purchased one of the two hotels in town. "He works, himself!" it was said, with pity, or contempt. And the sentiment against William Carr because his work was not done by slaves, was reflected against his seven children.

But William Carr, rugged and unyielding, firm in his belief that education would place his boys and girls on a footing with the best, conducted the hotel, while his wife, patient and tireless, sewed long after the hours of the day's inevitable work were ended. To clothe and educate seven children while all the time one's cashier is stealing systematically—that is the problem!

It is a problem that little concerns the lads of the red-topped boots and prancing ponies, or the girls of fine laces,—still less the fathers of these; for all their spare time is spent in reminiscences of Henry Clay, and in defining differences between the North and South—for this is 1857, as we have said, and in a few years something may happen.

But it is not given to every boy to wear red-tops, nor to every girl, real lace. Of course there were other families falling under the supercilious classification of "those who do their own work." At such times as the Carrs were not studying, or reciting to L. P. Streater, or helping at home, companions were to be found, to bear a hand at a game of marbles. Oliver had the genius of making friends; and, when no artificial barriers interposed, his gentle nature thawed the ice in natures most reserved.

Sometimes it happened that, as Oliver and his friends were engaged in sports along the roadside, they would see a venerable man drawing near, smooth faced, broad browed, stately in bearing, kindly in expression. If it chanced to be a time of heated altercation, the warning would go round—

"Hush! hush! There comes Brother Walter Scott."

The old man would pause with, "Well, dears, how do you do, this nice morning? Are you on your way to school?"

Then he would pat one on the head, and say a pleasant word to all. In his presence ill-humor melted away, and evil purposes were corrected. It was not only so with the school boys, but with their fathers. His very presence seemed a rebuke to wrong-doing and wrong-thinking. Sometimes he came to the Academy and addressed the pupils. Oliver stood at the head of the class in mathematics. One day after reciting geometry, "Elder" Scott, as he was called—or "Brother" Scott—said, with that gracious smile which lent the aspect of perennial youth to his wrinkled face,

"Young gentlemen, you have made good progress in Euclid." It was the first time Oliver had ever heard of Euclid, but he knew the enunciation of every proposition in the first five Books, and had drawn the figures with elaborate care on his father's barn door! But he had not studied Latin.

"That language," said his practical father, "is dead!"

The almost daily meeting with Walter Scott was one of those formative influences, unperceived at the time, which help to shape one's ideals. Let us look for a moment at this benign figure with his gentle smile, his keen, penetrating glance, and his still almost raven-black locks. He had brought to the Kentucky village an atmosphere of the great outside world, for he was a man who had not only come in touch with the great and illustrious, but who had himself participated in great affairs.

It meant much to the young mathematician at May's Lick Academy, this daily intercourse with such a man. It inevitably raised his mind above the daily toil, the unstimulating routine of a small town; it gave him a certain outlook upon a wider life, suggesting higher things than had hitherto entered his experience.

This venerable Walter Scott—he who had held little Mattie Myers upon his knee—was a man in whose veins flowed the blood of Wat, of Hardin—most illustrious of Scottish heroes. He was kin to the creator of Ivanhoe and Rebecca; a man who had graduated from the University of Edinburg; who had sailed the seas and traveled in many distant scenes; whose music instructor had been the friend of Sir Ralph Abercrombie; who had been by turn teacher, preacher, editor, author; who had traversed the circular avenues of poplars and pines leading to the mansion-house of Henry Clay, trees "which made me fancy myself once more in Scotia",—and who had sat in Clay's parlor in charming intercourse with the statesman while the portrait of Washington looked down, and the elegant simplicity of the apartments presented nothing "to make poor men afraid, or rich men ashamed;" who had ridden on the steamboat with the distinguished companionship of General Schuyler's daughter, the widow of Alexander Hamilton, then in her eighty-fourth year; who had visited the home of Colonel Richard M. Johnson; and who, finally, had come to May's Lick to pass the remainder of his days.

It was natural enough that the very sight of this man should suggest to the studious youth, thoughts of greatness and of travel. His kinship to Sir Walter Scott and his familiarity with the lands beyond the seas, no doubt lent him a sort of halo, to the imagination of boyhood. But it must have done more than this; it must have suggested that one need not remain poor and unknown; and that, as Walter Scott, when a poor young man had lifted himself above his condition by means of his education, so might Oliver Carr.

The postoffice was in William Carr's hotel. William was the postmaster, and during vacation, or at intervals, Oliver served as deputy. After the arrival of the mail, the distinguished scholar, Walter Scott, would appear at the counter with his benignant smile, and his "Dear—" he called all young people thus—"Dear, is there anything for me, this morning?"

And Oliver was as pleased as he, when there was a Louisville Courier to hand his friend, or a letter from Ohio, or Pittsburg, or New York.

There remains a word to be said as to what this Walter Scott was; for, after all, where one has traveled, or whom one has met, speaks little of the inner self; and it was this personal value of the man that counted most with those he met.

It was in 1819 that Walter Scott landed in New York, and began teaching Latin in Long Island—diverting himself with his flute at the close of the day. But he soon felt the call of the West, and obeyed it afoot. It brought him to Pittsburg, where he found himself drawn into school work again. He became an assistant in the Academy conducted by Mr. Forrester, a fellow-countryman. Scott had been reared in the Presbyterian faith, and his soul had been perfectly satisfied in those religious grounds staked off by his denomination's creed. He had not associated long with Forrester before he found to his amazement that the latter, though apparently of sincere piety, did not subscribe to all the articles; but, instead of seeking to attack the Confession with the Discipline or the Prayer Book, had recourse to the Bible. Not only so, but Forrester professed himself ready to give up any article of faith that did not appear fully warranted by the Scriptures; or, in other words, he had resolved to be guided in religious matters by the Bible alone.

It is difficult for one of the present day to realize how radical, unheard of, and unorthodox, such a determination as Forrester's appeared in the year 1819. It is true that men here and there, in places far removed from one another, were beginning to weary of the burden of the creeds; they were reaching out to grasp something that might pull their feet from the shackles of doubt or predetermined damnation, and in desperate blindness they seized upon the Word of God as likely to prove of most avail. It was, indeed, heresy; for if all had deserted creeds for the Bible, what