There were other books not so well fitted for the education of a child, but it was all fish that came to my net, and I calmly read up to my tenth year, "The Criminal Calendar," "Tales of Shipwrecks," Barber's "Historical Massachusetts," Paley's "Moral Philosophy," Pollock's "Course of Time," Alleine's "Alarm to the Unconverted," Richardson's "Pamela" and the "Spectator!" Some years afterwards, when I had read the covers off this miscellaneous collection of books, some of the earlier summer people, the elder Lorings and Kings, I think, put a small library into Uncle Pride's house and gave us Jacob Abbott's Rollo Stories and a few other delights. Please picture to yourself the "light of other days" by which the reading and sewing and knitting of old Beverly Farms used to go on at night. Luckily, there was as much daylight then, as now. The lamp that illuminated my childish evenings was a glass lamp, that held about a cup full of whale oil, "sperm oil," it was called. There were two metal tubes at the top of this lamp, thro' which protruded two cotton wicks. These wicks could be pulled up for more light or pulled down for economy, by means of a pin. No protection whatever was afforded from the flame, and my hair was singed in front most of the time, as I crept close with book or stocking, to this illumination. One use of the old oil lamp was medicinal. If there were a croupy child in the house, he might be treated immediately, in the absence of a doctor, to a dose from the lamp on the mantel. I remember my blessed brother David being ministered unto in that way. After this, came the fluid lamp, with an alcoholic mixture that was dangerous, but clean. In hunting about among ancestors, I am sometimes reminded of the story of Dr. Samuel Johnson's marriage. The lady to whom he proposed, demurred a little. She said she had an uncle who was hanged. Dr. Johnson assured her that that need make no difficulty, for he had no doubt that he had several who ought to have been hanged. I remember my disgust at finding that I was related thro' my maternal grandmother, Molly Standley, to "Aunt Massy." Aunt Massy, (her real name was Mercy) was a mildly insane, gray-haired, stoutish woman, who lived just before you reach the fountain at the top of the hill, on Hale St. There was a well with a windlass and bucket at one side of her old house and Aunt Massy used to lean on the well curb and abuse the passers by. She remembered all the mean things one's relatives ever did, and how she could scold! I was often sent to Mr. Perry's grocery store where Pump Cottage now stands and I used to try to get by without hearing her uplifted voice. But if I had a new gown there was no escape.