ch is still standing on the outskirts of
Roxbury, and known thereabouts as "the old stone jug." Mr. Burroughs
remembers his first day in this school, and the little suit he wore, of
bluish striped cotton, with epaulets on the shoulders which flopped when
he ran. He fell asleep one day and tumbled off the seat, cutting his
head; he was carried to a neighboring farmhouse, and he still vividly
recalls the smell of camphor which pervaded the room when he regained
consciousness. He was about four years of age. He remembers learning
his "A-b ab's," as they were called, and just how the column of letters
looked in the old spelling-book; remembers sitting on the floor under
the desks and being called out once in a while to say his letters:
"Hen Meeker, a boy bigger than I was, stuck on _e_. I can remember the
teacher saying to him; 'And you can't tell that? Why, little Johnny
Burroughs can tell you what it is. Come, Johnny.' And I crawled out and
went up and said it was e, like a little man."

Up the hill a short distance from the old homestead he indicated the
"turn 'n the road," as it passes by the "Deacon Woods"; this, he said,
was his first journey into the world. He was about four years old when,
running away, he got as far as this turn; then, looking back and seeing
how far he was from the house, he became frightened and ran back crying.
"I have seen a young robin," he added, "do the very same thing on its
first journey from the nest."

"One of my earliest recollections," he said, "is that of lying on the
hearth one evening to catch crickets that Mother said ate holes in our
stockings--big, light-colored, long-legged house crickets, with long
horns; one would jump a long way.

"Another early recollection comes to me: one summer day, when I was
three or four years old, on looking skyward, I saw a great hawk sailing
round in big circles. I was suddenly seized with a panic of fear and hid
behind the stone wall.

"The very earliest recollection of my life is that of the 'hired girl'
throwing my cap down the steps, and as I stood there crying, I looked
up on the sidehill and saw Father with a bag slung across his shoulders,
striding across the furrows sowing grain. It was a warm spring day,
and as I looked hillward wistfully, I wished Father would come down
and punish the girl for throwing my cap down the stairs--little
insignificant things, but how they stick in the memory!"

"I see myself as a little boy rocking this cr