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How or where she got it I do not know, but in some way she procured an old copy of 'Webster's Blue-back Spelling-book, which contained the alphabet, followed by such meaningless words as 'ab, 'ba, 'ca, and 'da. I began at once to devour this book, and I think that it was the first one I ever had in my hands.
I also noted the Canada warbler, the chestnut-sided warbler, and the black-throated blue-back, the latter most abundant of all. Up these mountain brooks, too, goes the belted kingfisher, swooping around through the woods when he spies the fisherman, then wheeling into the open space of the stream and literally making a "blue streak" down under the branches.
His occasional contact with free colored people, his visit to the wharves where he could watch the vessels going and coming, and his chance acquaintance with white boys on the street, all became a part of his education and were made to serve his plans. He got hold of a blue-back speller and carried it with him all the time.
The step-mother was a stern taskmistress, and the girl worked hard, but no night passed that she did not spend an hour or more on her books, and by degrees she bribed and stormed Bub into learning his A, B, C's and digging at a blue-back spelling book.
The blue-back and the dog salmon probably seek deeper water, as the former is seldom or never taken with the seine in the ocean, and the latter is known to enter the Straits of Fuca at the spawning season. The great majority of the quinnat salmon and nearly all blue-back salmon enter the rivers in the spring.
Second, the teachers themselves had such limited knowledge that two months were ample time in which to exhaust their store of knowledge, and, as examinations were so easy, it was not imperative that they do more than "keep school." I remember quite distinctly that when I did go to school we used the proverbial Webster's blue-back speller.
After entering the church, six sermons were preached to the two congregations by six different ministers, and at least three of these could not read a word in the Bible. Each minister occupied at least one hour. Their texts were as often taken from Webster's blue-back speller as from the Bible, and sometimes this would be held upside down.
All the species have been seen by us in the Columbia and in Frazer's River; all but the blue-back in the Sacramento, and all but the blue-back in waters tributary to Puget Sound. Only the quinnat has been noticed south of San Francisco, and its range has been traced as far as Ventura River, which is the southernmost stream in California which is not muddy and alkaline at its mouth.
I noted but two warblers' nests during that season, one of the black-throated blue-back and one of the redstart, the latter built in an apple-tree but a few yards from a little rustic summer-house where I idle away many summer days. The lively little birds, darting and flashing about, attracted my attention for a week before I discovered their nest.
Soon after we got settled in some manner in our new cabin in West Virginia, I induced my mother to get hold of a book for me. How or where she got it I do not know, but in some way she procured an old copy of Webster's "blue-back" spelling-book, which contained the alphabet, followed by such meaningless words as "ab," "ba," "ca," "da."
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