192 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER 



to congratulate me. My wrestle with the De Beaumont hypo- 

 thesis evidently made an impression on him, in one way for me 

 unhappy, for it gave him the erroneous notion that I was com- 

 petent in mathematics, and led him, when we became colleagues, 

 to submit many a problem to me which I could not understand 

 for lack of adequate training, and to regard my plea of ignorance 

 on such matters as mere make-believe. 



Although I had a sense of ease in the six or seven hours of 

 trial before my judges, it evidently was a severe ordeal. As in 

 other instances when I have been put to proof, there came a 

 reaction with great depression so that I could not sleep. Almost 

 extravagantly self-possessed while under the excitement, I 

 remember sitting in my room and shaking for an hour after- 

 wards and winding up with a brisk fever. Rather than go to 

 Kentucky to seek service in that condition, I took a train, 

 alone, for the White Mountains, stayed a day or two at a curious 

 hostel known as "Dolly Copp's" near the Glen House, and then 

 walked over Mount Washington to the Crawford House. Three 

 days having given me my breath and sense of balance I returned 

 to Cambridge, to pack my effects and prepare for the next chap- 

 ter of experiences. The delight I had in the solitude was the 

 keener for the reason that I knew that what was to come would 

 be quite other than this peace of the great hills. 



When I arrived in Cambridge the news from my people was 

 such as to make it plain not only that the neutrality of my 

 commonwealth was broken, that had been decided some time 

 before, but that the chance was that the fighting line would 

 soon swing up to the Ohio. I therefore made haste with my 

 preparations, packing my satchel and turning the key in my 

 door with all my effects within. I was promised that I should 

 hold my quarters if I lived, until I could return to care for my 

 property. But in a few months there came a rumor that I was 

 dead, and when I did return I found that my affairs had been 

 summarily dealt with, so that little remained to me of my goods 

 and chattels save a bath-tub and the frame of a bed. 



