The Autobiography of an Idea

so forth and so on. At the end of the reading Grandpa dropped the letter on the floor, burst into volcanic laughter, roaring until the lid of the heater rattled, rocking forward and backward on his chair, clapping himself on the knee, in a series of subsiding outbursts, ending in a long drawn spasmodic chuckle, expressive of his cynical sense of humor, his infinite contempt for those who had eyes and yet saw not. To call his sharp-eyed grandson a dullard! Why, he said, one might as well call Sirius a flapjack, and other joking words to that effect, for he was fond of teasing his grandson, whom he had so long watched out of the corner of his eye. But Grandma, more conservative, took the matter seriously. With her grandson standing at her knees, a bit abashed, a bit afraid, after giving her six propitiatory kisses, his arms about her neck and cheek to cheek, she found it, oh, so hard, to scold him. Instead she told him gently how necessary it was to acquire an education; how necessary to that end that little boys, particularly her own grandson, for the family’s pride, should attend industriously to lessons. Could he not do better, would he not do better? He said he could and would; and all was peace.

Next day, at school, he pitched in, and the next day and the next; shutting out all else. Oh, it was so easy to head this class; so easy for one who knew what the upper grades knew, or thought they knew for a moment or perhaps a day. They knew not that it was all, save a bare remnant, fated to fade away forever. Tired of heading the class, which was so easy, he occasionally, and indeed with increasing frequency fell to zero, because of a lapse, because, perhaps, of a twitching squirrel in a tree nearby the window, or a beautiful white cloud curiously changing shape as it slowly drifted through a beautiful blue sky. And what did it all amount to? What signified it to be at the head of a row of dull-wits? He was becoming arrogant. For Grandma’s sake, he kept on, after a fashion. He was becoming bored.

Summer was waning. The third of September was at hand. Six candles in the cake announced an anniversary. He was overjoyed. He was actually six.

The winter of 1862⁠–⁠3 passed along with its usual train of winter sports and hardships. Louis joined heartily according to his height and weight in all the sports. Of hardships he knew nothing. What fun it was to be drawn on a sled over the snow by his Uncle Julius. To be drawn on the same sled over the dark sheer ice of the pond by Uncle on newly sharpened skates. What thrill of courage it required not to cry out as he shuddered at the darkness below, and wondered whether the pace were not too swift. But Uncle, some fifteen years older than he, was to him a big man; and what could not a big man do? So he had faith in Uncle, if not entire confidence, as they flew here and there among the gay crowd of skaters. How they went way to the end of the pond and then swung back past the ice houses where men were beginning to work! And later on how thrilled and stilled he was by the thunderous boom and tear of an ice crack ripping its way from shore to shore! And many such booms he heard on similar trips in zero weather. And then the men at work cutting ice! How exciting it was to watch men at work. They used large hand saws to cut ice into square blocks and there was one strange saw drawn by a horse. Then men with poles shoved and dragged the ice-blocks through the clear water to the bottom of the runway, and then it was hauled up the runway by a horse that walked away with a rope that ran through a pulley and then back to the ice cake. The ice seemed very thick and clear.

And then came splendid snowstorms, decorating the trees, forming great drifts through which he struggled in exultation, every now and then stumbling and falling with his face in the snow. How he rolled over and over in glee in the snow of a white world, a beautiful world even when the gray skies lowered. And why not? Had he not warm woolen mittens knitted by Grandma, and hood and stockings by the same faithful hands, and “artics”? Was he not all bundled up?

And the sleigh rides. Oh, the sleigh rides in the cutter with the horse looming so high, and the row of bells around the horse’s collar, jangling and tinkling in jerky time. And he so warm under the buffalo robe. And they met so many other sleighs in the village when they went to the post-office or the grocery store, and he noticed so many men walking about clad in buffalo coats. And he made snowballs and did all the minor incidentals. It was his first experience within the pulchritude of a winter in the open. His mother came frequently to see him and caress him. He could hardly understand why she loved him so; he had so many other personal interests and distractions. But he hailed her comings and deplored her departures.

While his name was Louis, he had other names⁠—interesting ones, too. He had not been christened or baptized. The question had called for a family council. The father, a nominal Freemason, not sure whether he was a Catholic or an Orangeman or anything in particular, expressed no serious interest; he would leave it to the rest. Grandpa, as usual, vented his view in scornful laughter. Grandma, a Mennonite, was opposed to baptism. But Mother in her excited way was rampant. What! Would she permit any man to say aloud over the body of her pure and