ly
deserved,--a sound spanking, and more weeding to do,--I might have
developed much needed perseverance, but spanking was never allowed by
my fond mother, and I became a shirk.

I was set to picking berries to replenish the family larder; but
this soon became monotonous, and I appropriated the old grain-sieve,
placing it beside the bushes, and pounding the huckleberries into it
with a stick; the result was a heterogeneous conglomeration of worms,
leaves, bugs, and crushed berries; but I succeeded in eliminating the
refuse by throwing the whole mass into a tub of water, and skimming
off the risings. I would then descant to buyers upon the freshness
of the berries wet with the dews of heaven, but my ruse was soon
discovered, and people refused to purchase such mucilaginous pulp.

Our widowed hired woman was possessed of a baby, and I was assigned
the task of rocking the cradle; but I soon sighed for the apple
blossoms and songs of birds,--we had no English sparrows then--so I
drove a nail into the cradle, tied to it the clothes-line, and went
out of doors and began pulling at the cord. Soon agonizing screams
were heard, and baby was found on the floor with the cradle pounding
on top of him.

I was sent to drive home the cows from pasture, but left the task to
the dog, who chased them over the wall into the corn-field where they
devastated the crop, and ruined the milk by devouring green apples,
while I, skylarking in a neighbor's pasture, was treed by an angry
bull, who kept me in the branches until I caught a violent cold and
became for weeks a family burden.

I was set to milking the cows, but I tied their tails to the beams,
applied a lemon-squeezer to their udders until everybody was aroused
by the bellowings of the infuriated beasts, and the milk and myself
were found carpeting the dirty floor.

At last all patience was exhausted, and as I was born on Sunday, and
was good for nothing else my parents, good, pious church-members,
concluded I must become a minister, consequently they sent me to
school. School! What memories come back to us over the arid wastes of
life at the very mention of this magic word! There is the place where
immortal minds are filled with loathing at the very sight of books,
or where the torch of learning is kindled, which burns on with
ever-increasing brightness forever more, and when I think of some of
the teachers of my youth I am reminded of what the wise pastor said to
a "stupid lunk