e again, for another ten years.

Ten years of youth.

It was Life's happy era with us, full of hopes and plans for the future,
full, too, of those many jolts which young folks get from inexperience,
nor yet free from those mistakes which all of us make, when we first set
off on Life's journey. Like some bright panorama it passes on Memory's
walls, so many pictures of that hopeful young life of ours at the old
farm, as we grew up together, getting an education, or the rudiments of
one, at the district school, and later at the village Academy, Kent's
Hill Seminary and Bowdoin College.

And later I may try to relate how we came out and what we are still
doing in life.

CHAPTER I

A NOSE IN COMMON

It was on a sunny, windy May afternoon, late in the month, that the old
gentleman drove to the railway station, eight miles from the farm, to
fetch home the writer of this narrative. Till that day I had never seen
either of my grandparents. But I knew that grandfather was to meet me at
the station, and immediately on getting out of the car, I saw an erect,
rather tall, elderly man with white hair and blue eyes, peering over the
crowd, as if on the lookout for a boy. The instinctive stir of kinship
made me sure who he was; but from some childish bashfulness I did not
like to go directly to him and came around from one side, then touched
his arm. He glanced down. "Are you looking for a small fellow like me,
sir?" I asked.

"Yes, yes!" he exclaimed and laughed.

He looked at me searchingly, and his face grew sorrowful as he gazed.

"Yes, you are poor Edmund's boy. You've your father's forehead and eyes.
Well, well, my son, I am glad to see you, and I hope you will like with
us. You are coming to your father's old home, where he used to live when
he was a boy. Your grandmother will be glad to see you; and you must not
think of such a thing as being homesick. Your cousins are there; and
there will be plenty of things to take up your mind."

I hastened to say that I was thankful for the home he was giving me, and
that I had come to work and pay my way. (My mother had fully explained
the situation to me.)

Grandfather smiled and looked at me again. "Yes, you are quite a boy!"
he said. "If you are as good a boy as your father was, your coming may
prove a blessing instead of an additional tax on us."

I felt much gratified that he considered me "quite a boy," and said that
I knew so many of us must be a great care;