e," as he expressed it, but
thinking to clear up the mystery, he agreed, and I made a frank
confession.

After this, he said he would buy me the fiddle when I became of age, and
as I had failed to make any specifications in my compromise with him, he
of course had the best of me.

I was not long, however, in getting even with him. I had a well-to-do
uncle (my own father's brother) J. H. Johnston, in the retail jewelry
business, at 150 Bowery, N. Y., (at which place he is still located). I
wrote him a letter explaining my great ambition to become a fiddler, and
how my folks wouldn't be bothered with the noise. I very shortly
received an answer saying, "Come to New York at once at my expense; have
bought you a _violin_, and want you to live with me until you are of
age. You can attend school, and fiddle to your heart's content."

He also said, that after I had attended school eight years there, he
would give me my choice of three things; to graduate at West Point,
learn the jewelry business, or be a preacher.

When this letter was read aloud by my mother, in the presence of the
family and a couple of neighbor boys, who had called that evening, it
created a great deal of laughter.

One of the boys asked if my uncle was much acquainted with me, and when
informed he had not seen me since I was two years old, he said that was
what he thought.

[Illustration: OFF FOR NEW YORK.--PAGE 31.]

My mother fixed me up in the finest array possible, and with a large
carpet bag full of clothes, boots, shoes, hats, caps and every thing
suitable, as she supposed, for almost every occasion imaginable. After
bidding adieu forever to every one for miles around, I started for my
new home.

[Illustration: ARRIVING AT NEW YORK.--PAGE 31.]

On arriving at my uncle's store, he greeted me kindly, and immediately
hustled me off to a clothing establishment, where a grand lightning
change and transformation scene took place. I was then run into a barber
shop for the first time in my life, and there relieved of a major
portion of my crop of hair.

When we reached his residence I was presented to the family, and then
with the fiddle, a box of shoe blacking and brush, a tooth brush,
clothes brush, hair brush and comb, the New Testament and a book of
etiquette.

I was homesick in less than twenty-four hours.

I would have given ten years of my life, could I have taken just one
look at my yoke of steers, or visited my old quail trap, down i