Before I
left Stafford, I had hired both for five years. We had applied to
Judge Pynchon, then the probate judge at Springfield, to change the
name of Dennis Shea to Frederic Ingham. We had explained to the Judge,
what was the precise truth, that an eccentric gentleman wished to
adopt Dennis under this new name into his family. It never occurred to
him that Dennis might be more than fourteen years old. And thus, to
shorten this preface, when we returned at night to my parsonage at
Naguadavick, there entered Mrs. Ingham, her new dumb laundress,
myself, who am Mr. Frederic Ingham, and my double, who was Mr.
Frederic Ingham by as good right as I.
Oh, the fun we had the next morning in shaving his beard to my
pattern, cutting his hair to match mine, and teaching him how to wear
and how to take off gold-bowed spectacles! Really, they were
electroplate, and the glass was plain (for the poor fellow's eyes were
excellent). Then in four successive afternoons I taught him four
speeches. I had found these would be quite enough for the
supernumerary-Sepoy line of life, and it was well for me they were.
Pages:
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189