392 Landscape Gardening 



the elder brothers and sister, standing sometimes in the 

 door, as he grew older, and watching the shadows of the 

 clouds chase each other over the Fishkill mountains upon 

 the opposite side of the river; soothed by the universal 

 silence of the country, while the constant occupation of the 

 father, and of the brother who worked with him in the 

 nursery, made the boy serious, by necessarily leaving him 

 much alone. 



In the little cottage upon the Newburgh highlands, look- 

 ing down upon the broad bay which the Hudson river there 

 makes, before winding in a narrow stream through the high- 

 lands of West Point, and looking eastward across the river 

 to the Fishkill hills, which rise gradually from the bank 

 into a gentle mountain boldness, and northward, up the 

 river, to shores that do not obstruct the horizon, - - passed 

 the first years of the boy's life, thus early befriending him 

 with one of the loveliest of landscapes. While his father 

 and brother were pruning and grafting their trees, and the 

 other brother was busily at work in the comb factory, 

 where he was employed, the young Andrew ran alone 

 about the garden, playing his solitary games in the presence 

 of the scene whose influence helped to mould his life, and 

 which, even so early, filled his mind with images of rural 

 beauty. His health, like that of most children born in 

 their parents' later years, was not at all robust. The father, 

 watching the slight form glancing among his trees, and the 

 mother, aware of her boy sitting silent and thoughtful, had 

 many a pang of apprehension, which was not relieved by 

 the ominous words of the gossips that it was "hard to raise 

 these smart children," - the homely modern echo of the 

 old Greek fancy, "Whom the gods love die young." 



The mother, a thrifty housekeeper and a religious woman, 

 occupied with her many cares, cooking, mending, scrub- 

 bing, and setting things to rights, probably looked forward 

 with some apprehension to the future condition of her sen- 

 sitive Benjamin, even if he lived. The dreamy, shy ways 

 of the boy were not such as indicated the stern stuff that 

 enables poor men's children to grapple with the world. 



