The quiet beauty of these scenes recalls a time which, in my life, is so long ago that I feel strangely reverential when I speak of it. I find myself thinking of my boyhood, and of the hills and valleys and trees and flowers and birds I knew when the morning of my life was fresh and full of exuberance. Those years were spent among the Pelham hills, very, very far from here; but memory o'erleaps the mountain ranges, the leagues upon leagues of prairie, the mighty rivers, the forest, the farming lands, o'erleaps them all; and to-day, by that same sweet magic that instantaneously undoes the years and space, I seem to be among the Pelham hills again. The yonder glimpse of the Pacific becomes the silver thread of the Connecticut, seen, not over miles of orange-groves, but over broad acres of Indian corn; and instead of the pepper and eucalyptus, the lemon and the palm, I see (or I seem to see) the maple once more, and the elm and the chestnut trees, the shagbark walnut, the hickory, and the birch. In those days, these rugged mountains of this south land were unknown to me; and the Pelham hills were full of marvel and delight, with their tangled pathways and hidden stores of wintergreen and wild strawberries. Furtive brooks led the little boy hither and thither in his quest for trout and dace, while to the gentler-minded the modest flowers of the wild-wood appealed with singular directness. A partridge rose now and then from the thicket and whirred away, and with startled eyes the brown thrush peered out from the bushes. I see these pleasant scenes again, and I hear again the beloved sounds of old; and so with reverence and with welcoming I take up my task, for it was among these same Pelham hills that the dear lady of whom I am to speak was born and spent her childhood. CHAPTER V EDUCATION There was more truth than epigrammatic novelty in Eugene Field's declaration that his education began when he fancied he had left it off for the serious business of life. Throughout his boyhood he was far from a hardy youth. He always gave the impression of having overgrown his strength, so that delicate health, and not indisposition to study, has been assigned as the excuse for his backwardness in "book larnin'" when it was decided to send him away from the congenial distractions of Amherst to the care of the Rev. James Tufts of Monson.