I sot down to it and leaned my head onto my hand and thought—thought—of how he felt when he wuz a-settin’ at it, and wondered if he had boyish joys or boyish sorrers jest like the rest of children. And if he scribbled poetry when he ort to be studyin’ his rithmetic, and whether old Miss Shakespeare, his ma, sent him off to school happy, with fond words and a kiss, or kinder mad from a spankin’.
To spank Shakespeare! My soul revolted from the thought.
Or whether, while he sot here, he studied his schoolmates and teachers with eyes that must have held some fur-seein’ wisdom in ’em even at that age, or whether his mind wuz all took up with goin’ in a-swimmin’ in the clear waters of Avon, or a-goin’ a huntin’, or a-nuttin’ in his rich neighbor’s woods, Sir Thomas Lucy, who looked down with sech disdain on William when a boy and a young man, and now whose only earthly chance of bein’ held in any remembrance is the fact that he misused Shakespeare.
But then mebby William wuz tryin’, boys are sometimes.
I wondered if while he wuz a-settin’ here where I sot any dreams of Anne Hathaway begun to come into his brain. She must have been about eighteen, allowin’ that William wuz ten; mebby some dreams of the pretty young girl hanted the boy’s vision, edgin’ themselves in between thoughts of play and study. But before long them little dreams wuz a-goin’ to rise up and push every other vision out of his mind.
And then there wuz Shakespeare’s jug, and the old sign of the Falcon—I hated to see ’em.
And some old deeds and documents relatin’ to his father’s property, from John Shackspere and Mary his wyffe, and a deed with Gilbert Shakspere’s autograph on it.
And lots of engravin’s of different places about Stratford, and a great many portraits of Shakespeare.
A great many portraits of Shakespeare.