CHAPTER I. 



BOYISH MAGAZINES A LAD OF HIS OWN WILL BECOMES 



APPRENTICE HARDSHIPS ALLEVIATIONS. 



BOY-LIFE, with its freshness of faculty, its exuber- 

 ance of delights, its opulence of wayward force, lies 

 behind Hugh Miller. In the autumn of 1819 his 

 mother, after a widowhood of fourteen years, accepts a 

 second husband, and he removes with her to the house 

 of his stepfather. ' I had no particular objections to the 

 match/ he writes to a friend a few years later; 'but 

 you may be certain that it gave me much disgust at 

 the time/ It compels him to realize the fact that the 

 world has changed for him, and that duty now demands 

 that play shall cease and work begin. Half a year, 

 however, glides away pleasantly enough his own ex- 

 pression is ' very agreeably ' in the house of his step- 

 father. He still continues those sportings with litera- 

 ture which have from infancy been among his choicest 

 enjoyments. I have before me* Nos. I., II., and III. 

 of a tiny Magazine, written in Miller's hand, and en- 

 titled, ' The Village Observer, or Monthly MSS/ They 

 are dated January, February, March, 1820. Hugh is 

 the editor and principal contributor. It is in February 

 of this year that he enters on his apprenticeship, and the 

 March number closes the series. The pen gives place 

 to the hammer for a time. 



