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Page 7
How lasting are the impressions made upon the youthful mind!
Through the many busy years that have elapsed since first I
tasted the thrilling sweets of that miniature Primer I have not
forgotten that ``young Obadias, David, Josias, all were pious'';
that ``Zaccheus he did climb the Tree our Lord to see''; and that
``Vashti for Pride was set aside''; and still with many a
sympathetic shudder and tingle do I recall Captivity's
overpowering sense of horror, and mine, as we lingered long over
the portraitures of Timothy flying from Sin, of Xerxes laid out
in funeral garb, and of proud Korah's troop partly submerged.
My Book and Heart
Must never part.
So runs one of the couplets in this little Primer-book, and right
truly can I say that from the springtime day sixty-odd years ago,
when first my heart went out in love to this little book, no
change of scene or of custom no allurement of fashion, no demand
of mature years, has abated that love. And herein is exemplified
the advantage which the love of books has over the other kinds of
love. Women are by nature fickle, and so are men; their
friendships are liable to dissipation at the merest provocation
or the slightest pretext.
Not so, however, with books, for books cannot change. A thousand
years hence they are what you find them to-day, speaking the same
words, holding forth the same cheer, the same promise, the same
comfort; always constant, laughing with those who laugh and
weeping with those who weep.
Captivity Waite was an exception to the rule governing her sex.
In all candor I must say that she approached closely to a
realization of the ideals of a book--a sixteenmo, if you please,
fair to look upon, of clear, clean type, well ordered and well
edited, amply margined, neatly bound; a human book whose text, as
represented by her disposition and her mind, corresponded
felicitously with the comeliness of her exterior. This child was
the great-great-granddaughter of Benjamin Waite, whose family
was carried off by Indians in 1677. Benjamin followed the party
to Canada, and after many months of search found and ransomed the
captives.
The historian has properly said that the names of Benjamin Waite
and his companion in their perilous journey through the
wilderness to Canada should ``be memorable in all the sad or
happy homes of this Connecticut valley forever.'' The child who
was my friend in youth, and to whom I may allude occasionally
hereafter in my narrative, bore the name of one of the survivors
of this Indian outrage, a name to be revered as a remembrancer of
sacrifice and heroism.
II
THE BIRTH OF A NEW PASSION
When I was thirteen years old I went to visit my Uncle Cephas.
My grandmother would not have parted with me even for that
fortnight had she not actually been compelled to. It happened
that she was called to a meeting of the American Tract Society,
and it was her intention to pay a visit to her cousin, Royall
Eastman, after she had discharged the first and imperative duty
she owed the society. Mrs. Deacon Ranney was to have taken me
and provided for my temporal and spiritual wants during
grandmother's absence, but at the last moment the deacon came
down with one of his spells of quinsy, and no other alternative
remained but to pack me off to Nashua, where my Uncle Cephas
lived.
This involved considerable expense, for the stage fare was three
shillings each way: it came particularly hard on grandmother,
inasmuch as she had just paid her road tax and had not yet
received her semi-annual dividends on her Fitchburg Railway
stock. Indifferent, however, to every sense of extravagance and
to all other considerations except those of personal pride, I
rode away atop of the stage-coach, full of exultation. As we
rattled past the Waite house I waved my cap to Captivity and
indulged in the pleasing hope that she would be lonesome without
me. Much of the satisfaction of going away arises from the
thought that those you leave behind are likely to be wretchedly
miserable during your absence.
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