ce been a man of
property, but, like Mr. Bissell, had become comparatively poor.
There's no accounting for likes and dislikes, though. Samuel and
Frederick were fond of each other, and I presume it would have puzzled
either of them to tell the reason for this fondness.

These two boys, according to an arrangement which had been made a long
time beforehand, were companions on thanksgiving day. If I remember
aright, the governor's proclamation for thanksgiving, at the time when
Frederick and Samuel were boys together, used to have these words
tacked to the last end of it: "All servile labor and vain recreation
on said day are by law forbidden." Still, parents and guardians
allowed considerable latitude to the children in their amusements, if
the governor did not. It was pretty generally understood that the
young folks were to have a good time of it, on thanksgiving day.

It very often happens, that when we enjoy ourselves most--when we come
nearest to being perfectly happy--we encounter the strongest
temptations, or, what amounts to the same thing, we are induced to
yield to temptation.

Several times during the day, these two boys came very near doing
something which they would have been ashamed of and heartily sorry for
afterwards. They met some boys playing cards for small sums of money,
and were urged to "try their luck." At first, they thought they would,
"just for fun." But they finally concluded that fun of that sort was
rather too dangerous--that it would cost more than it would come
to--and so they passed on.

About a hundred rods from the village, in an orchard, our two friends
came across a company of larger boys, who were playing ball. Here
they encountered another temptation. The ball-players were treating
themselves to a kind of liquor, which, in those parts, bore the name
of _egg-nog_. Some of the boys and girls who read this story, or hear
it read, will no doubt laugh at this unmusical and out-of-the-way
name; and I confess the word looked to me so strange and barbarous,
after I had written it down, that I had a great mind to dash my pen
across it, and hunt up some other name for it. However, I concluded I
would go straight to Webster's large dictionary, and see whether he
had taken notice of the word. I made up my mind that, if I found it
in the dictionary, I would hold on to it, and that if it were missing
there, I would let it stay in the society where it was born,
christened and brought up. I went