Save when in the school I had never been permitted to associate with other boys, but was kept in the house, and up to my sixteenth year hardly dreamed there was evil in the world. I was told much about the "wicked," but thought that meant those who smoked tobacco or drank whisky. I hardly thought any women came under that category, but if any, then it must mean those who came around selling apples and oranges. The reader will see that when once away from the shelter of home, in threading the world's devious ways, I would be crossing the roaring torrent "on the perilous footing of a spear," all but certain to fall into the flood beneath.
During my last year at school and for a long time after leaving it, my father and mother were never tired of talking about my good education. Possibly they were not very good judges, but I am confident that they, after all, did not realize the importance of a boy being well equipped in that regard. Their thoughts and minds were so bent on the other world, and things unseen bulked so hugely on their mental vision, that there was small space left for things of this earth. They, good, simple souls, were made for and ought to have lived in the Golden Age, when all men were brave and all women true, where neighborly eyes reflected the love and faith within; but in our utilitarian days they were sadly out of place, and little wonder if they had lost their way in this world.
In their intense longing for the life beyond the grave, their passionate desire to walk the streets of gold, they, by their actions, seemed to forget that we were on this earth, and that we were here with many sharp reminders of the fact.
The same guilelessness was manifested in their choice of our home reading. The books I was allowed access to in the house were "The Life of King David," "The History of Jerusalem," "Baxter's Saints' Rest," "The Immortal Dreamer's Pilgrim" and Fox's "Book of Martyrs." His first martyr is Stephen, and such was my gross ignorance of history that I always supposed Stephen had been martyred by the Church of Rome. Here was mental food for a boy who had his own way to make in the world.
A HOME CHRISTMAS DINNER VS. IN A CELL. "WHERE IS OUR WANDERING BOY TO-NIGHT?"
Craving other mental food than "The Life of David," I used to club pennies with a chum and buy that delectable sheet, "Ned Buntline's Own," then in fear and trembling would creep to an upper room and read "The Haunted House" or "The Ghost of Castle Ivy" until my hair stood on end in a sort of ecstatic horror; or the stirring adventures of "Jack the Rover" or "Pirate Chief" until my brain took fire and a mighty impulse stirred every fibre impelling me to follow in their footsteps.
I had remained idly at home for some six months after my release from school, when one night my father returned from New York and said: "My son, I have found a situation for you." That was delightful news, and when I went to bed that night I was too excited to sleep.
The future was full of color, red and purple, of course. Happily for me the future in all its black misery was hidden behind those gilded clouds.
So now at sixteen I was about to sail out of harbor, and how equipped!