and events; so that he always had at command a series of
associations to which he could refer instantly and confidently. This is
an explanation of the system of employing facts, but not of the method
by which they are accumulated and stored away.

I was reminded of this some years ago by a paragraph in one of the
county newspapers that sometimes come under my observation. It was a
very commonplace paragraph; indeed, it was in the nature of an
advertisement--an announcement of the fact that orders for "gilt-edged
butter" from the Jersey farm on the Tomlinson Place should be left at
the drugstore in Rockville, where the first that came would be the first
served. This businesslike notice was signed by Ferris Trunion. The name
was not only peculiar, but new to me; but this was of no importance at
all. The fact that struck me was the bald and bold announcement that the
Tomlinson Place was the site and centre of trading and other commercial
transactions in butter. I can only imagine what effect this announcement
would have had on my grandmother, who died years ago, and on some other
old people I used to know. Certainly they would have been horrified; and
no wonder, for when they were in their prime the Tomlinson Place was the
seat of all that was high, and mighty, and grand, in the social world in
the neighborhood of Rockville. I remember that everybody stood in awe of
the Tomlinsons. Just why this was so, I never could make out. They were
very rich; the Place embraced several thousand acres; but if the
impressions made on me when a child are worth anything, they were
extremely simple in their ways. Though, no doubt, they could be formal
and conventional enough when occasion required.

I have no distinct recollection of Judge Addison Tomlinson, except that
he was a very tall old gentleman, much older than his wife, who went
about the streets of Rockville carrying a tremendous gold-headed cane
carved in a curious manner. In those days I knew more of Mrs. Tomlinson
than I did of the judge, mainly because I heard a great deal more about
her. Some of the women called her Mrs. Judge Tomlinson; but my
grandmother never called her anything else but Harriet Bledsoe, which
was her maiden name. It was a name, too, that seemed to suit her, so
that when you once heard her called Harriet Bledsoe, you never forgot it
afterward. I do not know now, any more than I did when a child, why this
particular name should fit her so exactly; but, as