n the girls of Burr Oak had diminished,
for we were less regular in our attendance upon services in the little
school-house, and whenever we could gain consent to use a horse, we
hitched up and drove away to town. These trips have golden,
unforgettable charm, and indicate the glamor which approaching manhood
was flinging over my world.

My father's world was less jocund, was indeed filled with increasing
anxiety, for just before harvest time a new and formidable enemy of the
wheat appeared in the shape of a minute, ill-smelling insect called the
chinch bug. It already bore an evil reputation with us for it was
reported to have eaten out the crops of southern Wisconsin and northern
Illinois, and, indeed, before barley cutting was well under way the
county was overrun with laborers from the south who were anxious to get
work in order to recoup them for the loss of their own harvest. These
fugitives brought incredible tales of the ravages of the enemy and
prophesied our destruction but, as a matter of fact, only certain dry
ridges proclaimed the presence of the insect during this year.

The crop was rather poor for other reasons, and Mr. Babcock, like my
father, objected to paying board bills. His attitude was so unpromising
that Burton and I cast about to see how we could lessen the expense of
upkeep during our winter term of school.

Together we decided to hire a room and board ourselves (as many of the
other fellows did) and so cut our expenses to a mere trifle. It was
difficult, even in those days, to live cheaper than two dollars per
week, but we convinced our people that we could do it, and so at last
wrung from our mothers a reluctant consent to our trying it. We got away
in October, only two weeks behind our fellows.

I well remember the lovely afternoon on which we unloaded our scanty
furniture into the two little rooms which we had hired for the term. It
was still glorious autumn weather, and we were young and released from
slavery. We had a table, three chairs, a little strip of carpet, and a
melodeon, which belonged to Burton's sister, and when we had spread our
carpet and put up our curtains we took seats, and cocking our feet upon
the window sill surveyed our surroundings with such satisfaction as only
autocrats of the earth may compass. We were absolute masters of our
time--that was our chiefest joy. We could rise when we pleased and go to
bed when we pleased. There were no stables to clean, no pigs to fe