One of my pets, after plying her mother with about forty questions, wound up with, "Mother, how does the devil's darning needle sleep?
Does he lie down on a twig or hang, or how ?" "I don't know, dear." "Why, mother, it is surprising when you have lived so many years, that you know so little!" Mr.Higginson told an absurd story of an inquisitive child and wearied mother in the cars passing the various Newtons, near Boston.

At last the limit.

"Ma, why do they call this West Newton ?" "Oh, I suppose for fun." Silence for a few minutes, then, "Ma, what _was_ the fun in calling it West Newton ?" I began Latin at eight years--my first book a yellow paper primer.
I was always interested in chickens, and dosed all the indisposed as: Dandy Dick Was very sick, I gave him red pepper And soon he was better.
In spring, I remember the humming of our bees around the sawdust, and my craze for flower seeds and a garden of my own.
Father had a phenomenal memory; he could recite in his classroom pages of Scott's novels, which he had not read since early youth.

He had no intention of allowing my memory to grow flabby from lack of use.

I often repeat a verse he asked me to commit to memory: In reading authors, when you find Bright passages that strike your mind, And which perhaps you may have reason To think on at another season; Be not contented with the sight, But jot them down in black and white; Such respect is wisely shown As makes another's thought your own.
Every day at the supper table I had to repeat some poetry or prose and on Sunday a hymn, some of which were rather depressing to a young person, as: Life is but a winter's day; A journey to the tomb.
And the vivid description of "Dies Irae": When shrivelling like a parched scroll The flaming heavens together roll And louder yet and yet more dread Swells the high Trump that wakes the dead.
Great attention was given to my lessons in elocution from the best instructors then known, and I had the privilege of studying with William Russell, one of the first exponents of that art.