Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/68

 not contemporary with me, now the mayor of the city, and Edward C. Loud, son of the maker of pianos, then in reduced circumstances, who walked out with me in the mornings over Market Street bridge, and who had a military record, afterward reaching the rank of a brigadier general in the National Guard. I acquired a pronunciation of the French, upon which I have been complimented since in Paris, and have been reading some French every year of my life; and, strange to say, established among the boys a great reputation as a shindy player. We played the game in a field of about twelve acres of land which was adjacent to the school. In selecting sides, a boy named Bicknell, about eighteen years old, was chosen first, because of the strength with which he could give the opening blow to the ball. The second choice usually fell upon me. I was known as a “picker.” I had a heavy crooked tree limb and earned my standing by the reckless abandon with which I rushed into a mêlée and thwarted the other side in its efforts to strike the ball. To Professor Saunders I proved to be a disappointment, due to two unavoidable causes—an attack of malaria interrupted my studies and I went to the Durham Iron Works in Bucks County, one of the oldest and most noted of the iron furnaces of Pennsylvania, which, with a tract of nine hundred and thirty acres of land, belonged to my grandfather and my uncles, and there, at the house of my uncle, George W. Whitaker, the manager in charge, spent some time. There my uncle, Joseph R. Whitaker, who was a skilled horseman and had a swift sorrel horse, taught me, as well as a couple of young ladies, to ride horseback. The furnace stood among wooded hills beside a creek flowing into the Delaware River, and not far away could be seen the famous Durham Cave, two or three of whose limestone chambers were still intact.

A few months later, on the 13th of February, 1856, my father died from an attack of erysipelas and typhoid fever. He was attended by Drs. Tyson and Brinckle. There were 60