Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

CHILDHOOD OF B. U. WATKINS 29
ately given a sound thrashing, which hurt in every way the
sensitive child. He went home very much crestfallen, and in
a short time became ill with high fever and delirium. In
bathing her sick boy grandmother was greatly shocked to find
his back and limbs covered with black and blue marks, which
called for explanations and elicited a recital of his punishment.
I remember even now how indignant I was as a child when
father told the story of his solitary thrashing.
It did not take our father long to outgrow the old master
with his scant knowledge and his system of pedagogy, which
embraced "lickin' and larnin','' the former almost in excess
of the latter. Books of all kinds were scarce in those days.
I remember one of father's early books, "Joseph Good,"
whose hero would not play ball in David Plowman's field on
the Sabbath day; also a "poem" concerning
Honest John Thompkins, the hedger and ditcher,
Who although he was poor did not wish to be richer.
For all these vain wishes by him were prevented
By a fortunate habit of being contented.
Thus Honest John, though his station was humble,
Passed through this sad world without even a grumble.
I wish all, who were poorer or richer.
Would copy John Thompkins, the hedger and ditcher.
These specimens of crude literature forecast little for our
father's use of English or for that higher education he so great-
ly craved.
In vacation the Wise Young Man from the East walked
out into the country and taught a subscription school in the
neighborhood, and he it was who directed our father in special
courses of study. He used to remain after school hours to
recite to his teacher, and his difficulty of sight and diligence
in the pursuit of learning so impressed one of the girls who was
a schoolmate of his that more than fifty years later she told
her grandson of the boy who had had but the eighth of his eye-
sight and yet had become a scholar. This so impressed the
lad that he, through his own exertions, made of himself an
educated leader of men and is so recognized to-day.
During these early struggles for an education, a relative in