CHAPTER XI.

W

AT A BOARDING SCHOOL.

HEN only nine years old, little Azro was placed in a private boarding house in Chelsea village for the purpose of attending the high school there. Among the different branches of study given him was that of English Grammar. In a few weeks he had committed to memory and recited to his teacher the entire contents of his grammar book, a text book prepared by Prof. Rufus Nutting, at that time the Principal of Randolph. Vt., Academy. The teacher of the high school had not taken much pains to explain the rules laid down in the grammar book; but one day, while visiting home, the mother, who was a good grammarian for those days, gave the lad some lessons in parsing, and showed him the relations. which words composing a sentence bore to each other. When required to apply the rules which he had memorized, he at once saw their application, and from that time ever afterwards he was fond of the study and became an excellent grammarian. Usually, with most students, grammar is a dry, dull study, and is generally disliked by new beginners. Not so with Azro. He was delighted whenever the grammar class was called for recitation or for exercises in parsing.

CHAPTER XII.

N

A YOUNG FARMER.

OTWITHSTANDING his love of books, Azro took much interest in the work upon his father's farm. During the absence of his father from home he would take with him his younger brothers, George and Daniel, and go over the farm putting up and repairing the fences. He felt afterward amply compensated on overhearing his father praise his work to his mother. On other occasions when not a dozen years old, in the absence of his father, he would yoke the oxen and engage in plowing a patch of ground for potatoes or corn, of which he was sometimes allowed a small per cent. Just so was it in the care of stock -the sheep and lambs, the cows and calves, the colts, pigs, &c. Still there was a wide difference in the tastes manifested by him and his brothers. On stormy days, when out-door work was suspended, he would be found in some retired place engaged in the study of books and papers, while one brother would be at the barn busy with breaking colts and steers, and another would be in the workshop manufacturing trucks or sleds. But if the mother desired work done in the garden, or anything particularly mechanical, where taste and care were required, Azro was usually called upon to do it, in preference to either of the other boys.

CHAPTER XIII.

Ө

THE SCRIBNER FAMILY.

N a neighboring farm, some two miles distant from the Hildreths, lived a family named Scribner, having five sons and five daughters. The father was a profane, drinking man, and all were deficient in education. But among these children was one son who, at the age of twenty years, decided that he would have an education and do something and be somebody in the world. His name was John Marstin Scribner. On rainy days, when the men could not work on the farm, this young man was in the habit of visiting Azro Hildreth, then ten years old, for the purpose of being instructed by him in English grammar. This young Scribner subsequently graduated from Union College at Schenectady, then took a theological course, married the daughter of a Mohawk Dutchman, and was settled over a Dutch Reformed Church in Rochester, N. Y. He was the author of several scientific works, such as Civil Engineering, &c., by Rev. J. M. Scribner. On one occasion he rendered a special favor to his old-time friend, Hildreth, which will be explained hereafter.

CHAPTER XIV.

F

VARIOUS UNDERTAKINGS.

OR several years young, Hildreth was accustomed to teach school in the winter season. and in the spring and summer render his father what assistance he could upon the farm. The woodpile was to be chopped, and the fire-wood for the summer prepared and piled up in the woodshed. Then there was that more delightful work of making maple sugar which must not be omitted. as this was to supply the family mainly with sweets for the coming year. After the more pressing work of the season was over, such as haying and harvesting, Azro was allowed to attend a neighboring academy during the fall term, preparatory to teaching school in the winter. On certain occasions, after closing his winter school, he would teach a writing school for a few weekssometimes in Vermont, and sometimes in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Among Azro's favorite school teachers was a young man named Washington A. Bacon, who was also a farmer's son, raised in the neighboring town of Washington. He was wide awake, energetic. ambitious, and possessed a remarkably happy fac

ulty for imparting instruction to his pupils. Under his tuition young Azro made excellent progress and a warm friendship sprang up between them.

This Mr. Bacon, filled with the spirit of adventure, left the paternal roof and migrated to the then far West, traveling by the way of the Erie Canal and the Lakes. He visited Fort Mackinac, where the Government maintained quite a large garrison of soldiers, and was there engaged to open a school for the instruction of children of the officers and soldiers stationed there. Subsequently he fixed upon Detroit as his permanent home and made school teaching the principal business of his life.

In the fall and winter of 1835-6 Mr. Bacon visited Vermont for the purpose of procuring a wife and installing her in his contemplated home in Detroit. It was at this time that Mr. Bacon had several interviews with young Azro's father, and the result was that consent was obtained to allow the son to accompany him and his new wife to the West, with the intention of placing him in a school, if not at Mackanac then in Detroit. The arrangement was that young Hildreth should proceed to Albany, N. Y., where he had a friend. whom he wished to visit, and that Mr. Bacon with his bride would join him there and take him along with them. But this arrangement was never ful

filled.

For some reason Mr. Bacon was delayed in Vermont three or four weeks, and Mr. Hildreth, fail