Childrens Stories in American Literature 1861 1896

der over its fields and hills and hear in the neighboring forests the cries of the wolves and bears which made their home there. The Warner family belonged to the farmer race, which at that time made up the larger part of New England life. The father was a man of fine tastes, having a good library and being in frequent correspondence with people in various parts of the country who were interested in the public questions of the day. But while Charles was still a very young child his father died, and the family was broken up for some years. The boy was taken to the home of an aunt, who owned a homestead on the Deerfield River, and it is here that his first recollections centre. The lad's first school was in one of those little school-houses which have been described in the verses of Whittier and Bryant, and his life may in every respect be said to have corresponded to that so lovingly portrayed in " The Barefoot Boy." This life makes a boy healthful and manly, and the close communion with nature fosters those poetic impressions to which the young mind is so susceptible. Warner was happy in the care of his aunt and an older cousin, but there was one great drawback to this otherwise contented life. At the Deerfield farm-house there were no books except the Bible and one or two religious works, and to a book-loving boy this was a great deprivation. The family held to the strict observance of the New England Sabbath, which extended from six o'clock on Saturday eve...