formed, on any of these subjects, or on such kindred ones as the
weather, or potato crop, without previous consultation with "Captain
Dick."

You have an extraordinary respect for Captain Dick: his gruff tones,
dark beard, patched waistcoat, and cowhide boots, only add to it: you
can compare your regard for him only with the sentiments you entertain
for those fabulous Roman heroes, led on by Horatius, who cut down the
bridge across the Tiber, and then swam over to their wives and families!

A superannuated old greyhound lives about the premises, and stalks
lazily around, thrusting his thin nose into your hands in a very
affectionate manner.

Of course, in your way, you are a lion among the boys of the
neighborhood: a blue jacket that you wear, with bell buttons of white
metal, is their especial wonderment. You astonish them moreover with
your stories of various parts of the world which they have never
visited. They tell you of the haunts of rabbits, and great snake
stories, as you sit in the dusk after supper under the old oaks; and you
delight them in turn with some marvellous tale of South-American
reptiles out of Peter Parley's books.

In all this your new friends are men of observation; while Frank and
yourself are comparatively men of reading. In ciphering, and all
schooling, you find yourself a long way before them; and you talk of
problems, and foreign seas, and Latin declensions, in a way that sets
them all agape.

As for the little country girls, their bare legs rather stagger your