At the same early age he became a warm advocate of the Maine liquor law. "Oh," he exclaimed, "I wish father could go all over the world, and spend a Sabbath everywhere, and tell them not to get drunk!"

Besides being the postman of the family, doing much of the marketing, and being always ready to run on errands, he was also a sort of home-missionary. He liked nothing better than to start forth with a basket of books and tracts and find his way into the back streets of the old town. When the boys, who sometimes accosted him as "Deacon Lawrence," had gathered around him, he would distribute his treasures, lending some and giving others, according to his best judgment. One day he came home very earnest in his account of a boy who used profane language. He said he told the boy that if he used bad words it would lead him to smoking and then to drinking, and that the boy promised he would not do so any more.

He was alive to the great questions of the day. In 1854, when the admission of Nebraska as a slave state was under discussion, he was greatly exercised, anxious to learn every new phase. Indeed, he was so much excited that he wrote the following appeal to Congress:

Gentlemen:

Will you please not let the Emmabraska bill pass? If you had the slaves, would it make you feel any happier? How should you like to be slaves, and to be beaten? Would you like it very well? I, therefore, beg you not to let it pass.

East Windsor Hill.

To Congress.

Edward A. Lawrence, Jr.

CHAPTER II.

BOYHOOD DAYS AT EAST WINDSOR HILL.

Here at the portal thou dost stand,

And with thy little hand

Thou openest the mysterious gate
Into the future's undiscovered land.

-Longfellow.

In the summer of 1854, Eddie's father accepted a professorship in the East Windsor Theological Seminary. While the matter was under consideration, Eddie happened one day, in his prowlings among the old books in the attic, to come across a copy of the Connecticut Blue Laws. He came down with a very serious face, exclaiming, "I don't want to go to Connecticut."

"Why not?"

"Because, if we go, I can't kiss Anna, Sundays."

In the preparations for removal, he was busy from morning till night. From an account of this great event, written at his dictation, a few extracts follow:

I had long been wanting to live in the country and now my great desire is granted. I had lived in a town with 5,000 inhabitants. I am now living in a country named East Windsor Hill, containing, I guess, about 3,000. We did not have half so much time as we should like to have had to say good-bye to our friends at Marblehead, but what time we had we made good use of. I had two gold dollars given me and a kite with three tassels on it. I should think it was about a yard and a half long. But it was very troublesome to carry in the cars. We couldn't find a very good place for it, but, however, we found a place. There were father and mother and me and Meggy and Katy and Meta and Clarissa and Kalopothakes and Miss Church. The same night that we got here we went to look at the house and thought it was very pretty indeed. Meta and me ran into the garden and found raspberries and thimble-berries and currants, and then we ran into the fields and found some blackberries and one or two blueberries.

My father, he was invited by the committee to come here and be a professor. It was as much as he could do to leave Marblehead,

he was so attached to his people. For to be a pastor is very different from being a professor, for they do not have so much sympathy if they are a professor. For those that have to be professors have to teach young students. And they do not get acquainted with them so soon, and when they do get acquainted they do not see them so much, and besides, the professors only give lectures to tell them how to be ministers, whereas pastors give sermons to have the people Christians. But I don't know much about his organization.

"What do you mean by that?" he was asked.

"Why, when he was organized to be a professor. But he had an augural sermon written.'

This account was taken, word for word, as he dictated it, when he was between seven and eight. He continues :

We found it a beautiful place to go berrying in. We got blueberries and blackberries and whortle-berries. When father got in his wood, I got in three cords of Connecticut wood, and a cord and a half of Massachusetts. And I pulled up some of the turnips, and the carrots father would dig, and I would pull them up and shake the dirt off. And I brought in the potatoes and about seven bushels of squashes. We have got four hens and one cock and we have got a cow.

I will now go back to Marblehead, and tell you a hint I once gave to a lady. One afternoon, I went to a lady's house by the name of Mrs. Humphrey. There was a girl there by the name of Caroline, and she went to get some sweet crackers. And Mrs. Humphrey gave me one. And I liked it very much, and thought I should like another. So I gave a hint to her, and I said, "Those crackers are very nice." But she didn't say anything. The second time I said, "Those crackers are very nice indeed." And they didn't do anything. And then, as I was determined to have one, I said, "Those crackers are very nice indeed, and if I had another, I'd eat it." And then she got up and gave me another, and they laughed very much.

And now I will tell you the names of the books I have read, and first what I have read that are proper for Sunday:-Pilgrim's Progress and Holy War, both written by Bunyan.

"Mother, is Bunyan alive now?"

"No, dear."

"Then he won't write any more books, will he?"

Eddie went on to name his Sunday and then his weekday books, after which he returned to his favorite, "Pilgrim's Progress," saying, "I will tell you a little about it." And then, without recurring to the book, he proceeded, in his childish way, to tell the whole story, calling Pliable, "Pilable," the Delectable Mountains, the "Deceptable

Mountains," yet giving graphic pictures of the various scenes which filled several pages.

There was no end to his questions on every subject that came up. He wanted to know all the causes of every effect, and all the effects of every cause. When helping his father about the wood:-“If the barn was all filled with wood, would it hold a million of cords?"

"No."

"Would it hold a hundred thousand?"

In reading about a tent :-"How many persons can sleep in a tent?"

"That would depend on the size of the tent."

"If it was as large as this house, how many could sleep in it?"

"I think fifty might."

"Couldn't more than fifty, if there were two or three beds in every room, and in the kitchen and the closets, and three or four persons slept in every bed?"

So the weeks and months rolled away. Busy with his studies in the district school, in the evenings Eddie read solid books, giving a report of what he could remember. In this way he perseveringly went through "Hume's History."

With a decidedly musical taste, he begged that he might take lessons. His mother consented, on condition that, if he began, he should keep straight on. To this he readily agreed, but after a few days, getting tired of his scales, he begged off. As he was held to his bargain, however, he manfully arranged to be waked in season to practise an hour before breakfast, even when obliged to do so by lamplight. This habit he continued for months, and through life reaped the benefit of his perseverance.

Writes Mrs. Watson, one of our neighbors and friends at East Windsor Hill:

I recall Edward's beautiful, frank face, just as he looked that pleasant first Sunday when you all came into the Seminary Chapel together. Speaking of those days, Bowen Clapp, one of his school

mates, says: "I remember Edward as the most studious boy in school, and I never knew him do a mean thing. The boys always had a high respect for him." How happy he was at our Christmas tree, when Donnie personated Santa Claus and little Anna crept under the chair, thinking he was the real one!

Writes another resident of the Hill, a granddaughter of Pres. Tyler:-"I remember Edward as a wonderfully lovely and remarkable boy. And as he grew up, he was, to me, an ideal man."

Eddie entered with great zest into all boyish plays, and was a fine swimmer and skater. He was also a genuine worker, helping his father in the garden, milking the cows, chopping wood, and doing various errands, besides assisting his mother in such household duties as it is well for a boy to learn.

He greatly enjoyed the guests that from time to time gathered in his home-Asa D., Henry B., and John Cotton Smith, with various men and women of renown. There were also Frenchmen, Germans, Greeks, Armenians and Bulgarians-Dagnault, Ollendorff, Constantine, Kalopothakes, Minasian, Hachadoorian, Gospodinoff, several of whom were at different times members of the family.

With some of the theological students he was quite familiar. Writes Rev. Moses T. Runnells:

How vividly do I recall the bright, inquisitive, intelligent, little boy of eight, with his gentle manners and delicate tastes, who attended to his piano practice and other studies with such wonderful regularity! At family prayers he would pass the Bibles in the different languages and the hymn books to each member of a somewhat numerous household, and afterwards collect them with a gracefulness, yet despatch, combined with a seriousness all the more pleasant to behold, from his being so entirely unaffected. On Saturday afternoons, he would assist me efficiently and with genuine enthusiasm in sweeping and dusting the Seminary halls, of which I took charge, and also in ringing the bell, becoming quite an adept in tolling it. What surprised me was the fact that a mere child of eight should be so actuated by a desire to be systematically and perseveringly useful. In the winter we used to take rambles, with slides, and skating excursions, I drawing him on a sled to his great delight. We also sometimes took a ride together to Hartford, eight miles from the Hill, which was always a great occasion with him, and which served to bring him out in many original remarks, as he encountered new sights and sounds.