Chapter 2 - Page 2

how to condense their thoughts. Twenty minutes were his gauge, though
I remember to have heard my father say, he had known him preach all of
twenty-two. When he compressed down to fourteen, my grandfather invariably
protested he was delightful.

I remained with Mr. Worden until I could translate the two first AEneids,
and the whole of the Gospel of St. Matthew, pretty readily; and then my
father and grandfather, the last in particular, for the old gentleman had a
great idea of learning, began to turn over in their minds, the subject of
the college to which I ought to be sent. We had the choice of two, in both
of which the learned languages and the sciences are taught, to a degree,
and in a perfection, that is surprising for a new country. These colleges
are Yale, at New Haven, in Connecticut, and Nassau Hall, which was then at
Newark, New Jersey, after having been a short time at Elizabethtown, but
which has since been established at Princeton. Mr. Worden laughed at
both; said that neither had as much learning as a second-rate English
grammar-school; and that a lower-form boy, at Eton or Westminster, could
take a master's degree at either, and pass for a prodigy in the bargain.
My father, who was born in the colonies, and had a good deal of the right
colony feeling, was nettled at this, I remember; while my grandfather,
being old-country born, but colony educated, was at a loss how to view the
matter. The captain had a great respect for his native land, and evidently
considered it the paradise of this earth, though his recollections of it
were not very distinct; but, at the same time, he loved Old York, and West
Chester in particular, where he had married and established himself at
Satan's Toe; or, as he spelt it, and as we all have spelt it, now, this
many a day, Satanstoe. I was present at the conversation which decided the
question, as regarded my future education, and which took place in the
common parlour, around a blazing fire, about a week before Christmas, the
year I was fourteen. There were present Capt. Hugh Roger, Major Evans, my
mother, the Rev. Mr. Worden, and an old gentleman of Dutch designation and
extraction, of the name of Abraham Van Valkenburgh, but who was familiarly
called, by his friends, 'Brom Follock, or Col. Follock or Volleck, as the
last happen to be more or less ceremonious, or more or less Dutch. Follock,
I think, however was the favourite pronunciation. This Col. Van Valkenburgh
was an old brother-soldier of my father's, and, indeed, a relation, a
sort of a cousin through my greatgrandmother, besides being a man of much
consideration and substance. He lived in Rockland, just across the Hudson,
but never failed to pay a visit to Satanstoe at that season of the year. On
the present occasion,