im was a boy. Then
the sentence was pronounced and generally it was this:

"Go bow to the wittiest, kneel to the prettiest and kiss the one that you
love best."

Harry was the first prisoner. He went straight to Bim Kelso and bowed and
knelt, and when he had risen she turned and ran like a scared deer around
the chairs and the crowd of onlookers, some assisting and some checking
her flight, before the nimble youth. Hard pressed, she ran out of the
open door, with a merry laugh, and just beyond the steps Harry caught
and kissed her, and her cheeks had the color of roses when he led her
back.

John McNeil kissed Ann Rutledge that evening and was most attentive to
her, and the women were saying that the two had fallen in love with each
other.

"See how she looks at him," one of them whispered.

"Well, it's just the way he looks at her," the other answered.

At the first pause in the merriment Kelso stood on a chair, and then
silence fell upon the little company.

"My good neighbors," he began, "we are here to rejoice that new friends
have come to us and that a new home is born in our midst. We bid them
welcome. They are big boned, big hearted folks. No man has grown large
who has not at one time or another had his feet in the soil and felt its
magic power going up into his blood and bone and sinew. Here is a
wonderful soil and the inspiration of wide horizons; here are broad and
fertile fields. Where the corn grows high you can grow statesmen. It may
be that out of one of these little cabins a man will come to carry the
torch of Liberty and Justice so high that its light will shine into every
dark place. So let no one despise the cabin--humble as it is. Samson and
Sarah Traylor, I welcome and congratulate you. Whatever may come, you can
find no better friends than these, and of this you may be sure, no child
of the prairies will ever go about with a hand organ and a monkey. Our
friend, Honest Abe, is one of the few rich men in this neighborhood.
Among his assets are Kirkham's Grammar, _The Pilgrim's Progress_, the
Lives of Washington and Henry Clay, Hamlet's Soliloquy, Othello's
Speech to the Senate, Marc Antony's address and a part of Webster's reply
to Hayne. A man came along the other day and sold him a barrel of rubbish
for two bits. In it he found a volume of Blackstone's _Commentaries_. Old
Blackstone challenged him to a wrestle and Abe has grappled with him. I
reckon he'll take his measure as easily as he to