arting of a squirrel across a fallen tree, as
he went abroad, awakened his ruling passion. He sprang after the nimble
animal, until he found himself at the very spot, where he had observed
his school-master to pause in his promenades. His attention was arrested
by observing a kind of opening under a little arbor, thickly covered
with a mat of vines. Thinking, perhaps, that it was the retreat of some
animal, he thrust in his hand, and to his surprise drew forth a glass
bottle, partly full of whisky. The enigma of his master's walks and
inequalities of temper stood immediately deciphered. After the
reflection of a moment, he carefully replaced the bottle in its
position, and returned to his place in school. In the evening he
communicated his discovery and the result of his meditations to the
larger boys of the school on their way home. They were ripe for revolt,
and the issue of their caucus follows:

They were sufficiently acquainted with fever and ague, to have
experimented the nature of tartar emetic. They procured a bottle exactly
like the master's, filled with whisky, in which a copious quantity of
emetic had been dissolved. Early in the morning, they removed the
school-master's bottle, and replaced it by theirs, and hurried back to
their places, panting with restrained curiosity, and a desire to see
what results would come from their medical mixture.

The accustomed hour for intermission came. The master took his usual
promenade, and the children hastened back with uncommon eagerness to
resume their seats and their lessons. The countenance of the master
alternately red and pale, gave portent of an approaching storm.

"Recite your grammar lesson," said he, in a growling tone, to one of the
older boys.

"How many parts of speech are there?"

"Seven, sir," timidly answered the boy.

"Seven, you numscull! is that the way you get your lesson?" Forthwith
descended a shower of blows on his devoted head.

"On what continent is Ireland?" said he, turning from him in wrath to
another boy. The boy saw the shower pre-determined to fall, and the
medicine giving evident signs of having taken effect. Before he could
answer, "I reckon on the continent of England," he was gathering an
ample tithe of drubbing.

"Come and recite your lesson in arithmetic?" said he to Boone, in a
voice of thunder. The usually rubicund face of the Irishman was by this
time a deadly pale. Slate in hand, the docile lad presented himself
before h