The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac | Page 7

This child was the great-great-granddaughter of Benjamin Waite,
whose family was carried off by Indians in 1677. Benjamin followed
the party to Canada, and after many months of search found and
ransomed the captives.
The historian has properly said that the names of Benjamin Waite and
his companion in their perilous journey through the wilderness to
Canada should ``be memorable in all the sad or happy homes of this
Connecticut valley forever.'' The child who was my friend in youth, and
to whom I may allude occasionally hereafter in my narrative, bore the
name of one of the survivors of this Indian outrage, a name to be
revered as a remembrancer of sacrifice and heroism.

II
THE BIRTH OF A NEW PASSION
When I was thirteen years old I went to visit my Uncle Cephas. My
grandmother would not have parted with me even for that fortnight had
she not actually been compelled to. It happened that she was called to a
meeting of the American Tract Society, and it was her intention to pay
a visit to her cousin, Royall Eastman, after she had discharged the first
and imperative duty she owed the society. Mrs. Deacon Ranney was to
have taken me and provided for my temporal and spiritual wants during
grandmother's absence, but at the last moment the deacon came down
with one of his spells of quinsy, and no other alternative remained but
to pack me off to Nashua, where my Uncle Cephas lived.
This involved considerable expense, for the stage fare was three
shillings each way: it came particularly hard on grandmother. inasmuch
as she had just paid her road tax and had not yet received her
semi-annual dividends on her Fitchburg Railway stock. Indifferent,
however, to every sense of extravagance and to all other considerations
except those of personal pride, I rode away atop of the stage-coach, full
of exultation. As we rattled past the Waite house I waved my cap to
Captivity and indulged in the pleasing hope that she would be
lonesome without me. Much of the satisfaction of going away arises
from the thought that those you leave behind are likely to be
wretchedly miserable during your absence.

My Uncle Cephas lived in a house so very different from my
grandmother's that it took me some time to get used to the place. Uncle
Cephas was a lawyer, and his style of living was not at all like
grandmother's; he was to have been a minister, but at twelve years of
age he attended the county fair, and that incident seemed to change the
whole bent of his life. At twenty-one he married Samantha Talbott, and
that was another blow to grandmother, who always declared that the
Talbotts were a shiftless lot. However, I was agreeably impressed with
Uncle Cephas and Aunt 'Manthy, for they welcomed me very cordially
and turned me over to my little cousins, Mary and Henry, and bade us
three make merry to the best of our ability. These first favorable
impressions of my uncle's family were confirmed when I discovered
that for supper we had hot biscuit and dried beef warmed up in cream
gravy, a diet which, with all due respect to grandmother, I considered
much more desirable than dry bread and dried- apple sauce.
Aha, old Crusoe! I see thee now in yonder case smiling out upon me as
cheerily as thou didst smile those many years ago when to a little boy
thou broughtest the message of Romance! And I do love thee still, and I
shall always love thee, not only for thy benefaction in those ancient
days, but also for the light and the cheer which thy genius brings to all
ages and conditions of humanity.
My Uncle Cephas's library was stored with a large variety of pleasing
literature. I did not observe a glut of theological publications, and I will
admit that I felt somewhat aggrieved personally when, in answer to my
inquiry, I was told that there was no ``New England Primer'' in the
collection. But this feeling was soon dissipated by the absorbing
interest I took in De Foe's masterpiece, a work unparalleled in the
realm of fiction.
I shall not say that ``Robinson Crusoe'' supplanted the Primer in my
affections; this would not be true. I prefer to say what is the truth; it
was my second love. Here again we behold another advantage which
the lover of books has over the lover of women. If he be a genuine
lover he can and should love any number of books, and this
polybibliophily is not to the disparagement of any one of that number.
But it is held by the expounders of our civil and our moral laws that he
who loveth one woman to the exclusion of