if i were to pick out the happiest time of my life, i should name the first few days of the summer vacation after the district school was out.

in those few rare days all thoughts of restraint were thrown away. for months we had been compelled to get up at a certain time in the morning, do our tasks, and then go to school. every hour of the day had been laid out with the precision of the clock, and each one had its work to do. day after day, and week after week, the steady grind went on, until captivity almost seemed our natural state. it was hard enough through the long fall and winter months and in the early spring; but when the warm days came on, and the sun rose high and hot and stayed in the heavens until late at night, when the grass had spread over all the fields and the leaves had covered all the 255twigs and boughs until each tree was one big spot of green, when the birds sang on the branches right under the schoolhouse eaves, and the lazy bee flew droning in through the open door, then the schoolhouse prison was more than any boy could stand.

in the first few days of vacation our freedom was wholly unrestrained. we chased the squirrels and chipmunks into the thickest portions of the woods; we roamed across the fields with the cattle and the sheep; we followed the devious ways of the winding creek, clear to where it joined the river far down below the covered bridge; we looked into every fishing-pool and swimming-hole, and laid our plans for the summer campaign of sports just coming on; we circled the edges of the pond, and lay down on our backs under the shade of the willow-trees and looked up at the chasing clouds, while we listened to the water falling on the wheel and the dozy hum of the grinding mill. in short, we were free children once again, left to roam the fields and woods to suit our whims and wills.

but even our liberty grew monotonous in a little while, as all things will to the very young,—and, for that matter, to the very old, or to anyone who has the chance to gain freedom and monotony. so in a short time we thought we were ready to do some work. we wished to work; for this was new, and therefore not work but play.

when i told my father of my desire to work, he seemed much pleased, and took me to the mill. but i noticed that as we left the house he put a small thin book in the pocket of his coat. later in the day, i found that this was a latin grammar, and that he had really taken me to the mill to study latin instead of work. i protested that i did not want to study latin; that i wished to work; that school was out, and our vacation-time had come; and that i had studied quite enough until the fall term should begin. but my father insisted that i ought to study at least a portion of the day, and that i really should be making some progress in my latin grammar. of course the district school did not teach latin; the teacher knew nothing about latin, and, indeed, that study did not belong to district school.

i argued long with my father about the latin, and begged and protested and cried; 257but it was all of no avail. i can see him now, as he gravely stood by the high white dusty desk in the little office of the mill. inside the desk were the account-books that were supposed to record the small transactions of the mill; but these were rarely used. the toll was taken from the hopper, and that was all that was required. even the small amount of book-keeping necessary for the mill, my father scarcely did,—for on the desk and inside were other books more important far to him than the ones which told only of the balancing of accounts.

my father stands beside the dusty desk with the latin grammar in his hand, and tells me what great service it will be to me in future years if i learn the latin tongue. and then he tells me how great my advantages are compared with his, and how much he could have done if only his father had been able to teach him latin while he was yet a child. in vain i say that i do not want to be a scholar; that i never shall have any use for latin; that it is spoken only by foreigners, anyhow, and they will never come to farmington, and i shall never go to visit them. i ask my father if 258he has ever seen a latin, much less talked with one; and when he tells me that the language has been dead for a thousand years, i feel still more certain that i am right. but he persists that i cannot be a scholar unless i master latin.

it was of no avail to argue with my father; for fathers only argue through courtesy, and when the proper time comes round they cease the argument and say the thing must be done. and so, against my judgment and my will, i climbed upon the high stool in the little office and opened the latin grammar, while the old miller bent over my shoulder and taught me my first lesson.

can i ever forget the time i began to study latin? outside of the little door stands the hopper full of grain; a tiny stream is running down the centre, like the sands in an hourglass, and slowly and inevitably each kernel is ground fine between the great turning stones. all around, on every bag and bin and chute, on every piece of furniture and on the floor, lies the thick white dust that rises from the new-ground flour. outside the windows i can see the water running down the mill-race and 259through the flume, before it tumbles on the wheel. the hopper is filled with grain, the wheat is tolled, the water keeps falling over the great wheel, the noise of the turning stones and moving pulleys fills the air with a constant whir. my father leaves the mill at its work, comes into the little office, shuts the door, and tells me that mensa is the latin word for “table.” this is more important to him than the need of rain, or the growing wheat, or the low water in the pond. then he tells me how many different cases the latin language had, and exactly how the romans spoke the word for “table” in every case; and he bids me decline mensa after him. slowly and painfully i learn mensa, mensæ, mensæ, mensam, mensa, mensa, and after this i must learn the plural too. and so with the whirring of the mill is mingled my father’s voice, saying slowly over and over again, “mensa, mensæ, mensæ, mensam, mensa, mensa.” i stammer and stutter, and cry and mutter, and think, until i can scarcely distinguish between the whirring of the mill and the measured tones of my father’s voice repeating the various cases of the wondrous latin word.

sometimes he lets me leave my lesson and 260go to the great pile of cobs that fall from the corn-sheller, and go over these to take off the kernels that the sheller left. but in a little while my hands are so red and sore that i am glad to go back to my latin word again. then he lets me cut the weeds along the edges of the mill-race; but the constant stooping hurts my back, and the sun is hot, and this, too, soon grows to be like work, and no easier than sitting on the high stool with the latin grammar in my hand. now and then a farmer drives up to the mill with his team of horses or slow heavy oxen, and i try to make myself useful in helping him to unload the grain. this is easier than shelling corn or cutting weeds or learning latin; for it is only a little time until the farmer is gone, and then perhaps another takes his place. somehow i never want these farmers or the boys to know that i am studying latin at the mill, for they would wonder why my father made me study latin, and what he could possibly see in me to make him think it worth the while. i wondered, too, when i was young; i could not understand why he should make me study it, as if his life and mine depended on the latin that i learned. surely 261he knew that i did not like latin, and at best learned it slowly and with the greatest pains, and there was little promise in the efforts that he made in my behalf.

i could not then know why my father took all this trouble for me to learn my grammar; but i know to-day. i know that, all unconsciously, it was the blind persistent effort of the parent to resurrect his own buried hopes and dead ambitions in the greater opportunities and broader life that he would give his child. poor man! i trust the lingering spark of hope for me never left his bosom while he lived, and that he died unconscious that the son on whom he lavished so much precious time and care never learned latin after all, and never could.

but still, all unconsciously, i did learn something from my lessons at the mill. from the little latin grammar my father passed to the roman people, to their struggles and conquests, their triumphs and decline, to the civilization that has ever hovered around the mediterranean sea. he, alas! had scarce ever gone outside the walls of farmington, and had seldom done as much as to peep over the high hills that held the little narrow valley in its 262place. but through his precious books and his still more precious dreams he had sailed the length and breadth of the mediterranean sea,—and though since then i have stood upon the deck of a ship that skims along between the blue waters below and the soft blue sky above, and have looked off at the sloping, fertile uplands to the high mountain-tops of italy, and even over to africa on the other side, still my roman empire will ever be the mighty kingdom of which my father talked, and my mediterranean that far-off blue sea of which he told when he tried so hard to make me study latin in the little office of the mill; and ever and ever the soft murmur of the blue white-crested waves crawling up the long italian beach will be mingled with the lazy whir of the turning stones and my father’s gentle eager voice.

the dust and mould of many ages lie over cæsar and virgil and horace and ovid. the great empire of the roman world long since passed to ruin and decay. the waves of the blue mediterranean have sung their requiem over this mighty mistress of the sea, and many others, great and small, since then. the latin 263tongue lives only as a memory of the language of these once proud conquerors of a world. and no less dead and past are the turning wheel, the groaning mill, the crumbling dam, and the kindly voice that told me of the wonders of the roman world. and as my mind goes back to the latin grammar and the little dusty office in the mill, i cannot suppress the longing hope that somewhere out beyond the stars my patient father has found a haven where they still can speak the latin tongue, and where he comes nearer to cæsar and virgil and ovid and to the blue mediterranean sea than while the high hills and stern conditions of his life kept him busy grinding corn. at all events, i am sure that when my ears are dulled to all earthly sounds, i shall fancy that i hear the falling water and the turning wheel and the groaning mill, and with them the long-silenced voice repeating, in grave, almost religious tones,—

mensa, mensæ, mensæ, mensam, mensa, mensa.