pposing his brother would be able
to pay the note when it was due, and always being anxious to oblige
everybody, when he could, he put his name to the note.

That note ruined Deacon Bissell. His brother could not pay it. He
failed, and his failure swept away nearly every dollar which the
deacon had been laying up for thirty years. This loss tried him very
much. He wept over it--not because he needed or wanted the lost money
for himself, but because, as he used to remark, it was one of his
darling schemes to give all his children "a good setting out" in the
world. It seemed a terrible loss to him. "If I were a young man," said
he, "I might hope to get up again. But I am old. I am almost worn out.
A few more years, I am afraid, will finish what there is left of me."

CHAP. V.

THE YOUNGEST BOY.

The deacon had several children. At the time of his failure two or
three were married, and of those that still remained at home, Samuel
was the youngest. It is natural enough for you to suppose that this
Samuel, as I am giving you such a long story about him, was a
remarkable child, a sort of prodigy. But such is not the fact, I
believe. As to his cradle life, I profess not to know much. I have
not much doubt, however, that he was very like other infants--that he
had his share of little troubles, and cried lustily over them; that he
laughed, and frolicked, and clapped his hands, like most babies; that
he went into raptures over a tin whistle and a rattle box; and that,
in short, he was as wise as most people are, at that interesting age
when the nursery seems to them to comprise the greater portion of the
habitable globe.

One of the first anecdotes I ever heard about Samuel--one which,
though it does not make him out a prodigy, shows pretty clearly what
sort of stuff he was made of, as straws show which way the wind
blows--is something like this: When Samuel was quite a small boy, and
before he had made much progress in his studies at school, there came
to board at his father's, for a few weeks, the teacher of the district
school. This man was fond of children, and took quite a fancy to
little Samuel. "Samuel," said he, one night, when the boy was playing
with a new ball, "did you know the world was round, like your ball?"
No, he had never dreamed of such a thing, he said. He had thought it
was as flat as a pancake. "Well, it is round," the teacher said,
"almost as round as a ball or a marble." The little fellow was