He had gone to
the primary school, where, as his children tell us, he did not show
himself "an apt scholar, being slow in mastering the alphabet, and
surpassed even by his little sister Elizabeth." During his stay with
Deacon Bartlett the first time, he was sent three months to the
grammar-school, and now on his return to this good friend, a few more
weeks were added to his scant school term. They proved the last of his
school-days, and the boy went forth from the little brick building on
the Mall to finish his education in the great workaday world, under
those stern old masters, poverty and experience. By and by Lloyd was a
second time apprenticed to learn a trade. It was to a cabinetmaker in
Haverhill, Mass. He made good progress in the craft, but his young heart
still turned to Newburyport and yearned for the friends left there. He
bore up against the homesickness as best he could, and when he could
bear it no longer, resolved to run away from the making of toy bureaus,
to be once more with the Bartletts. He had partly executed this
resolution, being several miles on the road to his old home, when his
master, the cabinetmaker, caught up to him and returned him to
Haverhill. But when he heard the little fellow's story of homesickness
and yearning for loved places and faces, he was not angry with him, but
did presently release him from his apprenticeship. And so the boy to his
great joy found himself again in Newburyport and with the good old
wood-sawyer.
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