peculated
as to which boy got licked. Maybe both the small rascals are dead now
(not in consequence of the set-to, let us hope), or maybe they are
married, and have pugnacious urchins of their own; yet to this day I
sometimes find myself wondering how that fight turned out.

We had been riding perhaps two hours and a half, when we shot by a tall
factory with a chimney resembling a church steeple; then the locomotive
gave a scream, the engineer rang his bell, and we plunged into the
twilight of a long wooden building, open at both ends. Here we stopped,
and the conductor, thrusting his head in at the car door, cried out,
"Passengers for Rivermouth!"

At last we had reached our journey's end. On the platform my father
shook hands with a straight, brisk old gentleman whose face was very
serene and rosy. He had on a white hat and a long swallow-tailed coat,
the collar of which came clear up above his cars. He didn't look unlike
a Pilgrim Father. This, of course, was Grandfather Nutter, at whose
house I was born. My mother kissed him a great many times; and I was
glad to see him myself, though I naturally did not feel very intimate
with a person whom I had not seen since I was eighteen months old.

While we were getting into the double-seated wagon which Grandfather
Nutter had provided, I took the opportunity of asking after the health
of the pony. The pony had arrived all right ten days before, and was in
the stable at home, quite anxious to see me.

As we drove through the quiet old town, I thought Rivermouth the
prettiest place in the world; and I think so still. The streets are long
and wide, shaded by gigantic American elms, whose drooping branches,
interlacing here and there, span the avenues with arches graceful
enough to be the handiwork of fairies. Many of the houses have small
flower-gardens in front, gay in the season with china-asters, and are
substantially built, with massive chimney-stacks and protruding eaves.
A beautiful river goes rippling by the town, and, after turning and
twisting among a lot of tiny islands, empties itself into the sea.

The harbor is so fine that the largest ships can sail directly up to
the wharves and drop anchor. Only they don't. Years ago it was a famous
seaport. Princely fortunes were made in the West India trade; and in
1812, when we were at war with Great Britain, any number of privateers
were fitted out at Rivermouth to prey upon the merchant vessels of the
enemy. Certain p