Jahab, or words to that effect. But when he got
over the shock he made me stand right up before the whole school and do
it again. Patted me on the head and said I was "an honor to my parents
and an example to my playmates."

I had been looking down all the time, feeling mighty proud and scared,
but at that I couldn't help glancing up to see the other boys admire me.
But the first person my eye lit on was your grandma, standing in the
back of the room, where she had stopped for a moment on her way up to
church, and glaring at me in a mighty unpleasant way.

"Tell 'em, John," she said right out loud, before everybody.

There was no way to run, for the Elder had hold of my hand, and there
was no place to hide, though I reckon I could have crawled into a rat
hole. So, to gain time, I blurted out:

"Tell 'em what, mam?"

"Tell 'em how you come to have your lesson so nice."

I learned to hate notoriety right then and there, but I knew there was
no switching her off on to the weather when she wanted to talk
religion. So I shut my eyes and let it come, though it caught on my
palate once or twice on the way out.

"Hooked a watermelon, mam."

There wasn't any need for further particulars with that crowd, and they
simply howled. Ma led me up to our pew, allowing that she'd tend to me
Monday for disgracing her in public that way--and she did.

That was a twelve-grain dose, without any sugar coat, but it sweat more
cant and false pride out of my system than I could get back into it for
the next twenty years. I learned right there how to be humble, which is
a heap more important than knowing how to be proud. There are mighty few
men that need any lessons in that.

Your affectionate father,
JOHN GRAHAM.

+-----------------------------+
| No. 18 |
+-----------------------------+
| From John Graham, at the |
| London House of Graham & |
| Co., to his son, |
| Pierrepont, at the Union |
| Stock Yards in Chicago. |
| Mr. Pierrepont is worried |
| over rumors that the old |
| man is a bear on lard, |
| and that the longs are |
| about to ma