fervescing in the way of
one funny trick or another, he was a universal favorite, not only with
the deacon, but with the whole school.

Master Joseph always took little Susan Jones under his especial
protection, drew her to school on his sled, helped her out with all the
long sums in her arithmetic, saw to it that nobody pillaged her dinner
basket, or knocked down her bonnet, and resolutely whipped or snowballed
any other boy who attempted the same gallantries. Years passed on, and
Uncle Jaw had sent his son to college. He sent him because, as he said,
he had "_a right_ to send him; just as good a right as 'Squire Abel or
Deacon Abrams to send their boys, and so he _would_ send him." It was
the remembrance of his old favorite Joseph, and his little pet Susan,
that came across the mind of Deacon Enos, and which seemed to open a
gleam of light in regard to the future. So, when Uncle Jaw had finished
his prelection, the deacon, after some meditation, came out with,
"Railly, they say that your son is going to have the valedictory in
college."

Though somewhat startled at the abrupt transition, Uncle Jaw found the
suggestion too flattering to his pride to be dropped; so, with a
countenance grimly expressive of his satisfaction, he replied, "Why,
yes--yes--I don't see no reason why a poor man's son ha'n't as much
right as any one to be at the top, if he can get there."

"Just so," replied Deacon Enos.

"He was always the boy for larning, and for nothing else," continued
Uncle Jaw; "put him to farming, couldn't make nothing of him. If I set
him to hoeing corn or hilling potatoes, I'd always find him stopping to
chase hop-toads, or off after chip-squirrels. But set him down to a
book, and there he was! That boy larnt reading the quickest of any boy
that ever I saw: it wasn't a month after he began his _a b, abs_,
before he could read in the 'Fox and the Brambles,' and in a month more
he could clatter off his chapter in the Testament as fast as any of
them; and you see, in college, it's jest so--he has ris right up to be
first."

"And he is coming home week after next," said the deacon, meditatively.

The next morning, as Deacon Enos was eating his breakfast, he quietly
remarked to his wife, "Sally, I believe it was week after next you were
meaning to have your quilting?"

"Why, I never told you so: what alive makes you think that, Deacon
Dudley?"

"I thought that was your calculation," said the good man, quietly.

"