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[17]
For, as his children have said in the story of his life: “Lloyd was a thorough boy, fond of games and of all boyish sport.
Barefooted, he trundled his hoop all over Newburyport; he swam in the Merrimac in summer, and skated on it in winter; he was good at sculling a boat; he played at bat and ball and snowball, and sometimes led the “Southend boys” against the Northenders in the numerous conflicts between the youngsters of the two sections; he was expert with marbles.
Once, with a playmate, he swam across the river to “ Great Rock,” a distance of three-fourths of a mile and effected his return against the tide; and once, in winter, he nearly lost his life by breaking through the ice on the river and reached the shore only after a desperate struggle, the ice yielding as often as he attempted to climb upon its surface.
It was favorite pastime of the boys of that day to swim from one wharf to another adjacent, where vessels from the West Indies discharged their freight of molasses, and there to indulge in stolen sweetness, extracted by a smooth stick inserted through the bung-hole.
When detected and chased, they would plunge into the water and escape to the wharf on which they had left their clothes.”
Such was the little man with a boy's irrepressible passion for frolic and fun. His passion for music was hardly less pronounced, and this he inherited from his mother, and exercised to his heart's content in the choir of the Baptist Church.
These were the bright lines and spots in his strenuous young life.
He played and sang the gathering brood of cares out of his own and his mother's heart.
He needed to play and he needed to sing to charm away from his spirit
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