respect of the town people. I assisted him at his trade of making
shoes until I reached the age of two and twenty, being esteemed a
skillful mechanic. Joining the Barnstable Invincibles, a very
disorderly militia company, I was twice elected its captain, which
was considered a very good practical joke, the militia there being
in very bad odor with everybody but the young damsels of the town.
To my military title, then, I owe one of the most fortunate
circumstances of my life-that of getting a wife. And this wife,
though she bore my title the strongest love, was quite as good as I
deserved. In due time we were blessed with one, and then another
little Potter, and I began to thank heaven for making me the
happiest of men. A snug little home was the result of frugality and
industry, and peace reigned in it. But my wife was vain of my
military reputation, which she regarded as a hinge for taking a
higher position in the world. I must tell you that she cut two
clever speeches from an old newspaper, declaring that I must study
them, so that with a few alterations, (an art well understood by our
clergymen and politicians,) I could set up for a public man, making
them apply to all great questions with equal force.

"Wife was of a good, puritanical family, and, as I afterwards had
reason to know, well understood how to push her husband up in the
world. I got the speeches down without the slightest difficulty."
Here the major wet his organs of speech with a little of something
he kept in a small flask he drew from his breast-pocket. "They were
fu l of blaze. In truth, I may say without fear of contradiction,
that a dozen patriots might have found room to roll up in them and
die gloriously. Still, it didn't seem to me much for a man to get a
speech into his head; so, after getting another, I found no
difficulty in getting twenty, all of which were applicable to