Between Henry Glazier and young Willard a singular friendship had sprung up. The great, six-foot uncle and the quaint, old-fashioned boy were much together. In the woods and fields, at junketings and corn-huskings, the pair were often seen in grave converse, and while Willard was ever eager to hear the stories of his uncle's mad adventures and queer scrapes, Henry Glazier, in turn, would listen with a species of reverent wonder to the boy's recital of striking passages of history or of fiction which he had picked up in the course of a varied and desultory reading--a taste for which was developed even at that early age. The volumes to which he had access were few in number, but he had read their pages again and again, and the subjects of which they treated were, for the most part, of just such a character as were calculated to attract the attention of a youth of action rather than of thought. Among them were "Rollin's Ancient History," "Robinson Crusoe," "The Arabian Nights," "Life of Charles XII. of Sweden," "Kossuth and his Generals," and "Napoleon and his Marshals,"--everything relating to the career of the great Corsican being devoured with the greatest avidity. He began, of course, by reading the descriptions of battles. All boys do so. But gradually his interest in such exciting events extended to the actors in them, and again to the causes that led to them, and at length the books were read from the preface to the end. The conversations between the uncle and nephew were far from exercising a good influence over the boy. If Willard related some daring deed from the life of Charles XII. or of the great Napoleon--his own especial hero--his uncle Henry would match it with some equally striking, if less civilized adventure in the forest or upon the river, in which he or some of his whilom associates had played the principal part. All this was, to a certain extent, calculated to unsettle the lad's mind for the common, routine duties of a useful existence. Fortunately, however, at about the time that it began to produce that effect, another opposite and more powerful influence was brought to bear upon him which changed the current of his ambition, and turned his attention to matters less exciting in their character, but destined to exert a much greater influence over his future life. I allude to his association with his teacher, Allen Wight.