ting the place
where she had been just before, till one day father came out with a plain
stick of oven-wood, and with one little clip back of the ear put an end to
all of her nine lives. You see everything depends upon the style of the
stroke, and not upon the elaborateness of the weapon. The most valuable
things you try to take will behave like the bay mare; but what you cannot
overcome by coarse persuasion, or reach at full run, you can catch with
apostolic guile. Learn the first-rate art of doing secular or Christian
work, and then it matters not whether your weapon be a basin or a pail.

CHAPTER XLV.

OUR FIRST AND LAST CIGAR.

The time had come in our boyhood which we thought demanded of us a capacity
to smoke. The old people of the household could abide neither the sight nor
the smell of the Virginia weed. When ministers came there, not by positive
injunction but by a sort of instinct as to what would be safest, they
whiffed their pipe on the back steps. If the house could not stand
sanctified smoke, you may know how little chance there was for adolescent
cigar-puffing.

By some rare good fortune which put in our hands three cents, we found
access to a tobacco store. As the lid of the long, narrow, fragrant box
opened, and for the first time we own a cigar, our feelings of elation,
manliness, superiority and anticipation can scarcely be imagined, save by
those who have had the same sensation. Our first ride on horseback, though
we fell off before we got to the barn, and our first pair of new boots
(real squeakers) we had thought could never be surpassed in interest; but
when we put the cigar to our lips, and stuck the lucifer match to the end
of the weed, and commenced to pull with an energy that brought every facial
muscle to its utmost tension, our satisfaction with this world was so
great, our temptation was never to want to leave it.

The cigar did not burn well. It required an amount of suction that tasked
our determination to the utmost. You see that our worldly means had limited
us to a quality that cost only three cents. But we had been taught that
nothing great was accomplished without effort, and so we puffed away.
Indeed, we had heard our older brothers in their Latin lessons say, Omnia
vincet labor; which translated means, If you want to make anything go, you
must scratch for it.

With these sentiments we passed down the village street and out toward our
country home. Our head did not fee