The Mind's Eye 17 



Grandmother made herself extremely unpopular by col- 

 lecting and taking back with her to Eau GaUie one John 

 Sumpter, who had been Lady Blake's gardener — and Sir 

 Henry Blake was Governor of the Bahamas. He took care 

 of her garden till he died. 



I can thank Grandmother for starting me on the road 

 to being a naturalist — she was the only member of the 

 family who thoroughly encouraged me all the time. Father 

 and Mother were perfectly fair and believed that I had 

 the right to decide about my own career, but they were 

 utterly unenthusiastic. I think the only time Father ever 

 came to the University Museum — it must have been early 

 in my freshman year — he walked up to Alexander Agas- 

 siz and asked if he knew where I could be found. At this 

 time, of course, Mr. Agassiz didn't know me from Adam. 

 But he asked Father, "What is your son interested in?" 

 and Father answered, "Pickling toads." So Mr. Agassiz 

 steered him down to Samuel Garman's quarters where he 

 found me. 



I was no stranger to the Museum, for the reason that I 

 had been previously under the spell of an ardent lover of 

 Harvard, Theodore W. Moses of Exeter. Dr. Moses, a 

 friend of my father, tutored me when I had trouble at 

 school because of an attack of typhoid fever which knocked 

 me flat in the middle of the school year. He asked Father 

 to allow him to take me to Cambridge when he went up 

 for his twenty-fifth reunion in June 1 899. I had been des- 

 tined for Princeton, but this visit to Cambridge changed 

 the course of my life. I did not want to hsten to the tire- 

 some speeches on the afternoon of Commencement Day, so 

 I sneaked off and visited the Museum. Here I wandered 



