e
his head! This fright cured him of "playing tricks upon travelers," at
least for awhile.

You see now, my dear children, from what I have told you, that
"grandpa" was just such a boy as you are--fond of fun and frolic, and
of playing tricks.

I have said nothing of his love of school and books. But I think
he was about as fond of both as boys usually are. When a little boy he
was sent to the village school, and after he became large enough to
work, he was put to work in his father's printing office. By the time
he became a pretty good printer, a school of a higher grade than any
St. Louis had yet afforded was opened in the country, and his father
gladly availed himself of this opportunity to continue the education of
his son. He was a pupil in this school for some time, after which he
commenced the study of the law, agreeably to his father's wishes, under
the supervision of Francis Spalding, who was at that time an eminent
lawyer in St. Louis. After having read law awhile, he was sent to
complete his legal education at the Transylvania University, Kentucky.

While in the printing office he and another boy received a
terrible flogging one day for laughing at a poor, unfortunate man, who
had a very bad impediment in his speech, which being accompanied, with
ludicrous gestures and grimaces, was more than their youthful
risibility could withstand. They made a manly, but vain attempt to
suppress a roar of laughter, which only gathered strength from being
dammed up, and at last burst over all bounds. I never could forgive
his father for whipping the poor boys so severely for what they could
not avoid. He was too just and generous a man, however, to have been
so unmerciful, if his better feelings and his better judgment had not
been warped by a burst of passion.

The following is from the pen of his old friend and playmate, Mr.
N. P., of St. Louis:

"You ask me to state what I know of the early character of your
late husband. This I proceed to do. In his boyhood there were not the
same temptations in St. Louis to irregularity of habits and vice that
assail the young men of the present day. I do not think I err when I
say that Joseph Charless was a good boy--kind, tractable, obedient to
his parents, and giving them no further solicitude than such as every
parent may well feel when watching the progress of a son to manhood.
He had no bad habits. As a boy, there was nothing dishonorable about
him, and he had