churchyard, and the vine-embowered home of his boyhood tumbled down and
gone to decay. Ah, no; he came home as drunk as a piper, and got into
the station-house the first thing.

And he grew up and married, and raised a large family, and brained them
all with an ax one night, and got wealthy by all manner of cheating and
rascality; and now he is the infernalest wickedest scoundrel in his
native village, and is universally respected, and belongs to the
legislature.

So you see there never was a bad James in the Sunday-school books that
had such a streak of luck as this sinful Jim with the charmed life.

THE STORY OF THE GOOD LITTLE BOY--[Written about 1865]

Once there was a good little boy by the name of Jacob Blivens. He always
obeyed his parents, no matter how absurd and unreasonable their demands
were; and he always learned his book, and never was late at
Sabbath-school. He would not play hookey, even when his sober judgment
told him it was the most profitable thing he could do. None of the other
boys could ever make that boy out, he acted so strangely. He wouldn't
lie, no matter how convenient it was. He just said it was wrong to lie,
and that was sufficient for him. And he was so honest that he was simply
ridiculous. The curious ways that that Jacob had, surpassed everything.
He wouldn't play marbles on Sunday, he wouldn't rob birds' nests, he
wouldn't give hot pennies to organ-grinders' monkeys; he didn't seem to
take any interest in any kind of rational amusement. So the other boys
used to try to reason it out and come to an understanding of him, but
they couldn't arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. As I said before,
they could only figure out a sort of vague idea that he was "afflicted,"
and so they took him under their protection, and never allowed any harm
to come to him.

This good little boy read all the Sunday-school books; they were his
greatest delight. This was the whole secret of it. He believed in the
good little boys they put in the Sunday-school book; he had every
confidence in them. He longed to come across one of them alive once;
but he never did. They all died before his time, maybe. Whenever he
read about a particularly good one he turned over quickly to the end to
see what became of him, because he wanted to travel thousands of miles
and gaze on him; but it wasn't any use; that good little boy always died
in the last chapter, and there was a picture of the funeral,