FIRST MEMORIES 27 



My first memories are of a negro woman who was my nurse; 

 the image of her is clear, though I could not have been more 

 than three years old when it was formed, for I remember being 

 much carried about in her strong arms. She was a large, well- 

 shaped negress; something of her good face and dear soul is 

 now before me. There are three other black faces which were 

 printed on my memory before I find that of my mother. It is 

 probably on this account that the African face has always been 

 dear to me. It still seems, as it surely is, the more normal human 

 face, that of our own kind appearing in a way exceptional. My 

 father's face, though it was very striking, does not appear in 

 my recollections until later, until the time when I was five 

 years old, and none others seen before I was seven or eight 

 abide with me. 



Because I came just after the first-born died, and because I 

 was frail, I was very tenderly cared for. Until I was five or six 

 years old I had no playmates whom I remember. It is evident 

 that I was for a time somewhat coddled, but there was probably 

 need of unusual care to bring me through a troubled childhood. 

 What scraps of memory I have of that time curiously do not re- 

 late to the house in which we dwelt, but to the open country 

 whereto I went often on horseback with my father, to the Ohio 

 River, a dear mystery, fearful yet enchanting, and to the gov- 

 ernment post a few hundred feet from my father's door, where 

 with my nurse I spent the most of my days. The first recollec- 

 tion I have except of the few persons mentioned, is of the parade 

 ground and the soldiers, above all of the music and the bugle 

 calls. Those notes are so embedded in me that they seem a part 

 of my substance and strangely move me to this far-off day. The 

 earliest trace of any kind of activity that I recall is an advent- 

 ure with the musician who beat the great drum of the barracks 

 band. It was my delight to see the band march around the 

 parade ground, and my cherished ambition to have a whack at 

 the drum. So, craftily, stick in hand, I hid behind a boxed tree 

 and managed to get in a stroke, only to be bowled over by the 



