s's impassioned protestations fell upon deaf ears; the dying man
passed away without knowing that once more he had done poor Burgess a
wrong. The old wife died that night.

The last of the sacred Nineteen had fallen a prey to the fiendish sack;
the town was stripped of the last rag of its ancient glory. Its mourning
was not showy, but it was deep.

By act of the Legislature--upon prayer and petition--Hadleyburg was
allowed to change its name to (never mind what--I will not give it
away), and leave one word out of the motto that for many generations had
graced the town's official seal.

It is an honest town once more, and the man will have to rise early that
catches it napping again.

MY FIRST LIE, AND HOW I GOT OUT OF IT

As I understand it, what you desire is information about 'my first lie,
and how I got out of it.' I was born in 1835; I am well along, and my
memory is not as good as it was. If you had asked about my first truth
it would have been easier for me and kinder of you, for I remember that
fairly well. I remember it as if it were last week. The family think it
was week before, but that is flattery and probably has a selfish project
back of it. When a person has become seasoned by experience and has
reached the age of sixty-four, which is the age of discretion, he likes
a family compliment as well as ever, but he does not lose his head over
it as in the old innocent days.

I do not remember my first lie, it is too far back; but I remember my
second one very well. I was nine days old at the time, and had noticed
that if a pin was sticking in me and I advertised it in the usual
fashion, I was lovingly petted and coddled and pitied in a most
agreeable way and got a ration between meals besides.

It was human nature to want to get these riches, and I fell. I lied
about the pin--advertising one when there wasn't any. You would have
done it; George Washington did it, anybody would have done it. During
the first half of my life I never knew a child that was able to rise
about that temptation and keep from telling that lie. Up to 1867 all
the civilised children that were ever born into the world were
liars--including George. Then the safety-pin came in and blocked the
game. But is that reform worth anything? No; for it is reform by force
and has no virtue in it; it merely stops that form of lying, it doesn't
impair the disposition to lie, by a shade. It is the cradle application
of conversion by fire