BOYS INTO THE GREAT WORLD OF

TEMPTATION AND DANGER,

This Book is Dedicated.

PREFACE.

Josiah and me got to talkin' it over. He said it wuzn't right to think
more of one child than you did of another.

And I says, "That is so, Josiah."

And he says, "Then, why did you say yesterday, that you loved sweet Cicely
better than any of the rest of your thought-children? You said you loved
'em all, and was kinder sorry for the hull on 'em, but you loved her the
best: what made you say it?"

Says I, "I said it, to tell the truth."

"Wall, what did you do it _for_?" he kep' on, determined to get a
reason.

"I did it," says I, a comin' out still plainer,--"I did it to keep from
lyin'."

"Wall, when you say it hain't right to feel so, what makes you?"

"I don't know, Josiah," says I, lookin' at him, and beyend him, way into
the depths of emotions and feelin's we can't understand nor help,--