e among employers, so that
our Fred meets none of the harrowing adventures of an Oliver Twist in
his new situation.

To be sure he soon found it was not as good fun to ride a horse hour
after hour, and day after day, as it was to prance and caper about for
the first few minutes. At first his back ached, and his little hands
grew stiff, and he wished his turn were out, hours before the time; but
time mended all this. He grew healthy and strong, and though
occasionally kicked and tumbled about rather unceremoniously by the
rough men among whom he had been cast, yet, as they said, "he was a chap
that always came down on his feet, throw him which way you would;" and
for this reason he was rather a favorite among them. The fat, black
cook, who piqued himself particularly on making corn cake and singing
Methodist hymns in a style of unsurpassed excellence, took Fred into
particular favor, and being equally at home in kitchen and camp meeting
lore, not only put by for him various dainty scraps and fragments, but
also undertook to further his moral education by occasional luminous
exhortations and expositions of Scripture, which somewhat puzzled poor
Fred, and greatly amused the deck hands.

Often, after driving all day, Fred sat on deck beside his fat friend,
while the boat glided on through miles and miles of solemn, unbroken old
woods, and heard him sing about "de New Jerusalem," about "good old
Moses, and Paul, and Silas," with a kind of dreamy, wild pleasure. To be
sure it was not like his mother's singing; but then it had a sort of
good sound, although he never could very precisely make out the meaning.

As to being a good boy, Fred, to do him justice, certainly tried to very
considerable purpose. He did not swear as yet, although he heard so much
of it daily that it seemed the most natural thing in the world; and
although one and another of the hands often offered him tempting
portions of their potations, as they said, "to make a man of him," yet
Fred faithfully kept his little temperance pledge to his mother. Many a
weary hour, as he rode, and rode, and rode through hundreds of miles of
unvarying forest, he strengthened his good resolutions by thoughts of
home and its scenes.

There sat his mother; there stood his own little bed; there his baby
sister, toddling about in her night gown; and he repeated the prayers
and sung the hymns his mother taught him, and thus the good seed still
grew within him. In fact, with no