During my early boyhood we always spent a part of each summer at Kennebunkport. That was in the days when you drove over from Kennebunk in an old stagecoach, and there were always one or more schooners in process of construction along the river. One summer I invented the game of writing a note and putting it in a glass bottle tied to a long spar or boom, to be towed out to sea by a paper kite when there was an offshore wind. The note requested the finder to return the paper with a statement as to where the bottle had been picked up. (One was actually returned by a native of Nantucket!) When the wind was not directly offshore, I found that by putting the nail to which the kite string was fastened two or three feet aft the forward end of the spar, it would sail straight out to sea, with the kite flying 45° or more on the quarter. It was a thrilling sight in a strong wind to see the spar or log rushing through the water like a torpedo with no visible means of propulsion and with a “bone in its teeth.” I often wondered what the crews of passing ships thought of it when encountering it, the kite string being invisible except at close quarters.
Then came astronomy, one of my father’s friends having lent me a very fine five-inch glass telescope, and I was out every clear night. I took no interest in the constellations or their names. This was like analyzing flowers. But I was fascinated by watching the moons of Jupiter as they circled around the planet, casting their shadows occasionally on the disk, the craters and mountains on the moon, Saturn’s rings, and the nebulae.
About his early formal education — to get back to chronology — his mother, with Harvard as the later goal, had hoped that Robert could enter Roxbury Latin School at the age of twelve, and he evidently wasn’t going to be able to if he remained at Mrs. Walker’s. So she had taken him out and sent him to Miss Weston’s School, in Roxbury. To his mother’s joy, and perhaps surprise, he had managed to “get by” at Miss Weston’s, and entered Roxbury Latin. His entrance was deceptively triumphant. He had appeared with other applicants. The principal of the historic school, the redoubtable William C. Collar, commonly called “Dickie,” stood before the applicants with a sheaf of papers in his hands. Rob feared that he had failed again or that if he squeezed through he would be at the bottom of the list of those admitted. Then Dr. Collar began reading, and read:
“The first boy admitted is Robert Williams Wood.”
Dr. Collar had been intending to read the list of admissions alphabetically, rather than for merit, but in fumbling the papers had got the list reversed.
Rob’s auspicious but deceptive place at Roxbury Latin was soon rectified. He fell at once to the bottom of the class and remained there through the whole first year. During the first few weeks of the following year his place in the class was near the top, but he soon forged his way back to the bottom and was dropped at the end of the second year.
This was discouraging. But Dr. Wood, Senior, and Rob’s mother were bent on Rob’s following family tradition and going to Harvard if possible. So they sent him next to the William Nichols Classical School, in Boston, which specialized in Latin and Greek. Rob had no interest in Latin and Greek, while Mr. Nichols had a deep distaste for science. These mutual distastes were emphasized and took on a slightly personal tinge through the episode of the circular staircase. The staircase at the Nichols School, on Temple Place, was a tight spiral with its bannisters riveted to the walls of a plastered well, like the interior of a lighthouse. All boys like to slide down bannisters, but they couldn’t slide down these because they couldn’t straddle them and they were so close to the wall that you couldn’t sit on them. Young Wood knew something about centrifugal force, and began experimenting with the balustrade. Taking a running start from the top of the steps to gather speed, he slid side saddle onto the rail and found himself coasting with increasing velocity around and around clear down to the bottom, where he landed with a bang. The other boys marveled and tried in vain to imitate the performance, but Wood would not allow them to witness the start. It was too wonderful. Centrifugal force pressed your back against the wall, giving you a firm seat, and away you went. Wood says that he has kept his eye open for a similar slide ever since, as he would like to repeat the performance.
Finally he initiated the others, with the result that in a day or two a torrent of laughing and screaming small boys poured off the last turn of the spiral landing on top of Mr. Nichols, who was just entering the street door.
Rob was given a letter to his father. Next morning he was called up before the whole school and asked what his father had said to the letter. Rob gleefully announced that he said he was glad it was nothing worse.
His progress in his own growing scientific-imagination- fostered fantasies began to reach new heights.
As one result, he concocted two elaborate hoaxes. One had no wide repercussions, but the other made a national sensation. During a summer visit to his uncle, Charles W. Davis, in Chicago, he and young Bradley Davis went fossil hunting together. There was a limestone quarry which they visited frequently, rich in Silurian fossil shells and crinoids. Once, while alone, Rob chanced on two large broken slabs of concrete, smooth on the surface, covered with rubble on the back. With a hammer and chisel, he carved on the surface of one the head of a pterodactyl, and absurdly on the other, the outline of a gigantic bug, a sort of imaginary prehistoric devil’s darning needle. Then Rob and some fellow-conspirators “planted” these in the quarry and on the next fossil-hunting expedition he ingeniously steered his young cousin Bradley to the buried treasure.
“His excitement,” said Wood, “at this rich double find was as great as that of the man who discovered gold on Sutter’s ranch in California”.
Rob photographed the “fossils” with a homemade camera and still has the faded blueprint.
The second hoax stirred up national excitement and for a short time almost rivaled the comedy of the bogus Cardiff giant. It was pure hoax, pure fantasy. One of his father’s friends had lent him a big telescope, and he had begun looking for life on Mars and other planets. He didn’t find any, but on July 23, 1887, the following amazing article, which he had concocted out of his own untrammeled imagination, appeared in the Chicago Tribune.
A STELLAR VISITANT
AN INCANDESCENT VISITOR FROM SPACE — MARKED WITH GRAVEN CHARACTERS
Clayton, Ga., July 21. — (Special) — A phenomenon unparalleled in the annals of astronomical science occurred here one day last week, which, from the light it throws upon the hitherto open question of the habitability of the other planets, will prove of great value to science. At 7:45 o’clock p.m. there fell near this town a spherical metal ball or aerolite on the surface of which appear graven characters which give conclusive evidence of its having been molded by intelligent hands. Dr. Seyers, in whose possession the wonder now is, said this evening: “I was returning from a patient’s house, situated some seven miles from the town, where I had spent the latter part of the afternoon. It was about 7: 45 o’clock, though still light enough to read by. I was ascending a long hill, over which it is necessary to drive before reaching home, when my horse suddenly pricked up his ears, and, on glancing ahead, my eyes were dazzled by a brilliant white flash, resembling a lightning stroke, and immediately following came a sharp hiss as of escaping steam. I knew that an aerolite had fallen, for had the flash been electrical there would have been a clap of thunder. Driving on up the hill I noticed that steam was issuing from the ground some few rods back from the road, and on hastening to the spot found a hole about four inches in diameter, from which arose considerable heated vapor. I drove home as rapidly as possible, and taking a pick and shovel returned to the spot. After half an hour’s hard digging I came upon the object of my search at a depth of about five feet. It was still too hot to handle, but I succeeded in getting it to my carriage by lifting it on the shovel. I noticed that it was remarkably heavy, but not until I reached my barn, and removed the adhering soil, did I realize what a prize I had. Instead of a rough mass of meteoric iron, there appeared a smooth, perfect sphere of steel-blue metal, with polished surface and engraved with pictures and writings. I could scarcely believe my eyes, but there was no mistaking facts. There upon the surface of the strange ball was a deeply-graven circle within which was a four-pointed star, a representation of a bird-reptile resembling in a measure our extinct archaeopteryx, and a great number of smaller figures, resembling those used in modem shorthand. The metal of which the ball was composed was unlike anything I had ever seen, being about as hard as copper and entirely infusible in my Bunsen blow-pipe. I filed off some small bits and sent them to a chemist, who made the following report: