e presents us, that in the petticoat
age we may fearlessly indulge in lollipop.

My father's education had been neglected. He could neither write nor
read; but although he did not exactly, like Cadmus, invent letters, he
had accustomed himself to certain hieroglyphics, generally speaking
sufficient for his purposes, and which might be considered as an
artificial memory. "I can't write nor read, Jacob," he would say; "I
wish I could; but look, boy, I means this mark for three quarters of a
bushel. Mind you recollects it when I axes you, or I'll be blowed if I
don't wallop you." But it was only a case of peculiar difficulty which
would require a new hieroglyphic, or extract such a long speech from my
father. I was well acquainted with his usual scratches and dots, and
having a good memory, could put him right when he was puzzled with some
misshapen _x_ or _z_, representing some unknown quantity, like the same
letters in algebra.

I have said that I was heir-apparent, but I did not say that I was the
only child born to my father in his wedlock. My honoured mother had had
two more children; but the first, who was a girl, had been provided for
by a fit of the measles; and the second, my elder brother, by stumbling
over the stern of the lighter when he was three years old. At the time
of the accident my mother had retired to her bed, a little the worse for
liquor; my father was on deck forward, leaning against the windlass,
soberly smoking his evening pipe. "What was that?" exclaimed my father,
taking his pipe out of his mouth, and listening; "I shouldn't wonder if
that wasn't Joe." And my father put in his pipe again, and smoked away
as before.

My father was correct in his surmises. It _was_ Joe who had made the
splash which roused him from his meditations, for the next morning Joe
was nowhere to be found. He was, however, found some days afterwards;
but, as the newspapers say, and as may well be imagined, the vital spark
was extinct; and, moreover, the eels and chubs had eaten off his nose
and a portion of his chubby face, so that, as my father said, "he was of
no use to nobody." The morning after the accident my father was up
early, and had missed poor little Joe. He went into the cabin, smoked
his pipe, and said nothing. As my brother did not appear as usual for
his breakfast, my mother called out for him in a harsh voice; but Joe
was out of hearing, and as mute as a fish. Joe opened not his mouth in
re