hardships and
count it a joy to sleep on the ground where they can look up at the
stars, and eat out of a skillet.

A little later we find Alfred working for his elder brother in an
architect's office, gazing abstractedly out of the window betimes, and
wishing he were a ground-squirrel, fancy free on the heath and amid the
heather, digging holes, thus avoiding introspection. "Houses are
prisons," he said, and sang softly to himself the song of the open road.

I think I know exactly how Alfred Russel Wallace then felt, from the
touchstone of my own experience; and I think I know how he looked, too,
all confirmed by an East Aurora incident.

Some years ago, one fine day in May, I was helping excavate for the
foundation of a new barn. All at once I felt that some one was standing
behind me looking at me. I turned around and there was a tall, lithe,
slender youth in a faded college cap, blue flannel shirt, ragged
trousers and top-boots. My first impression of him was that he was a
fellow who slept in his clothes, a plain "Weary," but when he spoke
there was a note of self-reliance in his low, well-modulated voice that
told me he was no mendicant. Voice is the true index of character.

"My name is Wallace, and I have a note to you from my father," and he
began diving into pockets, and finally produced a ragged letter that was
nearly worn out through long contact with a perspiring human form
divine--or partially so. I seldom make haste about reading letters of
introduction, and so I greeted the young man with a word of welcome, and
gave him a chance to say something for himself.

He was English, that was very sure--and Oxford English at that. "You
see," he began, "I am working just now over on the Hamburg and Buffalo
Electric Line, stringing wires. I get three dollars a day because I'm a
fairly good climber. I wanted to learn the business, so I just hired out
as a laborer, and they gave me the hardest job, thinking to scare me
out, but that was what I wanted," and he smiled modestly and showed a
set of incisors as fine and strong as a dog's teeth. "I want to remain
with you for a week and pay for my board in work," he cautiously
continued.

"But about your father, Mr. Wallace--do I know him?"

"I think so; he has written you several letters--Alfred Russel Wallace!"

You could have knocked me down with a lady's-slipper. I opened the
letter and unmistakably it was from the great scientist, "introducing my
baby boy."