d habits in the South, from being a mere Diddler,
which is morally bad enough; he comes in contact with professional
gamblers, plunges into the most pernicious and abominable of
vices--gambles, cheats, swindles, and finally, as a grand tableau to his
utter damnation here and hereafter, opens a store or a bank with a
crowbar--or commits murder.

The Re-Union; Thanksgiving Story.

"Behold, for peace I had great bitterness, but thou hast in love to
my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast
all my sins behind thy back."--Isaiah.

A portly elderly gentleman, with one hand in his breeches pocket, and
the fingers of the other drumming a disconsolate rub-a-dub upon the
window glass of an elegant mansion near Boston Common, is the personage
I wish to call your attention to, friend reader, for the space of a few
moments. The facts of my story are commonplace, and thereby the more
probable. The names of the dramatis personae I shall introduce, will be
the _only_ part of my subject imaginary. Therefore, the above-described
old gentleman, whom we found and left drumming his rub-a-dub upon the
window panes, we shall call Mr. Joel Newschool. To elucidate the matter
more clearly, I would beg leave to say, that Mr. Joel Newschool, though
now a wealthy and retired merchant, with all the "pomp and circumstance"
of fortune around him, could--if he chose--well recollect the day when
his little feet were shoeless, red and frost-bitten, as he plodded
through the wheat and rye stubble of a Massachusetts farmer, for whom he
acted in early life the trifling character of a "cow boy."

Yes, Joel could remember this if he chose; but to the vain heart of a
proud millionaire, such reflections seldom come to the surface. Like
hundreds of other instances in the history of our countrymen, by a
prolonged life of enterprise and good luck, Joel Newschool found
himself, at the age of four-and-sixty, a very wealthy, if not a happy
man. With his growing wealth, grew up around him a large family. Having
served an apprenticeship to farming, he allowed but a brief space to
elapse between his freedom suit and portion, and his wedding-day. Joel
and his young and fresh country spouse, with light hearts and lighter
purses, came to Boston, settled, and thus we find them old and wealthy.
In the heart and manners of Mrs. Newschool, fortune made but slight
alteration; but the accumulation of dollars and exalted privile