he switch to the whole school
without discrimination. It must be conceded that by this means he
never failed to catch the guilty mischief-maker. The school-year was
divided into terms of three months, the teacher being paid in each
term a certain sum--three dollars, I think, for each pupil-and having
an additional perquisite in the privilege of boarding around at his
option in the different families to which his scholars belonged.
This feature was more than acceptable to the parents at times, for
how else could they so thoroughly learn all the neighborhood gossip?
But the pupils were in almost unanimous opposition, because Mr.
McNanly's unheralded advent at any one's house resulted frequently in
the discovery that some favorite child had been playing "hookey,"
which means (I will say to the uninitiated, if any such there be)
absenting one's self from school without permission, to go on a
fishing or a swimming frolic. Such at least was my experience more
than once, for Mr. McNanly particularly favored my mother's house,
because of a former acquaintanceship in Ireland, and many a time a
comparison of notes proved that I had been in the woods with two
playfellows, named Binckly and Greiner, when the master thought I was
home, ill, and my mother, that I was at school, deeply immersed in
study. However, with these and other delinquencies not uncommon
among boys, I learned at McNanly's school, and a little later, under
a pedagogue named Thorn, a smattering of geography and history, and
explored the mysteries of Pike's Arithmetic and Bullions' English
Grammar, about as far as I could be carried up to the age of
fourteen. This was all the education then bestowed upon me, and
this--with the exception of progressing in some of these branches by
voluntary study, and by practical application in others, supplemented
by a few months of preparation after receiving my appointment as a
cadet--was the extent of my learning on entering the Military
Academy.

When about fourteen years old I began to do something for myself; Mr.
John Talbot, who kept a country store in the village, employing me to
deal out sugar, coffee, and calico to his customers at the munificent
salary of twenty-four dollars a year. After I had gained a
twelve-months' experience with Mr. Talbot my services began to be
sought by, others, and a Mr. David Whitehead secured them by the offer
of sixty dollars a year--Talbot refusing to increase my pay, but not
object