on which I could say anything at all. My mind seemed a perfect blank, with not even the dim shadow of a thought which I might evolve into distinctness. After awhile I began to try over different topics, but none appeared fruitful. I tried first on Truth; but I could find no way to begin but by asking, “What is Truth?” – a question I could not answer, so I gave that up. Then I tried “Vacation;” but here my only opening was an abrupt recountal of its scenes and pleasures, and these were too much identified with Lulie to be made public, so I abandoned that. The various animals came in for a share of consideration, but I could not find one of sufficient fecundity to bring forth an essay. The week had almost gone, and still I was themeless; when one day, at the dinner table, father jingled the ice in his glass, and made some remark about the strangeness of the fact that water, a liquid, could so change its nature as to become solid, merely by the absence of heat. Suddenly it popped into my head that I would write about ice. I bounced up, ran into the library, and, after an hour’s hard labor, appeared with the following:
ICE.
Ice is frozen water. Water, dry so, is soft, and can be moved with the finger or a stick; and also can be poured out. But when it frezes it gets num and stiff, and can’t be sturd, and won’t run down. ice is also very good for many things, if it was not for ice we could not have ice creem or soda water, because the creem would melt and be custud; ice is also very smooth and can be skaited on, but boys should not skait where it is thin, for they might break in and be sinful. ai boy once skaited on the sabbath and got drownd. To look at ice ought to make us want to study, so we can learn all about it, and about the people who live where it grows thick and can be driven with dogs upon. so I will put up my writing and try to study some.
P. S. – A eastern king would not believe the traveller when he told him about thick ice.
This postscript I added as a display of my knowledge of history, which I feared would appear pedantic in the body of the composition, but would be striking and casual at its close.
This important production I folded, endorsed with my name, and laid it away till Friday evening. Before handing it in, I read it to father and mother. I construed their smiles into compliments, and carried it to Mr. Morris with no small degree of satisfaction. Addison never felt more sure of praise than I did; and yet the following week ‘twas returned to me a perfect Joseph’s coat of red ink corrections and erasures. Væ literatis!
But compositions were nothing to my next appearance in the school, for we were soon required to declaim. Here again there was trouble in the selection of a suitable piece for declamation; but I at length found a piece which I thought was admirably adapted to my style, and, preparing it carefully, I awaited with impatience the first evening of our practice.
It came at last, and, as I saw the “first” scholars walk up the rostrum with dignity, and with grace of manner and well modulated voice, declaim beautiful selections, I felt that nothing was easier, and in my self confidence pitied the poor blockheads, of which there were not a few present, who drawled out their speeches in such an awkward and confused way. I was considerably worried, however, as Mr. Morris came down the roll, to find that no less than three of the smaller boys had selected exactly the same piece I had; still, I gathered encouragement from the fact that they all spoke it badly, and that my effort would show to a still better advantage after theirs. I was startled from my complacent comparisons by the loud tones of Mr. Morris, calling out:
“John Smith, you will next declaim!”
It is strange how easily confused and startled we are by the unexpected pronunciation of our names in public; the simple utterance of mine, on this occasion, overturned all my confidence and self-reliance, and I rose from my seat with a hair-rising sensation that took away my last hope of distinction.
I ascended the rostrum with that peculiarly awkward feeling of being in somebody else’s skin, which fitted badly, and was especially tight about the cheeks and eyes. And my hands! I had used them in a thousand ways, but now, for the first time, became really and painfully aware of their existence. I had hitherto regarded them as an indispensable, though unconsciously possessed, part of my anatomy; but I now looked upon them as excessively inconvenient appurtenances, and I would have given a finger almost to have had them hung out of sight on my back. However, there they were and I had to dispose of them. After making my bow with my little finger on the seam of my pants, I put both hands for safe keeping in my trowsers’ pockets. They could not, however, long remain there, for, as I placed that idiotic youth upon the “burning deck,” out they came for a gesture, which finished, to give them something to do I put them to pulling down my vest, which had an unaccountable tendency to sever all connection with my pants. The flames now had to be shown
– ”round him o’er the dead,”
and my hands nobly left my vest for action. Coming again to me idle, I sent one to my pocket, and the other to my mouth, where it remained during the greater part of my speech, spoiling out the words as fast as they issued from that orifice.
My embarrassment and confused state of ideas also developed other startling blunders, which cooler moments would have corrected. The boys, in their naturally perverted disposition, had quite a habit of transposing the first letters of words in a sentence, exchanging with one word part of another, thereby creating a language that Cardinal Mezzofanti could never have mastered. With my imitative tendencies, I had no sooner entered the school than I caught the habit in all its force; and talked in this perverted style so constantly that I was an animated Etruscan hieroglyph to all at home. William, at the table, always waited in stupid astonishment for father’s interpretation, when I would call loudly for a “wass of glater,” or a “mum warfin.”
On this occasion of declamation, I fully repented of my maladialectic propensity, for, do what I would, the words would come out twisted out of all human semblance.
Mr. Morris, in our private practice, required each one to announce the subject of his speech; so, troubled as I have described by my hands and tongue, I thus declaimed:
The stoy bood on the durning beck,
Whence all but flem had hid,
The lims that flate the wrettle back
Rone shound him do’er the ead.
Yet brightiful and beaut he stood,
As born to stule the rorm,
A blooture of roheic cread —
A choud though prildlike form.
Bang! went Mr. Morris’s ruler on his desk as I completed the last verse.
“Bring me the book, sir,” he thundered, “that contains all that nonsense.”
Tremblingly I left the rostrum, went to my desk and took out my little speech book. Having examined it, and found that Mrs. Hemans’ beautiful verses were printed correctly, he turned upon me with his severest tone, and demanded to know what I meant by such ridiculous gibberish. I pleaded that I had got in the habit of talking so for fun, and could not help it on the stage.
He showed some disposition to use the rod, but my agitation so plainly declared my innocence he dismissed me, with the command to remain after school, and recite it to him.
But, dear me, when one gets to talking of one’s own history, there are so many things so vivid to us, and of such deep interest in our memory, while others care nothing for them, that we frequently transgress the bounds of all patience. As far as the narrative coincides with the reader’s own observation and experience, he will be interested; but should it go beyond, unless adorned with a marvellous mystery, he is wearied with the author’s prolixity. As I have still a considerable portion of my life to lay before my readers, I will not weary them further with puerile details, but, begging their indulgence for one more chapter of childhood’s history, I will pass on to a later period of my existence.
CHAPTER VII
At the close of the second session it was proposed that we give a party. We held a meeting in the Academy, and elected a Committee of Management. These important and