religious books, and in practising sacred music. The whole family could sing, and when all were present, could carry all the four parts of ordinary tunes.

The family government was strict, and, so far as it bore upon their eldest children, severe. They were not only prohibited from dancing, playing cards, and all like amusements, but from going to places where they were practised. The consequence was, that the elder sons deceived their parents and indulged in those forbidden recreations clandestinely. But a change came over the father and mother before Amos grew up, and with him and the younger children advice and admonition took the place of prohibition.

The change which took place in the minds of this worthy pair with reference to domestic discipline is well illustrated by an example. When Amos was a little boy, a fiddle was an abomination to his father and mother. His eldest brother, who had quite a taste for music, having constructed a bass-viol or two, determined to try his hand upon a fiddle, and produced a very good instru

ment.

Not daring to bring it to the house, he kept it in a cooper's shop not far distant. His father, hunting there for something one day, mounted a bench, so that his head was raised above the beams of the shop, when his eyes fell upon the unlucky fiddle. He took it by the neck, and apostrophizing it," This is the first time I ever saw you," dashed it into the fireplace.

Being on a visit to his parents about thirty years afterwards, Amos Kendall went to meeting in Dunstable on a Sunday, and there sat his father in the deacon's seat beneath the pulpit, as in former times, and there was a fiddle in the choir!

The early education of Amos was in the free schools of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The boundary line between these States ran through his father's farm, who paid a school tax in both States, and had the privilege of sending his children to school in both. The summer schools were taught by women, and were in general attended only by children who were not old enough to assist their parents in their daily labors. They were generally kept from two to three months in each summer. The winter schools were usually kept by men, and lasted from six weeks to two months in each year. They were open to children of all ages from infancy to manhood.

These schools were from one to two miles distant from Deacon Kendall's, and having five children, of whom Amos was the youngest, and one niece to be taught, he hired a female teacher one winter and established a school at home. Here Amos won his first distinction. He had just begun to read and spell, and had no lessons to learn beyond the spelling-book. But he spelled in a class with the other children, and the teacher having promised a book to the one who should keep longest at the head, the prize was awarded to him, the youngest competitor.

At school he was obedient and studious, excelling in all branches except penmanship, in which he seemed to feel little interest. He was particularly fond of arithmetic, and by means of sums set by his elder brothers, and worked out in evenings by the light of the kitchen fire, he became master of the fundamental rules before he was allowed to cipher at school. He had just begun to read when he heard his father promise his elder brother George, that if he would read the Bible through in one year, he would give him a new one. He asked his father whether he could have a new one on the same condition, and was answered in the affirmative. The prize was easily won.

It was the custom of Deacon Kendall to allow his boys about two hours' nooning in the summer. A large portion of this time and of the winter evenings Amos devoted to reading, while the other boys were at play. There was a small township library in Dunstable, in which his father held two shares, entitling him to take out a book on each share and retain it two months. The use of one of these shares he gave to Amos, who in a very few years had read nearly every book in the library. On one occasion he brought home the second volume of Morse's large Geography, when his father smilingly asked, "Do you expect to read that through in two months?" Receiving an affirmative answer, he said, "Well, if you do, I will give you a pistareen." This was a Spanish coin then in circulation, worth about twenty cents. The pistareen was earned and paid.

This early reading was, perhaps, better remembered than the reading of subsequent years, since almost every sentence of it presented some new idea to the impressible and expanding mind. The value of it, especially in relation to geography and history, was fully appreciated by him in subsequent stages of his education.

In the free schools Amos had but one competitor for pre-eminence in spelling. This was a little girl of about his own age, named Sally Wright. For two or three years the competition was very keen, though Sally took the lead. At spelling-matches, then quite common, she was always the first chosen, and Amos Kendall was the first on the other side. Owing, however, to the superior advantages possessed by the latter, he finally took the lead of his fair rival. In this competition there was not a particle of envy or ill-will; on the contrary, the boy admired little Sally Wright for her smartness, and thought that when they grew up he would ask her to be his wife. But the Fates otherwise ordered. Sally married a worthless man. It was perhaps thirty years before she and her youthful competitor and admirer again met. He was then casually passing her residence, which bore all the outward signs of poverty, when it occurred to him to call, for the double purpose of seeing her once more and ascertaining whether she would recognize him. He knocked and was told to come in. On entering he beheld Sally Wright sitting in a plain but cleanly room, with several children around her, all clad in coarse clothing, but as neat as a good mother's labor could make them. "Do you not know me?" said he. "No, sir," was her reply. "Do you not recollect the boy, Amos Kendall, who used to go to school with you?" She sprang from her chair, and seized his hand, as if he had been a long-lost brother. The last he heard of her she was a widow, living with a brother.

So sober and thoughtful was Amos when a little boy, that he was generally called "the Deacon." Though often praised for his scholarship, he was as diffident and bashful as any girl. This peculiarity was, no doubt, natural; but in after life he attributed it chiefly to a singular incident which occurred when he was a little boy.

Though Dunstable was more than thirty miles from the sea, tales of money buried in that region by pirates, particularly by one Captain Kidd, were current among the population, and generally credited. This money was supposed to be in iron pots under the special charge of the Devil, who, though he could not harm those who might dig for it, would employ all sorts of noises and terrifying apparitions to scare them away, and not succeeding, would turn the money into something else. In this shift, however, his infernal majesty might be baffled by laying upon the trans

muted money a Bible and an open penknife, under the influence of which it would, in the course of a few days, resume its original character.

One of Amos's elder brothers was a full believer in these tales, and the boys of the neighborhood entered into a conspiracy to test his courage.

They filled two small iron pots with blacksmith's cinders and buried them under a large white pine-tree in the midst of a dense wood. One of the boys was then commissioned to notify the destined victim that money was buried in that spot, and propose that they two should go in the night and dig for it. Arrangements were made, and in the middle of a dark night, rendered darker by the surrounding forests, the boys repaired with lanterns and tools to the designated spot, and began operations. They had not proceeded far before strange noises were heard in the bushes around them: dogs barked, cats mewed, sheep bleated, cows lowed, and horses neighed. The diggers came to a big root of the white pine, which they began to cut away. The noises redoubled, accompanied by the blowing of trumpets and other alarming sounds. Under the big root they came upon a large black snake lying upon a flat stone, which the companion of young Kendall pretended to kill. At this stage the noises became terrific dogs howled, cats yelled, cattle bellowed, women screamed, and bang, bang, went guns over their heads in the pine-tree and among the surrounding bushes. Though his companion pretended to be much terrified, the brave boy, who believed it all the work of the Devil, nothing daunted hauled out the black snake, and, turning up the stone on which it was deposited, came upon the eagerly sought treasure; but the Devil had transmuted the gold and the silver into common blacksmith's cinders. As this was not unexpected, the boys lugged the pots home and deposited them in young Kendall's chamber, placing upon the cinders in each a Bible and an open penknife. There Deacon Kendall found them a few days afterwards and pitched them out of the window.

This incident led Amos to conclude that his father's children were not so smart as the neighbors' boys, and, enhancing his natural diffidence, produced a bashfulness and reserve which became habitual and invincible. Only once during boyhood was it thoroughly overcome in the presence of strangers. On a public occasion a larger boy began to insult and abuse his next older

brother, when young Amos, highly excited, opened upon and soon silenced him. The lookers-on thereupon insisted upon the vanquished blackguard's "treating" Amos and his brother, which he did, with rum-toddy and gingerbread.

The mind of Amos Kendall always had a mechanical turn. When a boy, he constructed in a rude way the machinery of little wind and water mills and put them in operation. He thought much on means of using the air as a regular motive power, but with no result. He invented, however, a pump, on a principle not in use in this country, and never, so far as he knew, put into operation. His father had a cider-press operated by two large wooden screws. It occurred to him that if the threads had a water-tight covering, and one end of the screw was immersed at a suitable angle in water, and then made to revolve in the right direction, the water must necessarily follow the groove and be discharged at the top. With a jackknife he cut a groove around a stick of pine wood, tied over it a sheepskin, which made it nearly water-tight, and, turning it with the hand, one end being immersed in water, found it to answer his expectations.

Years afterwards he learnt that it was an old invention attributed to Archimedes, and had long been in use in Holland for draining marshes. Yet the conception was as original with Amos Kendall as it was with the first inventor.

It was a part of the parental teaching in the Kendall family never wantonly to take the life of any creature, snakes excepted. Birds and beasts which destroyed the farmers' crops, or were valuable for food, or on account of their skins, were fair game for his boys. In the neighboring streams and meadows were minks and muskrats, which were trapped by them, and the skins sold to raise "spending-money." Many an autumn morning Amos left his bed before daylight, and, walking or running two or three miles, visited his traps, and got home before sunrise. The boys were also allowed to cultivate a small patch of tobacco, which they manufactured into "pigtail" and sold to the chewers in the neighborhood. From these two sources were derived nearly all the funds they were able to control.

The amusements of Deacon Kendall's boys, other than such as are common to all youngsters, were fishing, both with the rod and spear, and hunting on a small scale. Salmon Brook, which ran through their father's farm, was stocked with a great variety of