Joel Pierson somehow led Halse to
really like geography that winter. Those large wall maps in color were
of great assistance to us all. In class we took turns going to them with
a long pointer, to recite the lesson of the day. I remember just how the
different countries looked and how they were bounded--though many of
these boundaries are now, of course, considerably changed.

When lessons dragged and dullness settled on the room, Master Joel was
wont to cry, "Halt!" then sit down at the melodeon and play some school
song as lively as the instrument admitted of, and set us all singing for
five or ten minutes, chanting the multiplication tables, the names of
the states, the largest cities of the country, or even the Books of the
Bible. At other times he would throw open the windows and set us
shouting Patrick Henry's speech, or Byron's Apostrophe to the Ocean. In
short, "old Joel" was what now would be called a "live wire." He was
twenty-two then and a student working his own way through Bates College.
After graduating he migrated to a far western state where he taught for
a year or two, became supervisor of schools, then State Superintendent,
and afterwards a Representative to Congress. He is an aged man now and
no word of mine can add much to the honors which have worthily crowned
his life. None the less I want to pay this tribute to him--even if he
did rub my ears at times and cry, "Wake up, Round-head! Wake up and find
out what you are in this world for." (More rubs!) "You don't seem to
know yet. Wake up and find out about it. We have all come into the world
to do something. Wake up and find out what you are here for!"--and then
more rubs!

It wasn't his fault if I never fairly waked up to my vocation--if I
really had one. For the life of me I could never feel sure what I was
for! Cousin Addison seemed to know just what he was going to do, from
earliest boyhood, and went straight to it. Much the same way, cousin
Theodora's warm, generous heart led her directly to that labor of love
which she has so faithfully performed. As for Halstead, he was perfectly
sure, cock-sure, more than twenty times, what he was going to do in
life; but always in the course of a few weeks or months, he discovered
he was on the wrong trail. What can be said of us who either have no
vocation at all, or too many? What are we here for?

In addition to our daily studies at the schoolhouse, we resumed Latin,
in the old sitting-room, evenings,