Alfred was unconsciously broadening in his knowledge; life in its various phases was unfolding to him, and he was profiting by his experiences. His faults appeared very great to others, were only an incentive to him. He had learned thus early that it was not the being exempt from faults so much as to have the will power to overcome them.

In early life he had it very strongly impressed upon his mind that some men were perfect, others hopelessly vile. Experience and observation forced Alfred to the conclusion that none were so good but that some thought them bad, and none so vile but that some thought them good.

We generally judge others as to their attitude towards us, agreeable or otherwise. Our estimate of another depends greatly upon the manner in which that person affects our interests. It is difficult to think well or speak well of those by whom we are crossed or thwarted. But we are ever ready to find excuses for the vices of those who are useful and agreeable to us. Therefore, he is a mighty poor mortal who is not something on his own account.

Alfred had graduated in that dear old school of experience, wherein education costs more but lasts longer than that acquired in colleges, that it is with the follies of the mind as with the weeds of a field—those destroyed and consumed upon the place of their growth, enrich and improve that place more than if none had ever grown there.

The boy had been so continually advised against evil associates that he began taking a mental inventory of every stranger at first meeting.Harrison was his estimate of the bad; Mr. Steele of the good.

Alfred had arrived at that stage where he not only stood aside and watched himself go by, but he was also watching the other fellow go by.

He was out of newspaper business, out of the tannery, had abandoned the practice of medicine. Charley's father, who was very strict with his boys, advised the parent to "give Alfred more tether, not to stake him down too close. Give him a little more rope, there's something in that boy." All of which was communicated to Alfred by Cousin Charley, and Uncle Bill was thus greatly elevated in Alfred's estimation.

Alfred's father was little short of a genius in a mechanical way; he had a peculiar temperament, mild and easily influenced. He was a creditable artist; many meritorious paintings from his brush in both oil and water adorn the walls of the residences of his friends. He was greatly interested in mechanical pursuits, particularly if of an artistic character.

When Uncle Joe prepared to build a house, "Pap" made the plans; when Sells Brothers built a tableau car or an animal van of an elaborate character, "daddy" made the drawings; when Aunt Betsy desired patterns to make a quilt to take the premium at the fair, "pap" made the drawings or figures.

He became acquainted with an artist from Philadelphia and was completely taken with the man's talents. The artist informed him in confidence that he had expended the greater portion of his man life on a work of art that would astonish the world, the father became even more interested in him.

The father was the only person who had ever been permitted to look upon the wonderful creation of his genius; yard after yard of art was unwound for the admiration of the father. When he returned from his second visit to the art gallery of the Philadelphia artist, he interested the family greatly by his description of the wonderful scenes the painter had wrought on the canvas.The sufferings and privations endured by the man while creating his work seemed to make as profound an impression upon the father as the painting itself.

The father predicted that the talented painter would come into his own; the painting would be exhibited all over the world, admiring throngs would rush to see it to praise its incomparable beauties.

The father made weekly visits to the home of the great painter, he desired frequent conferences with the father as he required his advice, at least, he so stated.

After one of his frequent visits to the art studio the parent inadvertently let fall the remark that the great painting was about ready for exhibition but that the artist did not have money to complete it. He also hinted that if Alfred were a boy of proper ambitions he might become attached to the exhibition of the picture, but no, "Alfred's ambition did not rise above saw-dust and burnt-cork."

These few words aroused Alfred's curiosity. By adroit questioning he ascertained that the great work of art was a panorama illustrative of "The Pilgrim's Progress," to be exhibited in churches, schools and such places, at twenty-five cents for adults; children, half price.

The mother wondered that the artist did not exhibit his wonderful painting in the art centers, Philadelphia, Boston, New York City, instead of Butler, Pittsburg, Perryopolis and Muttontown. The father explained that after the professor got the rollers to working smoothly and the lecture down pat, he intended visiting Philadelphia, Boston and New York.

Alfred began to realize that the picture was some sort of a show and he marvelled that his father favored it. Lin said:

"So fur es I kin kalkerlate it es some sort of meetin' house show, nuthin' but picturs. Hit may be good, but durned ef I ever got much satisfaction out uf a cirkus lookin' at the picturs. But I s'pose peepul will want to look at the feller thet made hit. They say thet he nurly starved to death to git hit done. Ye know, they'll run to see him. Mor en they will his pictur—I reckon he has long curley hair an black eyes, they all has, them sufferin' fellers that due wunderful things."

Lin glancing mischievously at the mother in a tone she pretended to be only for the mother's hearing but really delivered for Alfred's annoyance. "Well, I hope he kums to Red Stun' Skule-house. It's whur all the big shows gits thur start; they allus git a crowd, the skule direkturs sees to thet an' ef they don't make muny, Sammy Steele'll hulp 'em out."

How did she know about Sammy Steele and his loan? It was long afterwards that Alfred learned that Joe Thornton had confidentially imparted to Bill Wyatt, the tavern keeper, the part that he and Steele had played in Alfred's show life Wyatt, in turn, confidentially imparted the story, with a few additions, to Uncle Bill. The uncle confided the story to the family and Cousin Charley gave it to the town—but what's the use.

Professor Palmer, the artist, was to visit the family the following Sunday. When there appeared a smallish, Yankee looking individual, wrinkled face, a tuft of beard on his chin, similar to that bestowed upon the comic cartoons of the face of Uncle Sam, a beaked nose, very dirty hands and iron grey hair, sparsely sprinkled over his acorn-shaped head, Alfred thought a farmer or stock breeder had called on his father.

When introduced by the father as "My son, Alfred, Professor Palmer," Alfred was taken off his feet and his idea of art dropped away down. The only attraction of the professor was his eloquence, his ability to talk entertainingly. This he did continuously with a pronunciation so correct and studied that it sounded pedantic. The professor kept up his talk, as affected at times as the hand-cuff king's stage announcements or those of the middleman in a minstrel show.

After dinner the professor expressed a desire to take a walk with Alfred. They walked far, the professor talked long, and became annoyingly confidential. He said: "Your father has told me a great deal about you and I must admit that you are a mighty smart young man. You don't belong in this one-horse town, you should get out in the world where there are opportunities waiting for all such as you. You could live in this town a thousand years and you'd be just what you are now. You have had some experience in the show line but in a line that is beneath you; your place in the show business is higher up. I want your advice," he continued insinuatingly. "Now, I offered John (he referred to Alfred's father), the best thing of his life. He has worked hard all of his days; he is deserving of something better. I have offered him a half interest in my show. ("Holy Mother of Moses!" thought Alfred). I have borrowed a little money from him but I need nine hundred dollars more to put me out right. Now Jack is considering the matter. I wish you, who know more about the show business than both of us put together, (Alfred knew he was being flattered), would talk to him, use your influence with him."

Notwithstanding Alfred's life's ambition to become a showman, the idea as presented by the professor filled him with disgust. His father going into the show business! He had pictured show life in his illusions as one long, summer day's dream, but now it seemed the meanest of careers. The idea of his father associating himself with such a calling was repugnant in the extreme. Alfred could scarcely restrain his thoughts from taking expression in wrathful words.

The man continued, not noticing Alfred's changed expression: "You could sing and dance in this entertainment, do just what you pleased, it would make it all the better. I'll deliver the lecture and your daddy, (he was becoming insultingly familiar), could sit at the door and rake in the money. Hasn't the old man talked to you about it? I've been talking to him for six months."

"Talking to my father about going into the show business and he did not knock you down. If he didn't he is a hypocrite." This is only what Alfred thought; his reply was: "No, sir." He did not realize whether "No, sir" was the answer to the professor's question or the announcement of the decision he had come to in his mind as to the show business in so far as his father was concerned.

The professor rattled on: "Now, you get your old man away from the women folks and talk it over with him. It's the best thing ever offered him; he'll get his nine hundred dollars back before a month is out. I'm going to do business with churches and preachers wherever I can. I preached four years in Missouri and had to give it up on account of my health; I got stomach trouble from eating rich food. I know just how to work this thing, and if you and your daddy go in with me we will not only make money but have a hell of a good time."

They had arrived at the door of Alfred's home. The professor, as they passed in, admonished Alfred to "Think it over and let me hear from you."

The professor was soon in the midst of a description of a scene he intended introducing in his church entertainment wherein he used living figures. Alfred did not follow his conversation; he was trying to think, but could not think connectedly. He could not talk to the professor, he answered him by nods or shakes of his head. The more reticent Alfred became the more voluble the professor grew.

At leave-taking time, the professor admonished Alfred: "Do not forget what I told you." Alfred promised that he would not and he was sincere; he could not have forgotten had he tried.

The professor gone, Alfred hurried to his room. Was it possible that his father had even partially entertained an idea of joining the man Palmer in a show scheme, the father, who had berated, abused and condemned all and everything pertaining to shows, now favorably considering engaging in the show business himself.Alfred endeavored to find excuses for his father—"He was generous, sympathetic, he was listening to the professor only to encourage him." Alfred had never been subjected to the influence of a promoter; this was a leaf of life yet unturned by him.

Alfred felt certain that his father had entered into some sort of an arrangement with the professor. He felt certain the panorama man was endeavoring to induce his father to invest money in the panorama and he finally resolved that it should not be.

The more he thought the matter over, the more distasteful show life appeared to him.

Then the illusion came back to him. He had dreamed by night and prayed by day; he had lived for years with the wish, the hope that he might, after a few years of show life, earn enough to gratify his life's desires, to possess a farm, to own fine horses, to plant fields, to reap harvests, to live near nature.

He figured over several sheets of white paper. He would be compelled to labor forty years in the tannery to acquire sufficient money to buy a farm and nearly one hundred years in the newspaper office.

Jimmy Reynolds, the clown with Thayer & Noyse Circus, received one hundred dollars a week, board and lodging, so Alfred had been informed. Alfred felt in the innermost depths of his soul that he was a much better clown than Jimmy. He would secure the position now held by Reynolds—one hundred dollars each week for thirty weeks, three thousand dollars a year; ten years, thirty thousand dollars. Ten years a clown, then a farm. Show business was improper for the father but the means to attain the end for the son, as he reasoned.

When Lin found the figures and writing on the many sheets of scribbling paper in his room, she pondered long and confusedly over them."What in the world hes thet consarned boy got intu his punkin' agin? Thirty years a clown, ninety-nine years in a nusepaper, furty years in the tan-yard, and a farmer all the rest uf my life." Then she laughed. "He must think he'll be as ole as Methusulus got." She carried the paper to the mother.

They confronted Alfred with the sheets on which were scribbled the hieroglyphics. Alfred laughingly said it was a new way to tell fortunes.

Alfred decided to talk to the father the first opportunity that offered. Father and son were seated in the front room. "Father"—Alfred rarely addressed the parent as "father;" "Pap" was the every-day appellation but the present matter was of greater importance—"Father, I would like to talk to you privately and want you to answer me truthfully."

The father had his feet on a stool reclining in the big, easy chair. At the words "answer me truthfully," the father's feet fell to the floor, his cigar dropped until it lay on his chinbeard; the man looked at the boy to convince himself he had heard aright.

"Why, what the h—ll tarnation do you mean?"

Alfred was frightened, his voice trembled and sounded unlike his own, but he was determined.

"Father, I want to talk to you, come upstairs to my room."

If Alfred had not been so earnest, the scene would have been a laughable one, as it was like burlesquing many similar scenes when the parent addressed the boy in the same words. Alfred walked up the steps very slowly, hoping thereby to cause the parent to follow. It was a long time (to Alfred) ere the father entered the room.

"What's the trouble now?" began the man, as he gazed inquiringly at the boy.

"Who is this man Palmer whom you are so greatly taken up with?" inquired Alfred."Why, what's that to you? He's a friend of mine."

"Has he a show?" was the boy's next query.

"A show? Not a show like you know anything of. He has a painting, a work of art, that will be exhibited soon."

"Father, you have always berated, abused and condemned shows and show people. Did this man Palmer borrow money from you?"

The father was confused. He reddened as he stammered: "No—no—not much. You see he is a poor devil of an artist, he would rather paint than eat; he has spent years of his life on a painting. He has a fortune almost in his hands and I loaned him a little money to buy glue and colors to finish his painting. I tell you, he is a genius; why, the roller the pictures work on is one of the most ingenious contrivances you ever saw and it's simple, it can be applied to other uses. No man but a genius like Palmer would have thought of it."

This and much more information he gave Alfred. By his manner Alfred could readily see that the parent was greatly interested in Palmer and his scheme—for Alfred felt such it was.

"Well, then, father, you have changed your mind as to shows?"

"Who said I had? No, I have not changed my mind as to shows! Who told you I had? But your Uncle Will, who thinks more of you than you think he does, has persuaded me to give you your own way a little more and if you want to go with Palmer I will consent to it after I see Palmer and put you under his charge. He must control you just as I want you controlled. He is a man who knows how to manage boys; he is a man you can depend upon and I don't mind you going with him if it can be arranged to suit me and your mother. I am glad you asked my consent and did not run off, like you threatened to do with the nigger minstrels." And he emphasized "nigger minstrels" to strongly convince Alfred of his disgust with that branch of show business.The father was so completely wrapped up in Palmer, so totally captivated by the eloquence of the man that he had altogether mistaken the questions of the boy.

"Father, has Palmer tried to get nine hundred dollars out of you? Did he want you to buy a half interest in the show?"

"Well," hesitatingly he answered, "Palmer has got to raise some money and he asked me to help him out. I haven't said whether I would or not. If you go with him you could look after money matters for——."

Here Alfred interrupted the parent: "Have you said anything to mother about this? You know when you went into the patent wash-board concern with Niblo and grandpap, you never told mother and when you got took in with Uncle Thomas on the patent shoe blacking, you said you would never enter into anything outside your business without asking mother's advice. And now you're dickering with this man Palmer about a show, something you know nothing about. Now Pap—."

The wash-board and blacking were two of the father's investments that were losses, so he became very much irritated at mention of them and checked the son.

"Now you hold on, young man! If you tell your mother anything of this, you and I will have trouble. You're meddling with matters that don't concern you. I thought you called me in to ask my permission to go with Palmer. Now you set yourself up to pry into my business. I'm your father, I've always taken care of you and I am able to take care of myself. I don't want a green boy to look after me."

"Well, Pap; I'm not trying to nose into your business. You told Palmer that I knowed a heap about the show business, and you recommended me highly as a showman."

The father was sizzling. "Who told you so?"

"Why, Palmer himself. Now, I don't want to brag on myself," continued Alfred who had gained confidence as the interview progressed, "but I've seen a great deal of this show business and you've got to know what you're doing when you get into it. Why, look how many men have lost all their money." And here Alfred mentioned the names of several men, the details of whose losses in show schemes he had read in the New York Clipper.

"Why," he continued, in an outburst of confidence, "I"—and he emphasized the "I"—"I lost money on my last show." He should have added, "my first and last show." But the boy felt that he had pap going. "I had to borrow money from Sammy Steele to pay my debts."

The father gasped. "So you've been borrowing money to get into the show business?"

"No, I had to borrow money to get out of it and that's why I don't want you to loan Palmer money without you ask mother."

Alfred knew full well that this reference to the mother would bring the father to terms.

"Now look here, my boy; I warned you once before not to blab my business to your mother to make trouble in the family—"

"Well, I'm going to tell her," broke in the boy.

"You're going to tell her what?" threateningly asked the father.

"I'm not going to tell her anything about you," replied Alfred somewhat subdued, "I'm just going to tell her that Palmer is trying to borrow money from you."

The mother was no different from other women. The father knew full well that her first remark would be: "So Palmer wants to borrow money! So that's what brought him here! He is a slick one, you could tell that by his talk. John, I hope you are not fool enough to loan that man money." "No, Mary, don't worry yourself, he'll get no money out of me, I could see through him the first time I met him."

This line of conversation had been heard so often in the family that it was stereotyped on the memory of all. The father therefore capitulated, and in a tone intended to pacify the boy he said: "Now there's no use in stirring up anything over this matter. If you want to go with Palmer I will gain your mother's consent. I'll tell her you have asked my permission. I will permit you to remain there as long as you do right. You know more about this business than I do and I'll leave it all in your hands and I'll tell Palmer so," the father resignedly concluded.

His father had outgeneraled him; he was not the diplomat he imagined himself. He was left in deeper doubt than before the interview.

Letters came from Palmer. Alfred knew by the postmark that they were from him. He was tempted to open them. The father read the letters and placed them in the desk, never mentioning Palmer's name. This was very perplexing to Alfred.

It was reported that Palmer's great panorama was coming. It was also reported that Alfred's Uncle Thomas, the minister, Uncle Ned, Uncle Will, grandpap, and all of Alfred's relatives who had opposed his show ambitions previously, sanctioned his going with Professor Palmer's Panorama.

Uncle Thomas explained that Palmer was a retired minister, that the surroundings, instead of being degrading, would be uplifting; taking it all in all, John and Mary had acted wisely in giving their consent to Alfred's joining Professor Palmer's Panorama of Pilgrim's Progress.

Somehow it got out that Alfred was not anxious to go. Lin, in referring to the latter phase of the matter, said: "I jes can't understan' hit. Uncle Thomas ses hit will satusfy Alfurd's ambishun an' possibly settle his min'. But Alfurd don't seem to want to go. Maybe hit's his muther. Alfurd is a great muther's boy, ye wouldn't think hit either, he's sech a tarnel devil ketcher, but he is. I guess he don't like the idee uf this prayur meetin' show an' the show fellur thet painted hit he jes disspises. I bet ye a fip ef hit wus a show with hosses an' gals ur singin' niggurs he'd bust a biler to go. Be durned if he ain't the queerest cuss I ever seed. Why, it tuk the hull kit uf us tu head him frum runnin' off with a show a while back. Now, be dog-goned ef ye kin chase him off with a pack of Bob Playford's houn's."

It was announced by the father that Palmer would be the guest of the family for a day.

Alfred determined to have a heart-to-heart talk with Palmer, pretend he was in full accord with his plans, engage to go with the panorama and thus protect the father in his dealings with the man.

Palmer arrived and with him an open faced, honest appearing Pennsylvania Dutchman, from Bedford County, whom Palmer introduced as Jake. Jake had a continuous smile. Sometimes it expanded but never contracted. The smile was a fixture and it became Jake greatly. He rarely spoke, the smile sort of atoned for his reticence as it assured those addressing him that Jake was not deaf, even though dumb.

It was not necessary to question Palmer; he was a willing subject, volunteering all the testimony necessary to set Alfred's mind at rest.

In answer to the query as to whether father had concluded to take an interest in the panorama now that he, Alfred, had decided to go with it, Palmer rolled off his reply so rapidly that Alfred could scarcely follow his words.

"I hope John will not be angry with me, I offered him first chance and held off until I almost lost the other fellow. John's all right but he's too conservative. He's afraid of his wife and he'll never make money as long as he continues in business in this town. This Dutchman, Jake, had the money, he is anxious to travel, he has never been outside of Bedford County. Jake has a team, a fine team. We can't stick anywhere. He'd sell the team if I said the word. He will haul the whole outfit. I am going to buy another team and a good one, then I can take my wife and you and go ahead and have all the arrangements made before Jake arrives with the panorama. Of course if John talks his wife into it he will want to come in later. We can easily get rid of Jake, he's a "gilly." This is the very business for John. He is a painter, he could paint the panoramas; all he requires is a little experience with water colors. Why, look at those flags on the old fellow's barn out the pike; no one but an artist could shade and color like that.[A] Those flags are painted so naturally they appear to be fluttering in the wind. John and me could go in together, and paint panoramas of Bull Run and other battles and sell them or send out a half a dozen. This war will make the panorama business good. Your daddy is good on flags and eagles and sich; that's where I am weak. We could make all kinds of money."

The exhibitions would be confined to churches and educational institutions; therefore, it was most fortunate for Alfred that he should be privileged to become attached to an exhibition that possessed the elevating and refining influences of the great moral entertainment of Professor Palmer.

The father, instead of requesting the minister to ask the blessing, as was his custom, nodded to Palmer. All bowed their heads as Palmer, in a loud voice, called down a blessing upon the food, the father, the mother, and the boy about to go out into the world to seek his fortune; he also prayed for Lin. He called down a blessing upon the panorama and that it might attract thousands that the great moral lesson it was designed to teach might be carried to the furthermost corners of the earth.Alfred could not resist the impulse to raise his eyes. The very beard on Palmer's chin was quivering with the fervor of his beseechings. All were bowed in respectful reverence except Jake—he was gazing nowhere, the smile a little more expansive.

After the men had retired from the dining room, Lin, the mother and Alfred remained seated. Lin turned a cup in the tea-grounds. She read that Alfred would wander a long way off and "maybe kum back with a great bag of gold, at eny rate, he wus carryin' a heavy load."

Finally Lin, turning to the mother, inquired: "What did ye think uf the blessin'?"

"It was very fervent," absently answered the mother.

Lin sniffed. "Well, I'd swore afore a volcany uf fire thet I smelled licker on both uf 'em."

The mother communicated Lin's suspicions to the father. He admitted that Jake might be addicted to liquor. Palmer, as an artist, used a great deal of alcohol to dissolve the shellac used for sizing the canvas preparatory to painting and the fumes of alcohol would pervade a man's clothing a long time after being subjected to its permeating influences.

Lin, with a twinkle in her eye, declared in a loud whisper as the father left the room: "Well, durned ef I wus him ef I wouldn't change my clothes afore I asked a blessin' agin."

The mother was very much worried. She communicated her fears to Uncle Thomas and Aunt Sarah. Uncle William, the county judge, was called into conference. He advised that since Alfred seemed inclined to a roving life it would be better for him to be connected with a religious show than with a worldly one for he would be free from the vicious surroundings of a circus or minstrel show, and suggested that a binding contract be made with Palmer.Grandfather secured a copy of the contract under which his brother, the judge, had been apprenticed, and had a copy made to fit Alfred's engagement to Palmer.

The following is an exact copy of the indenture which bound Uncle William to learn the trade of a blacksmith. It is now on record in the county courthouse at Uniontown, Pennsylvania:

A copy of the paper binding Alfred to George Washington Palmer is on record in the county courthouse at Leesburg, Loudoun County, Virginia. Grandfather argued that if his brother, the judge, could accumulate farms and town property and raise himself to the dignity of a judge, Alfred certainly should do equally as well.

It was not many days before Alfred's duties would take him away from home and he began a round of visits to bid all good-bye.

Cousin Mary Craft gave a cotillion party in the country. Cousins Hester and Martha gave a party in town. Frank Long gave a taffy pulling. The hot plates of taffy were placed outside the kitchen door on the brick walk to cool before the taffy was pulled. Archibald Long, Frank's father, not knowing of the taffy's location, walked out of the house in his stocking feet, as was his custom ere he retired. In the darkness he planted one foot, then the other, in a plate of the hot taffy. This caused him to jump several feet in the air. He started to run. At each step his feet found another taffy plate. Gobs of the hot stuff sticking to his feet, pressing up between his toes, the old man introduced a dance—a high kicking dance that would have won him fame and fortune on the stage. The hot gobs of taffy clinging to his expansive, woolen sock-encased feet caused him such intense pain, the old man endeavored to introduce a new stunt, namely, to throw both feet in the air at the same time.

All the boys and girls ran from the dining room at the first sound of the yells of the old man. The lamps within enlightened the weird scene without.

When both feet were flung in the air simultaneously the old man sat down suddenly. He sat on the largest plate, with the hottest gob of taffy in the collection. His seat had barely touched the plate, the taffy had scarcely squashed through his jeans pants, until he made an effort to rise again. Failing in this he flopped on his stomach, clutching and tearing at his seat of latest misery, taffy stringing from his fingers.

Rearing his rear end high in the taffy laden air he planted his head in another plate of taffy which, was still tenderly clinging to the few straggling hairs on the old man's pate, as they carried him into the house, the taffy plate on his head like the crown of the old king. Gradually dangling, it descended to the floor, only to be trampled in the dust by the rabble.

The old man was put to bed. Poultices of apple butter, sweet-oil and a whitish-bluish clay dug from the bottom of the spring were applied to his blistered parts.

The taffy pulling party, the scene of gayety so suddenly transformed to one of suffering, lives in the memory of Alfred by the recollection of long threads of amber colored taffy shimmering in the soft moonlight as they clung to the plum tree branches where the old man's vigorous kicks had landed them.It was maple sugar making time. Uncle Jacob Irons, who lived near Masontown fifteen miles away, had a large sugar grove. A visit to Uncle Jake's was always one continued round of pleasure. The staid uncle, jolly Aunt Bettie, Kate and Tillie, Joe and George, John and Wilson, were always delighted to have Alfred visit them.

It was a day that marked the passing of winter and the coming of spring, after a night of light freezing with a white frost, the morning sun shining all the brighter that he had been hazed so long by winter's shadows. The earth, the trees, appeared even more brown and barren by contrast with the splendors of the sky. Here and there a patch of snow, left sheltered by tree or fence, seemingly endeavoring to hide from the sunbeams that came out of the south, to pour its flood of warmth on it until it melted and mouldered away.

It was springtime, the boyhood of the year, when half the world is rhyme and music is the other. It was springtime in the country, far from the city and the ways of men. The mountains in the distance, brown colored in spots, the peaks, like winter kings with beards of snow, seemed to say: "'Tis time for me to go northward o'er the icy rocks, northward o'er the sea. Come the spring with all its splendor, all its buds and all its blossoms, all its flowers and all its grasses."

It was a day that awakened feelings that seemed sacred. Have you ever lived in the country? Have you ever visited in the country in springtime? Have you ever asked yourself: "I wonder if the sap in the sugar trees is stirring yet? Is the sugar water dripping?" Have you ever worked in a sugar camp, such as there were in old Fayette County in those days?

Nearer the south than bleak New England, the trees more full of sap, the sap sweeter than it flows anywhere on earth. The trees in the camp tapped, the spiles driven, the sweet water dropping; the boys and girls, the men, yes, the women too, gathering the sap. The day is warm, the run a big one; to save it, all must hustle the big barrels loaded on the sleds as the horses move from one tree to another, turning over the mosses and dried leaves, exposing the Johnny-jump-ups and violets as if they were just peeping up through the ground at the busy scene.

The redbird is singing in the tree, his plumage all the brighter for the winter's bleaching. The day is not long enough, the night is consumed. The boys from all the country about gather at the camp. The moon was a book and every star a word that read fun and frolic to the jolly crowd at the camp at Uncle Jake's that night.

Alfred sang songs, and told jokes.

They had sugared off, made a big kettle of sugar. Some dipped big spoonfuls of the thickened syrup from the kettle, and poured it slowly into tin cups filled with ice cold water. As it cooled the large lump of wax was pulled out of the water with the fingers. Some, with buttered hands, worked the wax until they had whitish taffy, others filled their mouths with the wax as it came from the water.

The writer will engage to cure any case of stomach trouble that ever worried man or woman with this maple wax.

The night wore on, the fun flagged. Ben Paul, a husky country boy, proposed that two or three go to Nick Yonse's still house and procure a little "licker." Cousin Wilson frowned upon this proposal but as the boys were his guests he did not further protest. It was impossible to awaken anyone to get the matured article from the distillery; therefore, with the aid of a clothesline fastened to a jug which Ben lowered into a vat filled with corn juice distilled the day previous, a supply was secured. Ben returned to the camp. He was truthful when he explained that the offering he brought was no old stale stuff such as they were accustomed to, but something new and fresh.

Its newness did not deter the boys from helping themselves to big swigs from the jug, smoothing out their wry faces with draughts of sugar water. Cousin Wilson refused to participate as he busied himself with his work. The sight of a tin cup made Alfred fearful that he would spill his sugar. He also declined. After the custom that had prevailed in the tavern cellar, the tin cup went round and round, the result was the same or nearly so as at the tavern. Some sang, others danced, one or two slept, some wanted to fight. Alfred attempted to pour melody on the troubled revellers but the only effect of his song was to encourage Ben Paul to knock the bottom out of a new tin pail endeavoring to keep time to the song as he had seen Alfred do with the tambourine.

Cousin John, unnoticed by Cousin Wilson, was chief among those who passed the tin cup around. John was of a friendly disposition and, not to be rude to his guests, sent the cup around often. Several of the boys retired into the shadows of the trees just beyond the glare of the furnace fire to regret their mixing corn and sugar.