Our village, named after him who sang of the “deep and dark blue ocean,” is a prosaic port on the Erie Canal along whose banks mules slowly draw the heavy-laden boats. The canal divides the village into north and south, as Owasco creek divides it into east and west. Rising from the level landscape here and there, the long, low lenticular drumlins form a conspicuous feature through that section of the state. Commonplace, did I say? But less than three miles away are the marshes of the Montezumas. What strange wild feelings the lighted skies at night evoked! “The marshes are burning!” was such an inadequate explanation of that lurid western sky. A few miles to the south is Goldsmith’s “loveliest village of the plain”; about the same distance west, one reaches Tyre; as far again, and Palmyra is found; while a little to the east sits Syracuse in all her glory--surely an illustrious environment, this Drumlin Land, if names could make it so. In the upper and hilly part of the town, called “Nauvoo,” the house still stands where Brigham Young lived before he became famous--or, shall we say, infamous? He was a carpenter and painter, and several buildings are there pointed out as houses that “Brigham” built. They tell that the Mormon went to Utah owing a certain couple in our village for his board, and that years after, on learning that they were to celebrate their golden wedding, he sent them the amount he owed, with interest for all the years. In the decrepit old hotel on the village green Isaac Singer once lived and dreamed of the sewing-machine which later made his name a household word. There, too, in our little hamlet faithful Henry Wells, sometimes a-foot, sometimes on horseback, went hither and yon amid the drumlins carrying in his shabby carpet-bags messages and parcels to the scattered homes. Trusty and dependable, there in our little village he laid the humble foundations of the Wells-Fargo Express of to-day. Six churches, two hotels, several dry goods and grocery stores, a drug store, a meat market, the Post Office, sometimes a bank, a boot-and-shoe store, cigar shops and saloons, a pie factory, a shirt factory, the Masonic Hall--these, most of which were grouped around the Village fountain, constituted the town life I knew. It was amid these scenes that I as a child went forth; the objects I looked upon became a part of me, interwoven with my very being: the familiar drumlins on the horizon, flowers and the wayside weeds, the pets I cherished, the family life, our neighbours, my teachers and playmates, the games we played, the songs we sang, the books I read, the sunset clouds, the friendly trees, and the winding creek; and mingled with these commonplace scenes, the sorrows, joys, affections, hopes, and fears--all these became a part of that child that went forth.