Trenck, Jack Sheppard, Don Quixote, Gil Blas, and
Charlotte Temple--all of which I fed upon like a bookworm.

I never come across a copy of any of those works without feeling a
certain tenderness for the yellow-haired little rascal who used to lean
above the magic pages hour after hour, religiously believing every word
he read, and no more doubting the reality of Sindbad the Sailor, or the
Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance, than he did the existence of his
own grandfather.

Against the wall at the foot of the bed hung a single-barrel
shot-gun--placed there by Grandfather Nutter, who knew what a boy
loved, if ever a grandfather did. As the trigger of the gun had been
accidentally twisted off, it was not, perhaps, the most dangerous weapon
that could be placed in the hands of youth. In this maimed condition
its "bump of destructiveness" was much less than that of my small brass
pocket-pistol, which I at once proceeded to suspend from one of the
nails supporting the fowling-piece, for my vagaries concerning the red
man had been entirely dispelled.

Having introduced the reader to the Nutter House, a presentation to the
Nutter family naturally follows. The family consisted of my
grandfather; his sister, Miss Abigail Nutter; and Kitty Collins, the
maid-of-all-work.

Grandfather Nutter was a hale, cheery old gentleman, as straight and as
bald as an arrow. He had been a sailor in early life; that is to say, at
the age of ten years he fled from the multiplication-table, and ran away
to sea. A single voyage satisfied him. There never was but one of our
family who didn't run away to sea, and this one died at his birth. My
grandfather had also been a soldier--a captain of militia in 1812. If I
owe the British nation anything, I owe thanks to that particular British
soldier who put a musket-ball into the fleshy part of Captain Nutter's
leg, causing that noble warrior a slight permanent limp, but offsetting
the injury by furnishing him with the material for a story which the old
gentleman was never weary of telling and I never weary of listening to.
The story, in brief, was as follows.

At the breaking out of the war, an English frigate lay for several days
off the coast near Rivermouth. A strong fort defended the harbor, and a
regiment of minute-men, scattered at various points along-shore, stood
ready to repel the boats, should the enemy try to effect a landing.
Captain Nutter had charge of a slight earthwork just outside