Prof. Alexander Agassiz taught in his father’s school. I remember him in those days as a handsome, rather melancholy-looking young man who was suspected of being afraid of the biggest girls. Not long afterward he married one of them, Miss Anna Russell, daughter of my father’s old chum, George Russell. Prof. Alexander Agassiz was much more reserved and grave than his father, whose genial temperament was full of warmth and sunshine. Occasionally he also gave us a lecture.
During many years of his life, Louis Agassiz worked through a great part of the night, sleeping very late in the morning. It is said that one Sunday morning Mrs. Agassiz, while dressing for church, suddenly called out, “Agassiz! there is a snake in my boot!” To which the Professor drowsily replied, “I wonder where the others are!”
I remember a lecture where he showed us an orange to represent a sea-urchin. With a sudden movement he opened the fruit, which we then saw had been cut, into the form of a starfish, thus showing the relationship between the two types of creatures, and the audience burst into applause.
In 1859 our parents made a visit to the West Indies which our mother described in A Trip to Cuba. We children stayed with various relatives and friends, Mrs. Charles H. Dorr, at that time living in Jamaica Plain, hospitably receiving me. I thus came to know the young girls living in that pleasant suburb, and to attend the school of Miss Lucia M. Peabody. The double attraction was so strong that I was willing to take the trip of some six miles daily, for more than three years, walking from South Boston to the Jamaica Plain horse-car in Boston.
Miss Peabody not only loved study herself, but made it attractive to others. She was an excellent teacher, to whom I owe much gratitude.
If it had not been for Charlotte Bowditch, I should have been the first scholar in arithmetic. But Charlotte, who was a granddaughter or great-niece of the famous navigator, was hopelessly ahead of us all. This was an excellent thing for my vanity.
Among my school memories is that of a very extraordinary dictionary belonging to one of my friends. The learned German—he must have been a German—who compiled it had evidently been imposed upon by some wag. Thus the synonyms for “to die” were given as “to kick the bucket,” “to hop the twig,” “to go to Davy Jones’s locker.” I do not think the book was vicious, but it abounded in slang. Perhaps it was prepared for the use of sailors in foreign ports!
Our physical culture began early. We learned to swim without especial instruction, each one of us following out his or her own ideas, brother Harry keeping his head under water, sister Julia paddling dog-fashion, I swimming on my back.
We learned to ride very young, beginning with José, a little Spanish donkey presented to us by Albert Sumner, a brother of Charles. He had been for some years the mount of Mr. Sumner’s daughter Kate, and was an animal of high character. In his letter of introduction Mr. Sumner duly sets forth José’s many excellent traits, mentioning also that as he came from Barbary he must be a pure Barb! He was a gentle animal, but possessed of the amiable determination characteristic of his species. He never bit, kicked, nor scratched, but he was a person of dignity and his movements were marked by great deliberation. The only way in which we could coax him out of a walk was to run before him, holding out a piece of bread. This soon became fatiguing to the advance courier.
When we had a children’s party, he was brought out for the entertainment of the visitors. José did not like to have strange children on his back, and could tell at once when the reins were in the hands of an inexperienced rider. In this case he would turn toward the fence, putting his head and forefeet under the lowest board. He thus obliged the child either to dismount or to come in contact with the fence. Sometimes he would vary the proceedings by running to the barn.