church at 7:30. As if all this were insufficient, Mother used to put us 

 through the Shorter Catechism in the afternoon. For the servants' sake, 

 cooking was reduced to a minimum and we always had cold meat, never 

 soup, at dinner. 



Other relics of Puritanism were to be found in the disapproval of the 

 theatre, of card-playing and of "round" dances. I cannot remember any 

 talk of the theatre in my Grandfather's house, though I somehow gained 

 the impression that the Blacky Croo\ was an indecent show. At all 

 events, for us, the question was purely academic, for there were no 

 theatres within reach. Card-playing my Grandmother greatly disliked, 

 because, as she was careful to explain, gambling had grown to such 

 proportions among women in her younger days, that a great reaction 

 against cards had been the result. 



I have mentioned the servants, for whose Sabbatical rest such pains 

 were taken. At that period they were nearly all Irish and were devoted 

 and loyal friends of the family. In a considerable family, three maids, 

 cook, waitress and chambermaid were regarded as the minimum. In 

 addition we had Pat, the coachman-gardner. Negro servants were then 

 few in the North and I had a feeling, whence gained I don't know, that 

 they were not quite "the thing," though it was permissible to have a 

 black butler. 



In 1866 Uncle Sam Stockton, the son of my step-grandmother, resigned 

 his captaincy in the 4th U.S. Cavalry, in which regiment he had gone 

 through the whole Civil War. He was the hero and idol of us boys, 

 though similarity of tastes and pursuits made the bond with my brother 

 Lenox, also destined for a soldier's career, especially close. In that same 

 year he married his stepsister, my Grandfather's youngest daughter, my 

 beloved Aunt Sarah. Commodore Stockton, who died a week after the 

 weddmg, left his aflfairs in great confusion and, in satisfaction of my 

 Uncle's claim upon the estate, Morven was transferred to him. This 

 settlement was not made for some years and involved certain friendly 

 lawsuits, the nature of which I do not know. My Uncle and Aunt moved 

 into the house and, thenceforward, Morven was my second home and 

 for eight years after my return from Germany (1880-1888) my only 

 home. 



I first went to school in the fall of 1867; before that, my Mother had 

 been my teacher. Living in a clerical family, I, of course, looked forward 

 to entering the ministry myself. I had arranged a study in the attic with 

 a packing case for a desk and there I had daily sessions with an old book 

 of Bible stories, which I called and sincerely believed to be "studying 



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