The next school to which the Cambridge pastor sent his little son was kept by William Biglow, a man of considerable scholarship and much native wit. Five years were spent at a school in Cambridgeport, which was kept by several successive teachers, and it was here, as schoolmates, that Oliver Wendell Holmes first met Margaret Fuller and Richard Henry Dana. "I was moderately studious," says Doctor Holmes, "and very fond of reading stories, which I sometimes did in school hours. I was fond also of whispering, and my desk bore sad witness to my passion for whittling. For these misdemeanors I sometimes had a visitation from the ferule, and once when a Gunter's scale was used for this purpose, it flew to pieces as it came down on my palm."[5] It was about this time, doubtless, that the _Autocrat_ learned that important fact about the "hat." "I was once equipped," he says, "in a hat of Leghorn straw, having a brim of much wider dimensions than were usual at that time, and sent to school in that portion of my native town which lies nearest to the metropolis. On my way I was met by a 'Port-Chuck,' as we used to call the young gentlemen of that locality, and the following dialogue ensued: "_The Port-Chuck_: 'Hullo, you sir, joo know th' wus goin' to be a race to-morrah?' "_Myself_: 'No. Who's goin' to run, 'n' wher' 's't goin' to be?' "_The Port-Chuck_: 'Squire Mico 'n' Doctor Williams, round the brim o' your hat.' "These two much-respected gentlemen being the oldest inhabitants at that time, and the alleged race-course being out of the question, the Port-Chuck also winking and thrusting his tongue into his cheek, I perceived that I had been trifled with, and the effect has been to make me sensitive and observant respecting this article ever since. The hat is the vulnerable point of the artificial integument." FOOTNOTES: [4] From notes furnished by Doctor Holmes. [5] From notes furnished by Doctor Holmes. CHAPTER III. EARLY RECOLLECTIONS. Of the boyhood of Doctor Holmes we have many delightful glimpses.