My Boyhood and Youth 



ities. At the dinner-table, while I was recalling 

 the amusements and fights of my old school- 

 days, the minister remarked to the new master, 

 "Now, don't you wish that you had been 

 teacher in those days, and gained the honor 

 of walloping John Muir?" This pleasure so 

 merrily suggested showed that the minister 

 also had been a fighter in his youth. The old 

 freestone school building was still perfectly 

 sound, but the carved, ink-stained desks were 

 almost whittled away. 



The highest part of our playground back of 

 the school commanded a view of the sea, and 

 we loved to watch the passing ships and, judg- 

 ing by their rigging, make guesses as to the 

 ports they had sailed from, those to which they 

 were bound, what they were loaded with, their 

 tonnage, etc. In stormy weather they were all 

 smothered in clouds and spray, and showers of 

 salt scud torn from the tops of the waves came 

 flying over the playground wall. In those tre- 

 mendous storms many a brave ship foundered 

 or was tossed and smashed on the rocky shore. 

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