THE

CHAPTER III.

BOYHOOD.

HE Bowles family formed a hard-working, frugal household; united by a deep but undemonstrative affection; pushing on with slow steps and sure grip to moderate prosperity; sincerely and decently pious; with little of recreation or social enjoyment.) Their home was in a modest two-story frame house, on the north corner of Union and School streets. The oldest son was born in an earlier residence, known afterward as the "Osgood house," near the corner of Main and Howard streets. The family consisted of father, mother, four children, and several apprentices. Sam shared his bed with the youngest apprentice, Chauncey White, who afterward became his foreman, and two other apprentices had their bed in the same room. The day began with breakfast at six o'clock, the year round, and at seven the master and apprentices were at work; doing a general printing business in addition to the newspaper. The mistress of the household had a potent voice in all her husband's affairs. She was a woman of plain exterior, of quiet and prim manners, under which lay energy and spirit; even-tempered; with quicker, more incisive mind than that of her husband, and greater force of cha.act and vill; practical rather than intellectual in

her tastes; of decided religious character; a good wife and good mother. "She was smart as a whip," says an apprentice of those days; "she knew as much of the office as her husband did." Of the two parents it was the mother to whom the son bore more intellectual likeness. But it was the common remark in later years that Sam Bowles was not like his parents,-was not like anybody but himself. In his boyhood he seems to have given no indication of anything remarkable in mind or character, nothing in any way salient or striking. He was a good boy, not wayward, not infected with any vice; obedient, in the fashion of those days when obedience was the first element of family training; making friendships with other boys, some of which-with David A. Wells, Charles O. Chapin, F. H. Harris, and otherslasted through a life-time; given to admiration of one girlish charmer after another, for the village boys and girls met freely in the wholesome American way; with little relish for boyish sports, but a marked fondness, when he did take part, for being leader and captain; with no aptitude or inclination for manual work; as a student, faithful, rather slow in acquisition, but retentive of what was once learned.

He went to the public high school, taught by Dr. Vail, and afterward, at the age of thirteen or perhaps earlier, to the private school of Mr. George Eaton, which he attended for several years, completing there his school education. Mr. Eaton is remembered by his old pupils with high regard. His scholars, boys and girls, were mostly from Unitarian families in Springfield. Young Sam Bowles, in addition to the usual English studies, made some progress in Latin, and read portions of Cæsar, Virgil, and Cicero. He wished to go to college, and had Mr. Eaton's sympathy and encouragement in that desire, but his father did not approve of the project and it

was not carried out. In later years Mr. Bowles was wont to speak of this as a severe disappointment, and the want of a college training was a life-long regret to him.

The father's first purpose was that his oldest son should learn the printer's trade, just as he had done; but he was sometimes discouraged, and feared the boy would never succeed, because he had so little skill with his hands. If a kite was to be made, or so much as a nail driven, his younger sister was apt to be called to his help. To the end of his life, his hands-long, pale, delicate - had a look of helplessness. He did once go into the printingroom for the purpose of regularly learning its art and mystery; but a few hours of type-setting was enough for him, and he left at the end of the first half-day. At odd times he picked up, after a fashion, the mechanical part of the business, but never so far as to have any expertness in it.

The Yankee boy of those times was wont to have a regular set of "chores" to do, such as cutting and bringing in wood, making fires, and the like. But where there were apprentices in the family, custom assigned this work to the youngest of them; so Sam escaped these labors, except when his father especially allotted to him a piece of manual work, and even then he could sometimes coax one of his companions to act as substitute. Yet he was trained in various ways, as a boy in those days could hardly fail to be, "to make himself useful." He drove the cows to and from their pasture, carried the Weekly Republican to a round of subscribers, and had more or less outdoor and indoor work to do. One summer, when he was perhaps fifteen, his father put him in charge of the garden, and he kept it in trimmest condition, disciplining the other children if they let a paper or a wisp of straw lie in the paths. He was very neat in VOL. I.-2

his person and clothes, not solicitous about the style and fit of his garments, but fastidious as to their condition, showing in this respect a delicacy and daintiness which was characteristic of him through life.

Mr. Eaton was in the habit of taking his scholars once a week on a ramble in the woods. The favorite resort was Blake's Woods, a noble pine forest near the town, of which a sadly reduced remnant yet lingers as one of the chief ornaments of the place. Here the teacher, enthusiastic and sympathetic, gave his pupils one of the finest and most serviceable elements of education, by wakening in them the love of Nature. Some of the boys, Sam Bowles among them, used to make up parties to bring flowers from the more distant woods and swamps. He was in those days shooting up fast into a tall, slender boy; carrying his head a little projected forward, as was also his father's habit; finding companions and favorites among the girls that visited his sisters; spending his time in school, in the family, a little in his father's office, and sometimes in evening gatherings of the young folks at each other's houses. He was never an adept at skating, ball-playing, and such boyish exercises, nor very fond of them. His comrades had hard work to coax him out to join them in coasting down the long hills near by; or if he kept them company for once in the thrilling swift descent, the long upward trudge was so little to his liking that he soon returned to the house. No doubt this distaste for hardy sports was partly due to some want of physical vigor; for though his health as a boy was fairly good, it was never robust; there was no surplus or overflow of vitality. His favorite occupation was reading. The house had a good supply of what was then considered classic English literature, classic American literature being yet in its early beginnings, but it was not these solid volumes that attracted the boy so much as the newspapers and

magazines, with occasionally a new book, that came into his father's office. "Over these he would pore so deeply," says an old associate, "that sometimes you might speak to him half a dozen times and he would not know it." In his last sickness, Mr. Bowles said to a friend, in reviewing his busy life, "I was never much of a boy,—I had very little boyhood." The sobriety of the community and the household, with a want of full vitality and animal spirits, made his early years somewhat colorless. The first strong wakening of life came with the call to manly work.