THE SPARE ROOM window. From that time I was never able to regard them as merely inanimate objects. "A washstand in the corner, a chest of mahogany drawers, a looking-glass in a filigreed frame, and a high-backed chair studded with brass nails like a coffin, constituted the furniture. Over the head of the bed were two oak shelves, holding perhaps a dozen books-among which were 'Theodore; or, The Peruvians;' Robinson Crusoe;' an odd volume of 'Tristram Shandy;' Baxter's Saints' Rest,' and a fine English edition of the Arabian Nights,' with six hundred woodcuts by Harvey. . "Shall I ever forget the hour when I first overhauled these books? I do not allude especially to Baxter's 'Saints' Rest,' which is far from being a lively work for the young, but to the Arabian Nights,' and particularly 'Robinson Crusoe.' The thrill that ran into my fingers' ends then has not run out yet. Many a time did I steal up to this nest of a room, and, taking the dog's-eared volume from its shelf, glide off into an enchanted realm, where there were no lessons to get, and no boys to smash my kite. "In a life so tranquil and circumscribed as ours in the Nutter House a visitor was a novelty of no little importance. The whole household awoke from its quietude one morning when the Captain announced that a young niece of his from New York was coming to spend a few weeks with us. "The blue chintz r zroom, into which a ray of sun was never allowed to penetrate, was thrown open and dusted and its moldy air made sweet with a bouquet of pot-roses placed on the oldfashioned bureau. "At the time I came to Rivermouth my grandfather had retired from active pursuits and was living at ease on his money, invested principally in shipping. He had been a widower many years, a maiden sister, the aforesaid Miss Abigail, managing his household. Miss Abigail also managed her brother, and her brother's servant, and the visitor at her brother's gate. "According to Kitty, it was not originally my grandfather's intention to have Miss Abigail at the head of his domestic establishment. She had swooped down on him (Kitty's own words) with a bandbox in one hand and a faded blue cotton umbrella, still in existence, in the other. Clad in this singular garb-I do not remember that Kitty alluded to any additional peculiarity of dressMiss Abigail had made her appearance at the door of the Nutter House on the morning of my grandmother's funeral.. "Miss Abigail had effected many changes in the Nutter House be fore I came there to live; but there was one thing against which she had long contended without being able to overcome-this was the Captain's pipe. On first taking command of the household, she prohibited smoking in the sitting-room, where it had been the old gentleman's custom to take a whiff or two of the fragrant weed after meals. "The edict went forth-and so did the pipe. However, my grandfather humored her in this as in other matters, and smoked by stealth, like a guilty creature, in the barn or about the gardens. That was practicable in summer, but in winter the THE GARRET MISS ABIGAIL'S ROOM Captain was hard put to it. When he could not stand it longer, he retreated to his bedroom and barricaded the door. "I needn't tell a New England boy what a museum of curiosities is the garret of a well-regulated New England house of fifty or sixty years' standing. Here met together, as if by some preconcerted arrangement, all the broken-down chairs of the household, all the spavined tables, all the seedy hats, all the intoxicated-looking boots, all the split walking-sticks that have retired from business, weary with the march of life,' the pots, the pans, the trunks, the bottles-who may hope to make an inventory of the numberless odds and ends collected in this bewildering lumber-room? But what a place it is to sit of an afternoon with the rain pattering on the roof! What a place to read' Gulliver's Travels' or the famous adventures of Rinaldo Rinaldini! In a lidless trunk in the garret I subsequently unearthed another motley collection of novels and romances, embracing the adventures of Baron Trenck, Jack Sheppard, Don Quixote, Gil Blas, and Charlotte Temple-all of which I fed upon like a book-worm. I never come across a copy of any of those works without feeling a certain tenderness for the yellow-haired little rascal who used to lean above the magic pages hour after hour, religiously believing every word he read, and no more doubting the reality of Sinbad the Sailor or the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance than he did the existence of his own grandfather." In the story of the "Nutter House" Mr. Aldrich does not speak of the garden, but he has often told me of the inexhaustible territory of pleasure and play it wasat times swarming with Indians, in am 5 T HE self-educated man of affairs has been widely celebrated in this country; and every American boy knows by the example of a hundred men that the pathway to fortune, influence, and power is open to any one, whatever his educational advantages may have been, who has the patience, industry, and firmness of will to train himself. Very little has been said, however, about self-educated men in art; and yet there have been a number of artists who have conferred distinction upon the country, whose training has been almost entirely self-conducted. Among men of this class is Mr. Franklin Simmons, who has lived so long in Rome and has done his work with such quietness and modesty that, although that work is found in many of the most important cities and commemorates many of our most distinguished men, his reputation has a professional rather than a journalistic quality. Like Mr. Ben Foster in painting and Mrs. Riggs in fiction, Mr. Simmons was born in Maine. In the little town of Webster he attended the public school, and later spent some time at Bates College, Lewiston. His career was determined for him at a very early age by the unmistakable bent of his taste and the equally unmistakable evidence of his ability. As a school-boy his recreation was modeling figures in the clay which he found in the neighborhood; and while he was still a youth a portrait-bust of Dr. Bowditch, HERCULES AND ALCESTIS FRANKLIN SIMMONS of Bowdoin College, showed such knowledge of character and such skill in modeling that it established the young sculptor's local reputation. In the workshop of a sculptor in Boston he found suggestion and stimulus, but he had no regular instruction. It was war-time, and the most critical period. Washington was calling men of all kinds of ability, and Mr. Simmons responded. It was a fortunate moment for an ambitious young sculptor of energy, for there was a large group of interesting and striking subjects awaiting a sculptor's hand, and Mr. Simmons's hands were soon full. He made busts of Generals Grant, Meade, Sheridan, Sherman, Thomas, Hooker, of Admirals Farragut and Porter, and of many other prominent men in the army and navy. His sitters became his friends; and, if he could be induced to write a book of reminiscences, it would be a delightful foot |