 | Colonial Children |  |
81. From Childhood to College
BY SAMUEL KNEELAND (ABOUT 1750)
THE most remarkable thing in my childhood was a wonderful talent which I possessed to imitate anything that I saw or heard. I could grunt like a hog, roar like a lion, or bellow like a bull. I was once very near being worried by a pack of rascally dogs, who took me for a fox, I deceived their ears with so natural a squeal. I was a particular favorite of all the hens in the neighborhood; I rivalled the cock with a crow as exquisite as it was inimitable. I will add for the satisfaction of my enemies, that when I hoot they would infallibly take me for an owl. Also on occasion, I can bray so very advantageously, that few donkeys can go beyond me.
Nay, to such a perfection am I now arrived in the art of mimicry, that I am able not only to make any sound that I hear, but I have a faculty of looking like anybody I think fit. There is no person whom I have ever seen, but I can immediately throw all his features into my face, assume his air and monopolize his whole countenance. I remember when I was a school-boy my master once gave me an unlucky rap on my pate, for a fault committed by Giles Horror, whose visage I had at that time most unfortunately put on. Esau Absent may remember to this day, if he is living, how his mother took me for him, when I marched off in triumph, with a huge lunch of bread and butter, that was just spread for Esau's dinner.
When I was three years old, I was sent to school to a mistress, where I learned to read with great dispatch; in my fifth year, I was taken away and put to
A COLONIAL SCHOOL-GIRL (MISTRESS CAMPION).
[Description: Black and white illustration: a portrait of a girl in fancy attire: she holds a Horn book (a kind of tablet) containing the alphabet; a dog is at her feet.] | Colonial Children | |