My only remembrance of a different mode of life centred about the ragged streets of a small New England village, where I had lived in earlier childhood.

Ever since, we had been in the depths of the backwoods; and after my father's accident I became the one upon whom the heavier part of the work fell.

I had truly thrived upon it.

In my hunting-trips, during the dull seasons, I learned many a trick of the forest, and had already borne rifle twice when the widely scattered settlements were called to arms by Indian forays.

There were no schools in that country; indeed, our nearest neighbor was ten miles distant as the crow flies.