lameness, that when a young man he was employed on the
farm of the chief magistrate of a neighboring State; where, as
his ill luck would have it, the governor's handsome daughter
fell in love with him. He was caught one day in the young
lady's room by her father; whereupon the irascible old
gentleman pitched him unceremoniously out of the window,
laming him for life, on a brick pavement below, like Vulcan on
the rocks of Lemnos.(1) As for the lady, he assured us "she
took on dreadfully about it." "Did she die?" we inquired,
anxiously. There was a cunning twinkle in the old rogue's eye
as he responded, "Well, no she did n't. She got married."

(1) It was upon the Isle of Lemnos that Vulcan was flung by
Jupiter, according to the myth, for attempting to aid his mother
Juno.

Twice a year, usually in the spring and autumn, we were
honored with a call from Jonathan Plummer, maker of verses,
pedler and poet, physician and parson,--a Yankee troubadour,--
first and last minstrel of the valley of the Merrimac, encircled,
to my wondering young eyes, with the very nimbus of
immortality. He brought with him pins, needles, tape, and
cotton-thread for my mother; jack-knives, razors, and soap for
my father; and verses of his own composing, coarsely printed
and illustrated with rude wood-cuts, for the delectation of the
younger branches of the family. No love-sick youth could
drown himself, no deserted maiden bewail the moon, no rogue
mount the gallows, without fitting memorial in Plummer's
verses. Earthquakes, fires, fevers, and shipwrecks he regarded
as personal favors from Providence, furnishing the raw material