thin reach of his little tiptoes and busy fingers that was not pulled
over upon his giddy head without in the least seeming to improve its
steadiness. In short, his mother remarked that she was thankful every
night when she had fairly gotten him into bed and asleep; James had
really got through one more day and killed neither himself nor any
one else. As a boy, the case was little better. He did not take to
study,--yawned over books, and cut out moulds for running anchors when
he should have been thinking of his columns of words in four syllables.
No mortal knew how he learned to read, for he never seemed to stop
running long enough to learn anything; and yet he did learn, and used
the talent in conning over travels, sea-voyages, and lives of heroes and
naval commanders. Spite of father, mother, and brother, he seemed
to possess the most extraordinary faculty of running up unsavory
acquaintances. He was hail-fellow well-met with every Tom and Jack and
Jim and Ben and Dick that strolled on the wharves, and astonished his
father with minutest particulars of every ship, schooner, and brig in
the harbor, together with biographical notes of the different Toms,
Dicks, and Harrys by whom they were worked.

There was but one member of the family that seemed to know at all what
to make of James, and that was their negro servant, Candace.

In those days, when domestic slavery prevailed in New England, it was
quite a different thing in its aspects from the same institution in
more southern latitudes. The hard soil, unyielding to any but the most
considerate culture, the thrifty, close, shrewd habits of the people,
and their untiring activity and industry, prevented, among the mass of
the people, any great reliance on slave labor. It was something foreign,
grotesque, and picturesque in a life of the most matter-of-fact
sameness; it was even as if one should see clusters of palm-trees
scattered here and there among Yankee wooden meeting-houses, or open
one's eyes on clumps of yellow-striped aloes growing among hardhack and
huckleberry bushes in the pastures.

Added to this, there were from the very first, in New England, serious
doubts in the minds of thoughtful and conscientious people in reference
to the lawfulness of slavery; and this scruple prevented many from
availing themselves of it, and proved a restraint on all, so that
nothing like plantation-life existed, and what servants were owned were
scattered among different fami