ink what
I had done for the boy. Besides the thrashing I
gave him in Nassau, I could not think of
anything.) "I have been talking a great deal with
Sammy, in the last day or two, about his doings
while he was away, and although I cannot exactly
fix my mind on any particular action, on your
part, which proves what I say" (he was in the same
predicament here in which I was myself), "yet I
feel positively assured that your companionship
and influence have been of the greatest service to
him. Among other things, he really wants to go to
college. I am delighted at this. It was with much
sorrow that I gave up the idea of making him a
scholar: but, though he was a good boy, I saw that
it was useless to keep him at the academy at
Willisville, and so made up my mind to take him
into my office. But I know you put this college
idea into his head, though how, I cannot say, and
I am sure that it does not matter. Sammy tells me
that you never understood that he was to be
entirely in your charge; but since you brought him
out so well without knowing this, it does you more
credit. I am very grateful to you. If I find a
chance to do you a real service, I will do it.

"Yours very truly,
"SAMUEL COLBERT, SR."

The second letter was handed to me by Corny, and was from her mother. I
shall not copy that here, for it is much worse than Mr. Colbert's. It
praised me for doing a lot of things which I never did at all; but I
excused Mrs. Chipperton for a good deal she said, for she had passed
through so much anxiety and trouble, and was now going to settle down
for good, with Corny at school, that I didn't wonder she felt happy
enough to write a little wildly. But there was one queer resemblance
between her letter and old Mr. Colbert's. She said two or three
times--it was an awfully long letter--that there was not any particular
thing that she alluded to when she spoke of my actions. That was the
funny part of it. They couldn't put their fingers on anything really
worth mentioning, after all.

My third letter had come by mail, and was a little old. My mother gave
it to me, and told me that it had come to the post-office at Willisville
about a we