toughened and invigorated by the hard work and the fresh, mountain air, that can hardly be found except among the hills and valleys of New England. The population of Amherst were, and are still, dependent for the means of subsistence upon a soil sterile, stony and forbidding, except to the gaze of those hardy men who, from year to year, follow the plow over its surface. These villages seem to be produced from some stereotype plate of nature, and once planted, are as unchangeable as the very hills upon which they are located. There will be found a "meetinghouse," (Congregational,) a "church," (Episcopal,) and a store, where is sold everything in general and nothing in particular. Upon the open area, where two or more roads meet, the school-house is located; is in fact seemingly "turned out doors;" the people have indeed got to regard it as so much a nuisance, that, even now, when a new one is contemplated, the land requisite for a site can hardly be bought for any price. From this center the farm-houses are placed in every direction, at first thickly, or at neighborly distances; but as you recede from the church they grow less frequent, until you are alone in the forest or pasture lands. Such was the situation of Horace Greeley's birth-place, and such the scene of his early childhood; it was a place where destitution and wealth are alike unknown, though every one has for a contented mind an abundance; it was a com

munity of honest, common-sense men farmers.

-practical

Horace, from his own earliest recollections, as well as from the account of those who watched his infancy, seems to have had a great predilection for books. He says, in a letter to a friend, "I think I am indebted for my first impulse toward intellectual acquirement and exertion to my mother's grandmother, who came out from Ireland among the first settlers of Londonderry. She must have been well versed in Irish and Scotch traditions, pretty well informed and strong minded; and my mother being left motherless when quite young, her grandmother exerted great influence over her mental development. I was a third child, the two preceding having died young, and I presume my mother was more attached to me on that ground, and the extreme feebleness of my constitution. My mind was early filled by her with the traditions, ballads, and snatches of history she had learned from her grandmother, which, though conveying very distorted and incorrect ideas of history, yet served to awaken in me a thirst for knowl edge, and a lively interest for learning and history."

In more than the common and trite sense was he a remarkable child. We think it exceedingly interesting and instructive to linger a little here, and examine facts, to see, if possible, what were the elements of a constitution which, under such circumstances,

could develop so remarkable a man. His mother was a stout, muscular woman, who esteemed it no disgrace to hoe in the garden, or pitch and rake hay, and it is asserted that she could cradle with equal facility in the house and in the fields. She could do more farm work in a day than a man, and then tell stories all the evening. To the ladies of our day these would hardly be considered recommendations, but then they were considered a prodigious feat. She was also quick at the spinning-wheel, and to its hum her tongue kept a continual harmony, for the amusement and benefit of her children. With eager avidity Horace listened to the anecdotes which fell from her lips, and here he first felt that intense yearning for knowledge which afterward made him so indefatigable a student. At two years of age he pored over the pages of the bible with great interest, and newspapers thrown upon the floor furnished him great amusement; at three he could read any of the ordinary books designed for children; at four could read anywhere, and with his book sidewise, upside down, or in any position. When only three years old he commenced attending the district school, and so eager was he to be present, that if the snow was piled in drifts, he prevailed upon his aunt to carry him to the school-house. The great ambition of those days seems to have been to become the best speller in the school, and to this eminence our hero early aspired;

once gained, he always maintained it. For this attainment he was admired by his mates, but seems not to have been envied. He cared little for the ordinary sports which so much amuse children at this age, but, as early as his fifth or sixth year, preferred to steal away with a book to some secluded place, and devour its contents. In other respects he was quite singular; he never would fight a boy whatever might be the provocation; if another was disposed to quarrel with him, he quietly stood and bore the infliction, which soon became more tiresome to the author than to the recipient. He is described at this time as a delicate, flaxen-haired child, of a gentle and retiring disposition, remarkable mainly for his attachment to books. This grew with his mind, till it became the all absorbing passion of his life. As he grew older, he ransacked all the libraries in the neighborhood to satisfy his intellectual appetite; but so far were they from satiating it, they seemed only to act as stimulants. He borrowed from the minister, from the village collection, from every source in his reach, till he became a walking encyclopedia. It was a peculiarity of his manner of reading that he became so absorbed in his book as to lose all apparent consciousness of what was going on about him. Thus he stored his mind with that knowledge which was to be so invaluable to him in after life. It was the only education that nature offered him, and he

gladly availed himself of it; so that when time came for reflection, he possessed a perfect mine of informa tion, whose treasures were as exhaustless in extent as they were difficult in acquisition.

There is hardly a boy in New England so small but that upon the farm some work can be found simple enough for his capacities. From the time that spring opens, each season brings to the juvenile his proportion of light labor. The corn is to be dropped; the team to be driven for the plow; the stock to be fed; the horse to be ridden between the rows of corn and potatoes, previous to hoeing; the gathering of apples, and the various autumnal crops, afford work for all sizes and all ages. Horace never evaded these for his book, but by diligence in accomplishing his apportioned job, managed to save time for his favorite indulgence, without interfering with the requirements of the farm. Among sports he was fond only of fishing, and his "luck" always excelled that of his companions, "because that while they fished for fun, he fished for fish."

When only ten years old his father became involved in debt, by signing the obligations of some of his neighbors, was unable to meet the pecuniary demands upon him, and, as a consequence, his little farm, house, and all that in the childhood of Horace went to make up home, was swept away by creditors. His father, a ruined bankrupt, was forced to flee the