I follow no order in my narrative: I wander; but how can one go far in the small and circumscribed region of earliest memories, bound each to each by some inwardly felt affinity, which neither time nor world wanderings can dissever? One thing suggests another and the connection must be found in the things themselves. Cranberry picking carried me forward into springtime; now I return to the autumn, the harvest season, when although not old enough to dig my mother's small patch of potatoes, I could pick them up in a basket. She herself handled the hoe uncovering the long reds and the white Chenangos. I liked better to shake down apples than to gather things from the ground; for to climb trees is as much a boy's as a monkey's instinct. That was my first thought when I happened to observe any kind of tree, could I climb it? The wild grapes which grew in profusion along the banks of our river clambering over the tall grey birches gave me glorious opportunities for climbing, as the sweetest and largest clusters were always at the very top of the trees. The limbs of the grey birch, although small, are very elastic and tough, making a sure footing for the climber. The danger was, that, as he approached the slender spire of the tree, it would suddenly bend or break and drop him into the water. This was all the more fun, if he could swim. When he reached home he was liable to have his jacket not only dried but "warmed," which was the colloquial for a thrashing. I usually sold grapes enough during the day of the Fall militia training to keep me in pocket money through the winter. This was my first effort at any kind of trading and, I think, spoilt me for a commercial career; for there was no cost, no capital, no loss; all was profit; and ever since that day it has seemed to me the only manner of doing business worth while. There are, or were, other compensations in a life of trade, which might fire the ambition of a strenuous youth. I remember three voyages made the merchant a Thane in ancient England.