the
front windows of the houses were generally closed, and a few
military-looking Lombardy poplars stood like sentinels on guard before
them.

Another shop--a very small one--joined my father's, where three
shoemakers, all of the same name--the name our lane went by--sat at
their benches and plied their "waxed ends." One of them, an elderly
man, tall and erect, used to come out regularly every day, and stand
for a long time at the corner, motionless as a post, with his nose and
chin pointing skyward, usually to the northeast. I watched his face
with wonder, for it was said that "Uncle John" was "weatherwise," and
knew all the secrets of the heavens.

Aunt Hannah's schoolroom and "our shop" are a blended memory to me. As
I was only a baby when I began to go to school, I was often sent
down-stairs for a half hour's recreation not permitted to the older
ones. I think I looked upon both school and shop entirely as places of
entertainment for little children.

The front shop-window was especially interesting to us children, for
there were in it a few glass jars containing sticks of striped
barley-candy, and red and white peppermint-drops, and that delectable
achievement of the ancient confectioner's art, the "Salem gibraltar."
One of my first recollections of my father is connected with that
window. He had taken me into the shop with him after dinner,--I was
perhaps two years old,--and I was playing beside him on the counter
when one of his old sea-comrades came in, whom we knew as "Captain
Cross." The Captain tried to make friends with me, and, to seal the
bond, asked my father to take down from its place of exhibition a strip
of red peppermints dropped on white paper, in a style I particularly
admired, which he twisted around my neck, saying, "Now I've bought you!
Now you are my girl. Come, go home with me!"

His words sounded as if he meant them. I took it all in earnest, and
ran, scared and screaming, to my father, dashing down the sugar-plums I
wanted so much, and refusing even to bestow a glance upon my amused
purchaser. My father pacified me by taking me on his shoulders and
carrying me "pickaback" up and down the shop, and I clung to him in the
happy consciousness that I belonged to him, and that he would not let
anybody else have me; though I did not feel quite easy until Captain
Cross disappeared. I suppose that this little incident has always
remained in my memory because it then for the first time became a f