"That fortune lady said you'd got to be President of the United States,"
said Eliza.

"How could ze presiman won a show?" asked May.

"How could that old fortune-teller know what I'm going to be?" Will
would answer, disdainfully. "I rather guess I can have a show, in spite
of all the fortune-tellers in the country. I'll tell you right now,
girls, I don't propose to be President, but I do mean to have a show!"

Such temerity in disputing one's destiny was appalling; and though our
ideas of destiny were rather vague, we could grasp one dreadful fact:
Will had refused to be President of the United States! So we ran crying
to mother, and burying our faces in her lap, sobbed out: "Oh, mother!
Will says he ain't going to be President. Don't he have to be?"

Still, in spite of Will's fine scorn of fortune-tellers, the prophecy
concerning his future must have been sometimes in his mind. This was
shown in an episode that the writer is in duty bound, as a veracious
chronicler, to set down.

Our neighbor, Mr. Hathaway, had a son, Eugene, of about Will's age, and
the two were fast friends. One day, when Will was visiting at Eugene's
house, the boys introduced themselves to a barrel of hard cider.
Temperance sentiment had not progressed far enough to bring hard cider
under the ban, and Mr. Hathaway had lately pressed out a quantity of the
old-fashioned beverage. The boys, supposing it a harmless drink, took
all they desired--much more than they could carry. They were in a
deplorable condition when Mr. Hathaway found them; and much distressed,