The Crayon Papers | Page 2

It was a venerable mansion, half villa, half farmhouse.
The oldest part was of stone, with loop-holes for musketry, having
served as a family fortress in the time of the Indians. To this there had
been made various additions, some of brick, some of wood, according
to the exigencies of the moment; so that it was full of nooks and crooks,
and chambers of all sorts and sizes. It was buried among willows, elms,
and cherry trees, and surrounded with roses and hollyhocks, with
honeysuckle and sweetbrier clambering about every window. A brood
of hereditary pigeons sunned themselves upon the roof; hereditary
swallows and martins built about the eaves and chimneys; and

hereditary bees hummed about the flower-beds.
Under the influence of our story-books every object around us now
assumed a new character, and a charmed interest. The wild flowers
were no longer the mere ornaments of the fields, or the resorts of the
toilful bee; they were the lurking-places of fairies. We would watch the
humming-bird, as it hovered around the trumpet creeper at our porch,
and the butterfly as it flitted up into the blue air, above the sunny
tree-tops, and fancy them some of the tiny beings from fairyland. I
would call to mind all that I had read of Robin Goodfellow and his
power of transformation. Oh, how I envied him that power! How I
longed to be able to compress my form into utter littleness; to ride the
bold dragonfly; swing on the tall bearded grass; follow the ant into his
subterraneous habitation, or dive into the cavernous depths of the
honeysuckle!
While I was yet a mere child I was sent to a daily school, about two
miles distant. The schoolhouse was on the edge of a wood, close by a
brook overhung with birches, alders, and dwarf willows. We of the
school who lived at some distance came with our dinners put up in little
baskets. In the intervals of school hours we would gather round a
spring, under a tuft of hazel-bushes, and have a kind of picnic;
interchanging the rustic dainties with which our provident mothers had
fitted us out. Then, when our joyous repast was over, and my
companions were disposed for play, I would draw forth one of my
cherished story-books, stretch myself on the green sward, and soon lose
myself in its bewitching contents.
I became an oracle among my schoolmates on account of my superior
erudition, and soon imparted to them the contagion of my infected
fancy. Often in the evening, after school hours, we would sit on the
trunk of some fallen tree in the woods, and vie with each other in
telling extravagant stories, until the whip-poor-will began his nightly
moaning, and the fireflies sparkled in the gloom. Then came the
perilous journey homeward. What delight we would take in getting up
wanton panics in some dusky part of the wood; scampering like
frightened deer; pausing to take breath; renewing the panic, and

scampering off again, wild with fictitious terror!
Our greatest trial was to pass a dark, lonely pool, covered with
pond-lilies, peopled with bullfrogs and water snakes, and haunted by
two white cranes. Oh! the terrors of that pond! How our little hearts
would beat as we approached it; what fearful glances we would throw
around! And if by chance a plash of a wild duck, or the guttural twang
of a bullfrog, struck our ears, as we stole quietly by--away we sped, nor
paused until completely out of the woods. Then, when I reached home,
what a world of adventures and imaginary terrors would I have to relate
to my sister Sophy!
As I advanced in years, this turn of mind increased upon me, and
became more confirmed. I abandoned myself to the impulses of a
romantic imagination, which controlled my studies, and gave a bias to
all my habits. My father observed me continually with a book in my
hand, and satisfied himself that I was a profound student; but what
were my studies? Works of fiction; tales of chivalry; voyages of
discovery; travels in the East; everything, in short, that partook of
adventure and romance. I well remember with what zest I entered upon
that part of my studies which treated of the heathen mythology, and
particularly of the sylvan deities. Then indeed my school books became
dear to me. The neighborhood was well calculated to foster the reveries
of a mind like mine. It abounded with solitary retreats, wild streams,
solemn forests, and silent valleys. I would ramble about for a whole
day with a volume of Ovid's Metamorphoses in my pocket, and work
myself into a kind of self-delusion, so as to identify the surrounding
scenes with those of which I had just been reading. I would loiter about
a