My father’s was a restless temperament; as far back as I can remember, our family life was diversified by frequent “movings.” “Green Peace”, our own home, was only five minutes’ walk from the Institution in which we lived part of the time; in these early days I am trying to recall, we moved perhaps every six months from one habitat to the other. There was, besides, the regular hegira to our summer home, Lawton’s Valley, in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. At that time few Boston people moved out of town before July. I can date our own summer flitting by the fact that it immediately followed the Fourth. I find a confusion of the most exquisite memories connected with this day, beginning with an early waking to the sound of bells, whistles, guns, and firecrackers. The bells were our own South Boston bells; the guns, from Fort Independence, which we felt in some special sense belonged to us. Next comes a dim memory of the procession of the “Antiques and Horribles” and the dreadful fright produced by those grotesque masks. I was allowed all the torpedoes I wanted, but forbidden firecrackers--vainly forbidden, alas! I have the feel of them yet in my fingers--those small, furry scarlet crackers with their white string fuses--and smell the good acrid smell of the gunpowder, as they popped, popped, in those early morning hours, when Papa was taking his ride, and Mama slept beside the baby that had kept her awake till all hours. After these early adventures of the pearly dawn came scorching midday hours on the wide yellow sanded paths of Boston Common. Here we bought bunches of fragrant water lilies, holding their long cool stems in our hot little hands, as we stood watching the parade of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. The drum major struts like a glorified turkey cock, swinging his great staff. The band! Oh! the band! How our spirits rise to the crisp notes of “Yankee Doodle”; how our hearts melt within us as the gay tune changes to a minor air: We are tenting to-night on the old camp ground, give us a song to cheer, Tenting to-night, tenting to-night, tenting on the old camp ground! It is afternoon. We have moved with the crowd to the lower end of the Common, just above the old cow path, where men I have known remember driving their fathers’ cattle along the way now called “Charles Street.” The balloon ascension is set for five o’clock; we are in good time, together with hundreds of other eager spectators. We catch our breath as the immense pink silk globe, in its coffee-colored network, sways above our heads, the daring aëronaut striking an attitude in the car, a straw basket which hangs four or five feet below. “He’s off!”