64 AI^EXANDER WILSON : POET-NATURALIST 



Such was Gray's Ferry in the summer season, and 

 if in the winter it lost some of its poetical beauty, 

 when at nighttime the cellar of the schoolhouse 

 echoed with the squalling of cats, and the loft with 

 the rattling of flying squirrels, yet for Wilson it 

 was still a pleasant haven from the dirt and noise 

 of the city. Let no one think, however, that his 

 life was an easy one here. He worked sometimes 

 five, sometimes six days in the week all day long, 

 after the custom of that time, at his school duties, 

 without having even then the assurance of his pay. 

 Not that his work was not satisfactory to his pa- 

 trons, for it seems to have been eminently so; but 

 the people were not wealthy, and the hard winters 

 sometimes made it impossible for many of the chil- 

 dren to attend school. In 1805 the Schuylkill and 

 the Delaware were both impassable and many of 

 the families whose children had been pupils of the 

 Gray's Ferry School were "almost in a state of star- 

 vation." At the end of the term fifteen dollars was 

 all that AVilson was able to raise, a sum insufficient 

 to pay even his board. He summoned the trustees 

 together and stated the case, proposing to give up 

 the school, but they would not consent to this ; a 

 meeting of the people was called and "forty-eight 

 scholars instantly subscribed for," a sufficient in- 

 dication of the satisfaction which was felt with Wil- 

 son's teaching. 



The difficulties through which Wilson had passed 

 previous to this may be imagined when we 

 read a letter to William Duncan that he 

 wrote on his return from his tour to Ovid 

 and Niagara, which is described in "The For- 



