To my young and (until that period) rudely 

 tutored mind, this marvel awakened me to new 

 vistas; I perceived for the first time the possibili- 

 ties for the marvelous that lay in the study of nat- 

 ural science — although the phraseology and the 

 terms of this sentence were then unknown to me. 

 I had known, of course, that the cat bore kittens 

 and that a cow had a calf, and even that a wolf 

 had pups; or so I had heard my father say, as he 

 often ventured his opinion, that this symbol of pov- 

 erty was not merely at our door but also well 

 within certainty of having its litter right under 

 his bed. Otherwise, I had thought — if indeed I then 

 gave such matters any thought — or had taken it 

 for granted that such creatures simply happened. 



My premier observations of the lowly had been 

 inspired by an Illinois village school-teacher; a 

 woman, the like of whose understanding of her 

 pupils (this pupil in particular) I have never 

 known again. Before I had come under her benign 

 yet firmly given instruction, my quarrel with let- 

 ters, and learning generally, had been standing 

 ever since I first went to school. And I may as well 

 add that that quarrel was renewed as soon as I left 

 her at the end of the term; for four years more in 



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