sort of unofficial, industrial hangman.

At the same time he was more or less of a genius, for he
climbed steeples, dug wells, and did all kinds of disagreeable
jobs that needed to be done, and from which sober and
cautious men shrank like unwashed wool.

One such man--a German, too--lives in East Aurora. I
joined him, accidentally, in walking along a country road
the other day. He carried a big basket on his arm, and was
peacefully smoking a big Dutch pipe. We talked of music and
he was regretting the decline of a taste for Bach, when he
shifted the basket to the other arm.

``What have you in the basket?'' I asked.

And here is the answer, ``Noddings--but dynamite. I vas
going up on der hill, already, to blow me oud some stumps
oud.'' And I suddenly bethought me of an engagement I had
at the village.



John Jacob Astor was the youngest of four sons, and as many
daughters. The brothers ran away early in life, and went to sea
or joined the army. One of these boys came to America, and
followed his father's trade of butcher.

Jacob Astor, the happy father of John Jacob, used to take the boy
with him on his pig-killing expeditions. This for two