“His daughters often served as his amanuenses, and sometimes he dictated to two at once, while one of the little ones would balance herself on the rounds of his chair, and curl his back hair over the red-and-blue pencil he always used. Sometimes he would walk up and down the two parlors wrapped in a light blue silk Japanese dressing-gown, quilted with eider down, which was a present from Captain Jansen, the long ribbons, which should have been fastened around his waist, trailing behind him, or gathered up like reins in the hands of one of the little ones, who trotted after him, backwards and forwards, calling out ‘Gee, woa!’ or ‘Back, sir!’—he paying not the slightest attention, but dictating gravely. “He used to say he was the youngest of the family except the baby, and it was his habit, when dressing in the morning, to seat the youngest (the little two-year-old) upon the bureau, to hold the soap while he was shaving; while the rest would stand around, one to hold or receive the razor, one the brush, one the towel, and one or two the papers on which to wipe the razor; and we all would eagerly watch the pile of lather which he made with the soap and hot water in his shaving-can. He brushed his bald head with two immense brushes at the same time, one in each hand. ‘For’, he assured us gravely, ‘you see, if I only use one at a time, it will turn me round and round like one oar in a boat’. And we believed that that was the only way to brush hair. Then he would tell us stories and anecdotes about his brothers and himself—what they did and what they said in Tennessee, and of his home life there. These stories he would tell over and over again, fitting them to the comprehension of the ‘two-year-old’, as she or he would come on, until we knew them by heart, and, with a clamor of tongues, would set him right if he omitted any incident or related it in the wrong order. And we knew exactly when to laugh and applaud, and enjoyed it all the more because it was so familiar. “Often he would take the whole tribe out for long walks, or to gather fruit or nuts, or bright-colored leaves; and to reach the high ones he would make what he called a ‘Tennessee arm’, which was a long pole with a crutch at the end, with which he could twist them off, directing us where to stand and hold up our little pinafores to catch the coveted prize; and then what laughter and hurrahs and congratulations would be bestowed upon the fortunate catcher! He had pet names for all except the eldest; he said she grew up too fast for him to fit a name to her. There were ‘Nannie Curly’, ‘Goggen’, ‘Davy Jones’, ‘Totts’, ‘Glum’, ‘Brave’, and ‘Sat Sing’. By these names he always called us, and we knew we had displeased him, and hung our heads with shame, if he gave us our baptismal ones.