PERSONAL HISTORY 181 



personally learn the vital lesson that these 

 friends in disguise are the necessary tests of 

 character and purpose. Thus folly, stupidity, 

 ignorance, envy, and jealousy frequently are 

 made to work for special as well as the general 

 good. 



"The next incident indelibly traced on the 

 rapidly moving but invisible film of the soul, as 

 the sum of individual environments is impressed 

 upon the great heredity spirit of the race, oc- 

 curred soon after and this time, too, the trouble 

 was caused by an original investigator. My 

 nature-loving mother, while gathering the big, 

 scarlet, luscious, wild strawberries, growing 

 abundantly over the fields near our home, had 

 carefully placed me on a dry spot among the 

 late June grasses, when a mischievous tame 

 crow, belonging to one of our neighbors, swooped 

 down alongside and began pulling hard at my 

 unprotected toes ; the pain and fright were most 

 distressing as the crow industriously applied his 

 sharp beak to my tender toes, and by the most 

 earnest persuasion I could not induce him to re- 

 linquish his hold. By repeatedly perforating the 

 warm June atmosphere with shrieks, help came 

 and the black rascal was prevailed upon to quit." 



Our home was about three miles north of Lan- 

 caster village, just off the main road to Harvard; 



