fish and hunt instead. Young Butler was of a better sort mentally, but he
too never cared to read much. Both he and the Groats, the Nellises, the
Cosselmans, young Wormuth--in fact, all the boys of good families I knew
in the Valley--derided education, and preferred instead to go into the
woods with a negro, and hunt squirrels while he chopped, or to play with
their traps.

Perhaps they were not to be blamed much, for the attractions of the rough
out-of-door life which they saw men leading all about them might very
easily outweigh the quiet pleasures of a book. But it was a misfortune
none the less in after-years to some of them, when they allowed uninformed
prejudices to lead them into a terrible course of crime against their
country and their neighbors, and paid their estates or their lives as the
penalty for their ignorance and folly.

Fortunately, things are better ordered for the youth of the land in these
days.




Chapter V.

How a Stately Name Was Shortened and Sweetened.



It was on the morrow after my birthday that we became finally convinced of
the French retreat. Mr. Stewart had returned from his journeys, contented,
and sat now, after his hot supper, smoking by the fire. I lay at his feet