We did not get the ambrotypes, in their small, square, black cases, till some weeks subsequently; and I recollect that the entire bill was twelve dollars, also that we all--all except Gram--rode home from the village in very high spirits, as those do who have successfully passed through a perilous ordeal. Gram, indeed, was unable to recover her equanimity till next day. CHAPTER XIV "THERE IS A MAN IN ENGLAND, NAMED DARWIN" It was the following Sunday morning, if I remember aright, that I first heard the name of Charles Darwin and received an intimation as to the now world-famous theory of the origin and descent of mankind. What a singular name Darwin seemed to me, too, the first time I heard it. The Old Squire was a great reader, for a Maine farmer, who as a rule has little time for that, during the summer season. But he always caught a few minutes for his newspapers at breakfast, or dinner, although we did not then take a daily paper. The old gentleman had not received a college education, but he had once attended Fryeburg Academy, at the time Daniel Webster taught there, and afterwards had been a student for two terms at Hebron Academy. Even at the age of sixty-nine he retained a somewhat remarkable thirst for information of all kinds. I remember that he would sit for a whole evening, poring so intently in a volume of Chamber's _Encyclopædia_ as to be hardly aware of what was going on in the room about him. After a manner, too, he kept pretty well posted, not only on events of current history and politics, but of scientific progress. That spring of 1866, he had privately sent to an acquaintance in Portland to procure for him a copy of _The Origin of Species_, then a new book, to which he had seen brief allusions in our weekly newspapers, and concerning which he felt much curiosity. He read it all through, carefully, without saying much, if anything, about it to Gram, or any one else. But Elder Witham found out, somehow, that there was such a book in our house, and his animosity against it was much excited. Before prayers that Sunday morning the Old Squire looked around--though I think he had Addison and Theodora chiefly in mind--and said, "There is a man in England, named Darwin, Charles Darwin, who has written a book, called _The Origin of Species_, of which a great deal begins to be said. This Darwin is a scholarly man and writes modestly. I see that a great many appear to be adopting his views. He holds that man has risen from certain lower animals, somewhat like the monkeys, or apes, and therefore that we are related by descent to these animals, instead of having been created perfect, as the Bible seems to teach.