Stealing away from the ones at home, who would be sad when they found out
about it; stealing away from honor, purity, cleanliness, goodness, and
manliness, the minister's boy and the boy next door were preparing to smoke
their first cigarettes. They had skulked across the back pasture, and were
nearing the stone wall that separated Mr. Meadow's corn-field from the
road; and here, screened by the wall on one side and by corn on the other,
they intended to roll the little "coffin nails," and smoke them unseen.

The minister's boy, whose name was Johnny Brighton, and who was an
innocent, unsuspicious child, agreed that it would be a fine, manly thing
to smoke. So the lads waited and planned, and now their opportunity had
come. The boy next door, whose name was Albert Beecher, saw old Jerry
Grimes, the worst character in Roseland, drop a small bag of tobacco and
some cigarette-papers. The lad, being unobserved, transferred the stuff
from the sidewalk to his pocket, then hid it in the wood-shed.

At last their plan seemed about to be carried out. Albert's mother was
nursing a sick friend, and the minister, secure in his study, was preparing
a sermon. Johnny's mother was dead. His aunt Priscilla was his father's
housekeeper, and she was usually so busy that she had little time for small
boys. Today, as she began her sewing, Johnny slipped quietly from the house
and joined his chum.

The boys reached the stone wall and sat down, with the tobacco between
them, to enjoy (?) what they considered a manly deed. After considerable
talk and a few blunders, each succeeded in rolling a cigarette, and was
about to pass it to his lips, when a strange voice, almost directly above
their heads, said, pleasantly, "Trying to kill yourselves, boys?"