name was generally called last, for no
one chose him except as a matter of necessity. He was sure to be a dead
weight to his leader.

"The fair leader of one of these divisions took the boy aside to a
private apartment, to put into him with female tact and insinuation
those definitions and distinctions on which the honor of the class
depended.

"'Now, Henry, A is the indefinite article, you see, and must be used
only with the singular noun. You can say _a man_, but you can't say _a
men_, can you?' 'Yes, I can say _Amen_, too,' was the ready rejoinder.
'Father says it always at the end of his prayers.'

"'Come, Henry, now don't be joking. Now, decline He.' 'Nominative he,
possessive his, objective him.' 'You see, his is possessive. Now, you
can say his book, but you can't say him book.' 'Yes, I do say hymn book,
too,' said the impracticable scholar, with a quizzical twinkle. Each one
of these sallies made his young teacher laugh, which was the victory he
wanted.

"'But now, Henry, seriously, just attend to the active and passive
voice. Now, _I strike_, is active, you see, because if you strike you do
something. But, _I am struck_, is passive, because if you are struck you
don't do any thing, do you?'

"'Yes, I do; I strike back again.'

"Sometimes his views of philosophical subjects were offered
gratuitously. Being held rather of a frisky nature, his sister appointed
his seat at her elbow when she heard her classes. A class in natural
philosophy, not very well prepared, was stumbling through the theory of
the tides. 'I can explain that,' said Henry. 'Well, you see, the sun, he
catches hold of the moon and pulls her, and she catches hold of the sea
and pulls that, and this makes the spring tides.'

"'But what makes the neap tides?'

"'Oh, that's when the sun stops to spit on his hands.'"

It will hardly surprise the reader to be told that Master Henry
remained with his sister only six months, and was returned at the end of
that time to his father as an indifferent scholar and a most inveterate
joker.

A change now occurred in his life. When he was twelve years old his
father removed to Boston to assume the charge of the Hanover-Street
Church. Here the boy had a chance to see something more than nature, and
to employ his powers of observation in receiving impressions from the
daily life and aspect of a large and crowded city. His father entered
him at the Boston Latin School, and appealed to him not to disgra