le who know him
through and through, a great deal better than he knows himself. It is
strange that he should brag at that rate where everybody knows him.
But he has fallen into the habit of bragging, and I suppose he hardly
thinks of the absurd and foolish language he is using. According to
his account of himself, he can run a mile in a minute, jump over a
fence ten rails high, shoot an arrow from his bow twenty rods, and
hit an apple at that distance half a dozen times running.

I must tell you a story about this Tom Thrasher. Poor Tom! he got
"come up with," not long ago, by some fun-loving boys that lived in
his neighborhood. Tom had been boasting of his great feats in jumping.
He could jump higher than any boy on Blue Hill. In fact, he had just
jumped over the fence around Captain Corning's goat pasture, which, as
everybody knows, was eight rails high, and verily believed he could
have cleared it just as easily, if it had been two rails higher. That
was the kind of language he used to this company of boys. They did not
believe a word he said.

"Let's try Tom," one whispered to another, "let's try the fellow, and
see how high he can jump."

"Say, Tom," said one of the boys, "will you go down to the captain's
goat pasture with us, and try that thing over again?"

Tom did not seem to be very fierce for going. But all the boys urged
him so hard, that he finally consented and went. When he got to the
goat pasture, he measured the fence with his eye; and from the manner
in which he shrugged his shoulders, it was pretty clear that he
considered the fence a very high one indeed. He was not at all in a
hurry about performing the feat. But the roguish boys would not let
him off.

"Come, Tom," said one.

"Now for it," said another.

"No backing out," said a third.

"It's only eight rails high," said a fourth.

Still, somehow or other, Tom could not get his courage quite up to the
point. The best thing he could have done, in my way of thinking, when
he found himself so completely cornered was to have said, "Well,
boys, there's no use in mincing the matter at all. I am a little
dunce. I can no more jump over that fence than I can build a steamboat
or catch a streak of lightning." But that was not his way of getting
out of the scrape.

"Let me give the word now," said one of the lads. "I'll say 'one, two,
three,' and when I come to 'three,' you shall run and jump."

"Go ahead," said Tom.

And the other boy began: