He was wise in
his generation, and eventually got his reward.
Our schoolmaster gone, we were once more back in the old way; we did
just what we liked. Our parents probably thought that our life would
be on the plains, with sheep and cattle-breeding for only vocations,
and that should any one of us, like my mathematical-minded brother,
take some line of his own, he would find out the way of it for
himself: his own sense, the light of nature, would be his guide. I had
no inclination to do anything with books myself: books were lessons,
therefore repellent, and that any one should read a book for pleasure
was inconceivable. The only attempt to improve our minds at this
period came, oddly enough, from my masterful brother who despised our
babyish intellects - especially mine. However, one day he announced
that he had a grand scheme to put before us. He had heard or read of a
family of boys living just like us in some wild isolated land where
there were no schools or teachers and no newspapers, who amused
themselves by writing a journal of their own, which was issued once a
week. There was a blue pitcher on a shelf in the house, and into this
pitcher every boy dropped his contribution, and one of them - of course
the most intelligent one - carefully went through them, selected the
best, and copied them all out in one large sheet, and this was their
weekly journal called _The Blue Pitcher_, and it was read and enjoyed
by the whole house.
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