244 McAteg, In Memoriam F. E. L. Beal. [ae 
care of my father in his last sickness, my mother had also con- 
tracted the disease and could not long survive. Her one thought 
was to provide for me. For this purpose she took me and visited 
Nathaniel C. Day of Lunenburg, Mass., who was her cousin once 
removed. He was a bachelor about 38 years of age and lived 
upon a farm where he kept a housekeeper and several hired men. 
He agreed to take care of me until I was of age. My mother left 
me the very day we arrived at the farm and I never saw her again 
alive. This was in early October, 1850, and she died the following 
December. I lived with Mr. Day on this farm for the next four- 
teen years. He had various housekeepers during the next three or 
four years but finally secured the services of Miss Harriet L. Gray. 
After she had worked for him for about a year, they were married. 
This lady took some interest in me and my tastes. I was a rather 
shy, quiet boy fond of reading and of nature. The other house- 
keepers and the hired men all thought this was nonsense. Mrs. 
Day, however, thought differently and encouraged me to get an 
education and make as much as possible of myself.” 
Here you will join me, I am certain, in saying “All honor to 
Harriet Day.” Even that were weak praise for one who recog- 
nized the spark of intellectual power in this orphan boy, sheltered 
and aided it until it became a steady flame, past the danger of 
smothering or of being totally extinguished in the vitiated at- 
mosphere of rustic indifference. We have Professor Beal’s own 
words that he was “fond of nature” even in his early years. He 
has told me of some of his earliest memories relating to natural 
history: of finding a snake swallowing a frog; of watching a downy 
woodpecker drilling holes in an apple tree; and of being acquainted 
with all the flowers along the course he took the cattle to and from 
their pasturage. He loved nature, and when I tell you he was 
fortunate enough, in these early years to read Gilbert White’s 
“Natural History of Selborne,”’ you will understand he never 
could have slackened in this affection. 
Continuing the account of his life in the Professor’s own language 
(the period now being subsequent to his attaining majority): 
“During the ten years,! that I had been on the farm, I had been so 
1 Up to the time he was of age; it is believed he was formally apprenticed. 
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