to the Catholic Church with
the Irish and Dutch. I a'n't a word to say agen you myself. This is
a free country; every man can go, for aught I care, whichever way he
darn chooses--to heaven, or hell, or any other place. But I want
to be peaceable, and I can't get no peace about voting for you next
term, so I thought I'd let you know, that you mightn't be
disappointed."

In that way Mr. Rogers washed his hands of me. I said I was sorry I
did not please the ladies, but I liked to hear a man who spoke his
mind freely.

Soon afterwards the Germans brought me word that the Yankees were
calling a meeting about me. I was aware by this time that when a
special gathering of citizens takes place to discuss the demerits of
any individual, it is advisable for that individual to be absent if
possible; but curiosity was strong within me; hitherto I had never
been honoured with any public notice whatever, and I attended the
meeting uninvited.

The Yankees are excellent orators; they are born without bashfulness;
they are taught to speak pieces in school from their childhood; they
pronounce each word distinctly; they use correctly the rising
inflection and the falling inflection. Moreover, they are always in
deadly earnest; there is another miserable world awaiting their
arrival. Their humorists are the most unhappy of men. You may smile
when you read their jokes, but when you see the jokers you are more
inclined to weep. With pain and sorrow they grind, like Samson, at
the jokers' mill all the days of their lives.

The meeting was held in the new two-storey school-house.

Deacon Beaumont took the chair--my chair--and Mr Curtis was
appointed secretary. I began to hate Deacon Beaumont, as also Mr.
Curtis, who was the only other teacher present; it was evident they
were going to put him in my place.

Each speaker on rising put his left hand in the side pocket of his
pants. I was not mentioned by name, but nevertheless I was given
clearly to understand that I had been reared in a land whose people
are under the dominion of a tyrannical monarch and a bloated
aristocracy; that therefore I had never breathed the pure air of
freedom, and was unfitted to teach the children of the Great Republic.

Mr. Tucker, an influential citizen, moved finally that the school
managers be instructed to engage a Mr. Sellars, of Dresden, as
teacher at the West Joliet School. He said Mr. Sellars was a young
man from New England who had been