ared in his writings. One day when we were
walking, he leaned his back against a rail fence and discoursed
of the shortness of the time since the date fixed for the
creation, measured by human lives. "Why," he said, "sixty
old women like Nabby Kettle" (a very old woman in Concord),
"taking hold of hands, would span the whole of it." He repeats
this in one of his books, adding, "They would be but a small
tea-party, but their gossip would make universal history."

Another man who was famous as a writer went to school and
afterward tended store in Concord in my childhood. This was
George H. Derby, better known as John Phoenix. He was also
very fond of small boys. I remember his making me what I
thought a wonderful and beautiful work of art, by taking a
sheet of stiff paper of what was called elephant foolscap,
and folding it into a very small square, and then with a penknife
cutting out small figures of birds and beasts. When the sheet
was opened again these were repeated all over the sheet, and
made it appear like a piece of handsome lace.

He did not get along very well with his employer, who was
a snug and avaricious person. He would go to Boston once
a week to make his purchases, leaving Derby in charge of the
store. Derby would lie down at full length on the counter,
get a novel, and was then very unwilling to be disturbed to
wait on customers. If a little girl came in with a tin kettle
to get some molasses, he would say the molasses was all out,
and they would have some more next week. So the employer
found that some of his customers were a good deal annoyed.

Another rather famous writer who lived in Concord in my time
was Mr. A. Bronson Alcott. He used to talk to the children
in the Sunday-school, and occasionally would gather them together
in the evening for a long discourse. I am ashamed to say
that we thought Mr. Alcott rather stupid. He did not make
any converts to his theories among the boys.

He once told us that it was wicked to eat animal food; that
the animal had the same right to his life that we had to ours,
and we had no right to destroy the lives of any of God's
creatures for our own purposes. He lived only on vegetable
food, as he told us. But he had on at the time a very comfortable
pair of calfskin boots, and the boys could not reconcile his
notion that it was wicked to kill animals to eat, with killing
animals that he might wear their hides. When such inconsistencies
were p