Recollections

ss dear That gives her wide wings play; nor dreams that fear At noon may rise and pierce the heart of hope. Algernon Charles Swinburne. I Have explained that the farm was to have been my home until my majority. For the fact that it was not so, my uncle was mainly responsible. It was he who had kindled in me other ambitions. By the time I was sixteen years of age he became convinced that my aptitudes were leading me in other directions, and it was his own proposition that I seek for work in which they could find development. My judgment welcomed his counsel, but my heart shrank from it; I could not easily turn my back upon a home which, with all its hardships, had been very dear. Nor had I any definite plans of study: I had dreamed of the law; and I tried to find a place in a lawyer's office where I might support myself by copying and have time for reading, but no such opening could be found. Finally, one day, my uncle returned from the village with the tidings that the editor and publisher of the Owego "Gazette" wanted a boy, and that I couldfind occupation there. I sought that place, and was soon installed as a printer's apprentice. It was a heavy heart that I carried away from the farmhouse, with the little trunk that held my few belongings, and the unpainted writing-desk which, on rainy days, I had constructed with my own hands. The homely picture, "Breaking Home Ties," which touched so many hearts at the Chicago Exposition, tells a story wh... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.