The Autobiography of an Idea by Louis H. Sullivan

Louis became moody. Day by day the hillside school and all its doings irked him ruthlessly. In wood, field and meadow, his friends the birds were free. Why should he remain within these walls imprisoned and sad? He was a child of sudden resolves. On a morning early he went to the pantry. As he glanced over the shelves, his thoughts wandered to the pink and white smiling baker who delivered "Parker House rolls" every so often, and, with a cheery word left thirteen for a dozen. "A baker's dozen" he would say every time he drove up to the kitchen door; and then in a busy way inquire: "How's all the folks? Guess I don't need ask if this boy's a sample. " Then he would make a quick step into his light wagon and away with a rattling start. The boy in the quiet pantry unbuttoned his blouse, as his thoughts went on: Not so at the school; Teacher was not always kind. Twice with a rattan she had whipped the palm of his right hand while he placed his free arm across his eyes and bent his head and cried. It did not hurt much, but Teacher said it hurt her more than it did him. She told all the class so. She said she must make an example by having him stand on the platform and she said she did it to "learn him to mind and pay attention"; that it was her moral duty to do so; that she could not fail in her moral duty even though it pained her; that she punished not in anger but in grief; and then she cried, her forehead bowed between her hands, as she sat at her desk on the raised platform. He recalled that she had cried this way every time she had whipped a child, and she didn't whip very often either; so he bore her no ill will; yet he wondered why he should be whipped at school when he was never whipped or punished at all, at home; and again came floating the thought of the dainty baker-man; nimble, pink-faced, blue twinkling eyes and jolly chuckle. Thus musing but intent he filled his blouse with rolls and doughnuts and cookies -- and buttoned up. Also, he had, hidden in his bosom, a small tin cup, for he knew where he was going. He was preparing to answer the call of a wooded ravine through which wandered a noisy rivulet. He had seen it but once, while on a walk with Grandpa, but he marked it then as the favored spot in his imaginary world. Once found and marked for friendship, it often had called to him in his school -- a distant call -- he could not come. This morning it called to him irrevocably and nearby.

Without a word to anyone he set forth, following the Stoneham Road westward until he reached the gate of a right of way leading northward. He climbed the padlocked gate, and, following the road, soon passed a long hillock to the left crowned with tall hardwood trees, then down grade, then upgrade to a crest where the road ended. He climbed the gate and in new freedom, lightly traversing the down slope, reached the depths of the promised land. One bright particular spot was his goal. It lay in the narrow bottom of the ravine just where the gurgling water passed hurriedly among field stones under tall arching oaks. Here was the exact spot for a dam. He got immediately to work. He gathered the largest field stones he could handle, and small ones too. He had seen Scotchmen and Irishmen build farm walls and knew what to do. He was not strong enough to use a stone hammer if he had had one. So he got along without. He found a rusty remnant of a hoe, without a handle; with this he dug up some stiff earth. So with field stones, mud, twigs and grass he built his dam. It was a mighty work.