They were not permitted to read any books except
such as were "good for Sunday." There were very few religious
story-books in those days, and what we had were of a dreary
kind; so the boy's time hung heavy on his hands.
"Pilgrim's Progress," with its rude prints, was, however,
a great resource. We conned it over and over again, and knew
it by heart. An elder brother of mine who was very precocious
was extremely fond of it, especially of the picture of the
fight between Apollyon and Christian, where the fiend with
his head covered with stiff, sharp bristles "straddled clear
across the road," to stop Christian in his way. Old Dr. Lyman
Beecher, who had his stiff gray hair cropped short all over
his head, made a call at our house one afternoon. While he
was waiting for my mother to come down, the little fellow
came into the room and took a look up at the doctor, and then
trotted round to the other side and looked up at him again.
He said, "I think, sir, you look like Apollyon."
The doctor was infinitely amused at being compared to the
personage of whom, in his own opinion and that of a good many
other good people, he was then the most distinguished living
antagonist.
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