CHAPTER THREE 



SCHOOL DAYS 



AFTER living eighteen months with my Uncle Wistar, we 

 returned to my Grandfather's house in the summer of 1863 and 

 there my Mother and I remained till the end of my Grandfather's 

 life in 1878. The year 1863 was memorable to me, not because of Gettys- 

 burg and Vicksburg, of which I took no account, but because my hated 

 curls were cut of? and I was promoted to trousers. From my Mother I 

 had already learned to read and had become an omnivorous reader, who 

 read anything and everything within his range of comprehension. The 

 Swiss Family Robinson was my favourite and great was my wrath with 

 any one who called it fiction, or who ventured to question its accuracy in 

 all respects. With 1864 my memories become more continuously con- 

 nected and, were it desirable, I could make out a fairly complete 

 narrative. 



Early in the year, my Mother took her two younger boys on a long 

 visit to my Uncle Frank, who was pastor of the church in Oxford, Pa. 

 Though Oxford is only six miles from the Maryland line, the weather 

 was bitterly cold. The old farm house in which my uncle lived was a 

 nice brick structure, but had no modern conveniences, not even so much 

 as a bathroom or a furnace, but we boys did not mind such deficiencies 

 and greatly enjoyed our visit of several weeks. My sixth birthday was 

 celebrated by my first and only birthday party, for in our family not 

 much account was taken of birthdays and that party was a notable land- 

 mark. In the summer of the same year I had my first sight of the sea. My 

 Grandfather's brother, "Uncle Doctor," had taken a cottage at Cape 

 May, to which he invited my Mother and her sons for a fortnight's visit. 

 Then began a love for all things marine, which time has only intensified. 

 The presidential campaign of 1864 between McClellan and Lincoln 

 is also a distinct memory, with its parades and processions, political 

 meetings and general excitement. I had an American flag on which 

 were printed the names of Lincoln and Johnson and I can still vividly 



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