary person who was pointed out as a terrible example, who would surely suffer in the next world during the eternity which my long-faced sober neighbors would spend in enjoying the pleasures they had so righteously denied themselves while here on earth.

Of course no one will expect me to tell all my life. In fact, much of the most interesting part must be left out entirely, as is the case with all lives that are really worth the writing; and unless mine is one of these, why bother with the story? Polite society, that buys books and reads them,—at least reads them,—would not tolerate the whole; so this is an expurgated life, or, rather, an expurgated story of a life. Thank God, the life was not expurgated 4any more than absolutely necessary, sometimes not even so much as that. But so far as I can really tell my story, I shall make a brave endeavor to tell it truthfully, at least as near as the truth can be told by one who does not tell the whole truth,—which, after all, is not so very near.

Lest anyone who might borrow this book and read it should think that I am not so very good, and am putting my best foot foremost, let me hasten to say that if I told the whole truth it would be much more favorable to me than this poor expurgated version will make it seem. I have done many very good things which I shall not dare to set down in these pages, for if I should record them some envious and unkind readers might say that I did these things in order to write them in a book and get fame and credit for their doing, and so after all they were not really good. But even the bad things that I leave out were not so very bad,—indeed, they were not bad at all, if one has my point of view of life and knows all the facts. The trouble is, there are so few who have my point of view, and most of those are bound to pretend that they have not. Then, too, no 5one could possibly tell all the facts, for one can write only with pen and ink, and long after everything is past and gone, while one lives with flesh and blood, and sometimes tingling blood at that, and only a single moment at

a time. So it may be that no one could write a really truthful story if he would, and perhaps the old fogies are right in fixing the line as to what may be set down and what must be left out. At least, I promise that the reader who proclaims his propriety the loudest, and from the highest house-top, need not have the slightest fear—or hope—about this book, for I shall watch every word with the strictest care, and the moment I find myself wandering from the beaten path I shall fetch myself up with the roundest and the quickest turn. And so, having made myself thus clear as to the plans and purposes of my story, there is no occasion to tarry longer at its threshold.

I have always had the highest regard for integrity, and have ever by precept urged it upon other people; therefore in these pages I shall try, as I have said, to tell the truth; still I am afraid that I shall not succeed, for, after all, I can tell about things only as they seem 6to me,—and I am not in the least sure that my childhood home, and the boys and girls with whom I played, were really like what they seem to have been, when I rub my eyes and awaken in the fairy-land that I left so long ago. So, to be perfectly honest with the reader,—which I am bound to be as long as I can and as far as I can,—I will say that this story is only a story of impressions after all. But this is doubtless the right point of view, for life consists only of impressions, and when the impressions are done the life is done.

I really do not know just why I am telling this story, for it is only fair to let the reader know at the beginning, so that he need not waste his time, that nothing ever happened to me,—that is, nothing has happened yet, and all my life I have been trying hard to keep things from happening. But as nothing ever happened, how can there be any story for me to write? I am unable to weave any plot, because there never were any plots in my life, excepting a few that never came to anything, and so were really no part of my life. What happened to me is nothing more than what 7happens to everyone; so why should I expect people to bother to read my story? Why should they pay money to buy my book, which is not a story after all?

I hardly think I am writing this for fame. If that were the case, I should tell the things that I leave out, for I know that they would be more talked about than the commonplace things that I set down. But I have always wanted to write a book. I remember when I was very small, and used to climb on a chair and look at the rows of books on my father’s shelves, I thought it must be a wonderful being who could write all the pages of a big book, and I would have given all the playthings that I ever hoped to have for the assurance that some day I might possibly write down so many words and have them printed and bound into a book. But my father always told me I could never write a book unless I studied hard,—Latin, Greek, geometry, history, and a lot of things that I knew nothing about then and not much more now. As I grew older, I was too poor and too lazy to learn all the things that my good father said I must know if I should ever write a book, 8but I never gave up the longing, even when I felt how impossible it would be to realize my dream.

I never studied geometry, or history, or Greek, and I studied scarcely any Latin, and not much arithmetic; and I never did anything with grammar, except to study it,—in fact, I always thought that this was the only purpose for which grammar was invented. But in spite of all this, I wanted to write a book, and resolved that I would write a book. Of course, as I am not a scholar, and have never learned anything out of books to tell about in other books, there was nothing for me to do but tell of the things that had happened to me. So I tell this story because it is the only story I know,—and even this one I do not know so very well. Sometimes I think I am one kind of person, and then sometimes I think I am another kind; and I am never quite sure why I do any particular thing, or why I do not do it, excepting the things I am afraid to do. But there is no reason now why I should not write this book, for I have money enough to get it printed and bound, and even if no one ever buys a copy still I can say that I have written 9a book. I understand that a great many books

are published in this way, and I must have read a number that never would have been printed if the author had not been able to pay for them himself.

But I have put off writing this story for many, many years, until at last I am beginning to think of getting old; and if I linger much longer over unimportant excuses and explanations, I fear that I shall die, and future generations will never know that I have lived. For I am quite certain that no one else will ever write my story, and unless I really get to work, even my name will be forgotten excepting by the few who go back to my old-time home, and open the wire gate of the little graveyard, and go down the winding path between the white headstones until they reach my mound. I know that they will find it there, for I have already made my will and provided that I shall be carried back to the little Pennsylvania town beside the winding stream where I used to stone the frogs; and I have written down the exact words that shall be carved upon my marble headstone,—that is, all the words except those that are to tell of the last event, 10and these we are all of us very willing to leave to someone else.

But this story is about life and action, and boys and girls, and men and women; and I really did not intend to take the reader to my grave in the very first chapter of the book.

CHAPTER II OF MY CHILDHOOD

I forgot to mention that my name is John Smith. Of course this is a very plebeian name, but I am in no way responsible for it. As long as I can remember, I answered to the call of “John” or “Johnny” many a time in my childhood, and even later, when I would much have preferred not to hear the call. My father’s name was John Smith, too. No doubt he, and his father before him, could see no way to avoid the Smith, and thought it could not make much difference to add the John. The chief trouble that I have experienced from the name has come from getting my letters mixed up with other people’s,—mainly my father’s,—which often caused me embarrassment in my younger days.

I have tried very hard to remember when I first knew my name was John. Indeed, I have often wondered when it was that I first knew 12that I was I, and how that fact dawned upon my mind. Over and over again I have tried to remember my first thoughts and experiences of life, but have always failed in the attempt. If I could only tell of my first sensations, as I looked at the blue sky, and felt the warm sun, and heard the singing birds in my infancy, I am sure they would interest the reader. But I can give no testimony upon these important points. I have no doubt, however, that when I looked upon the heavens and the earth for the first time I must have felt the same ignorance and awe and wonder that possess my mind to-day when I try to understand the same unexplainable mysteries that have always filled me with queries, doubts, and fears.

Neither can I tell just what I first came to remember; and when I look back to that little home beside the creek I am not quite sure whether the feelings that I have are of things that I actually saw and felt and lived, or whether some imaginings of my young brain have taken the form and semblance of real life.

I was only one of a large family, mostly older than myself; but while I was only one, I was the chief one, and the rest were important 13only as they affected me. It must have been the rule of our family that each of the children should have the right to give orders to those younger than himself; at any rate, all the older ones told me what to do, and I in turn claimed the same privilege with those younger than myself.

My early remembrances have little sequence or logical connection. I am quite unable to tell which events came first of those that must have happened when I was very young.

Among my earliest impressions is one of a hill in our back yard, and of our going down it to bring water from the well. I am sure that the hill is not a dream, for I have been back since and found it there, although not near as long and steep as it seemed in those far-off years. I remember that we children used to slide down this hill and then walk up again. Even then I was willing to do a great deal of work for a very small amount of fun. Somehow, in looking back, it seems as if I were always sliding downhill and tugging my sled back to the top in the dusk of the evening. I cannot quite understand how it is that I remember the evening best, but there it is as I 14unroll the scroll,—there are the dents in my memory, and there is the little boy pulling his sled uphill and looking in at the lighted kitchen window at the top. There, too, are the older and wiser members of the family,—those who have learned that the short sensation of sliding down the hill is not worth the long tug up; a lesson which, although I am growing old and gray, I never have been wise enough

to learn. There are the older ones gathered around the table with their books, or busy with their household work,—the old family circle that I see so plainly now in the lamplight through the window, perhaps more plainly for the years that lie between. This magic circle was long since broken and scattered, and lives only in the memory of the man-child who knew so little then of what life really meant, and who knows so little now.

It is strange, but somehow I have no such distinct recollection of our home as I have of the other objects that were familiar to my childish mind. I can see the little muddy brook that ran just back of the garden fence. Down the hill on the edge of the stream stood a log cheese-house,—at least, it seems so now,—and 15back of this cheese-house beside the brook must have been a favorite spot for me to wade and fish, although I have no remembrance that I ever caught anything, which fact I am happy to record. Beyond the stream was an orchard. I am uncertain whether or not it belonged to my father, although I rather think it must have been owned by somebody else, the apples always looked so tempting and so red,—which reminds me that all through life it has seemed to me that no fruit was quite so sweet as that which was just beyond my reach. Anyhow, this orchard stands out very plainly in my mind. It was a very large orchard,—in fact, a great forest of trees; and I remember that I always stole over the fence intending to get the apples on the nearest tree, but they did not

taste so sweet nor look so red as some others farther on, which in turn were passed by for others yet a little farther off, until I had gone quite through the orchard in my endeavor to get the very best. Although I have been grown up for many a year, somehow this habit of seeing something better further on has clung to me through life. So tenacious is this habit, that I fancy I have missed much that is 16valuable and good in my eager haste to get something better still. I am not quite certain about the orchard, perhaps it was not so very large after all; at least, when I went back a few years ago there was no cheese-house, and no orchard, and even the brook was grown up to grass and weeds. I know that in my childhood my parents moved from the old house to another slightly better, and nearer town; but though I can clearly remember certain incidents of both, still I have no recollection of our moving, and it is utterly impossible to keep the impressions of each separate and distinct.

My first memory of a schoolhouse seems quite clear. It may be that the things I remember never really happened, although the impression of them is very strong upon my mind. I must have been very young, hardly more than three or four years old, and was doubtless taken to school by an elder brother or sister; certainly I was too young to be a pupil. The schoolhouse was a long way from home,—miles and miles it seemed to me. After being in school for hours, I must have grown weary and restless, sitting so motionless and 17still, for I know that I was boxed on the ears either by the teacher’s hand or with a slate. I ran out of the room sobbing and crying, and went down the long white road to my home. I shall never forget that journey in the heat and dust. It must have been the greatest pain and sorrow I had ever known. Doubtless it was the humiliation of being boxed on the ears before the whole school that broke my heart; at least, I felt as if I never would reach home, and I must have sprinkled every foot of the way with my bitter tears. I remember that

teacher’s name to-day, and I never forgave her, until a short time ago, after I read Tolstoi. Now I only realize how stupid and ignorant she was to awaken such hatred in the heart of a little child. In those days whipping was a part, and a very large part, of the regular course of the district school, and I learned in a few years not to mind it very much,—in fact, rather to enjoy it, for it gave me such good standing with the other children of the school.

How full of illusions and delusions we children were! Since I have grown to man’s estate, I have travelled the same road over which I sobbed in that far-off day, and it was really 18but a very little way,—a short half-mile,—and still, as I look back to that little crying child, it seems as if he must have walked across a desert beneath a tropical sun, and borne all the despair and anguish of the world inside his little jacket.

Another memory that has become a part of my being grows out of the great Civil War. I was probably four or five years old, and was playing under the big maple-trees in our old front yard. The scene all comes back to me as I write. I have a stick or hoop, or perhaps both, in my little hand. No one else is anywhere about. I hear a drum and fife coming over the hill, and I run to the fence and look down the gravelly road. A two-horse wagon loaded with men and boys, whose names and perhaps faces I seem to know, drives past me as I peer through the palings of the fence. They are dressed in uniform, and are proud and gay. In the centre of the wagon is one boy standing up; I see his face plainly, and catch its boyish smile. They drive past the house to the railroad station, on their way to the Southern battle-fields. I must have been told a great deal about these men and about the war, for my 19people were abolitionists, who looked upon the rebels as some sort of monsters, and had no thought that there could be any side but ours. However, I now remember nothing at all of