n and ran back. "Oh, I
fordot," she went on, in her squeaky, little voice, "dat my dranfadder
says dat afterward de monkey upset de painter's can of oil, and rolled
in it, and den jumped down in my dranfadder's flour barrel."

The president looked very much amused, and said, "We have had some good
stories about monkeys, now let us have some more about our home animals.
Who can tell us another story about a horse?"

Three or four boys jumped up, but the president said they would take one
at a time. The first one was this: A Riverdale boy was walking along the
bank of a canal in Hoytville. He saw a boy driving two horses, which
were towing a canal-boat. The first horse was lazy, and the boy got
angry and struck him several times over the head with his whip. The
Riverdale boy shouted across to him, begging him not to be so cruel; but
the boy paid no attention. Suddenly the horse turned, seized his
tormentor by the shoulder, and pushed him into the canal. The water was
not deep, and the boy, after floundering about for a few seconds, came
out dripping with mud and filth, and sat down on the tow path, and
looked at the horse with such a comical expression, that the Riverdale
boy had to stuff his handkerchief in his mouth to keep from laughing.

"It is to be hoped that he would learn a lesson," said the president,
"and be kinder to his horse in the future. Now, Bernard Howe, your
story."

The boy was a brother to the little girl who had told the monkey story,
and he, too, had evidently been talking to his grandfather. He told two
stories, and Miss Laura listened eagerly, for they were about Fairport.

The boy said that when his grandfather was young, he lived in Fairport,
Maine. On a certain day he stood in the market square to see their first
stage-coach put together. It had come from Boston in pieces, for there
was no one in Fairport that could make one. The coach went away up into
the country one day, and came back the next. For a long time no one
understood driving the horses properly, and they came in day after day
with the blood streaming from them. The whiffle-tree would swing round
and hit them, and when their collars were taken off, their necks would
be raw and bloody. After a time, the men got to understand how to drive
a coach, and the horses did not suffer so much.

The other story was about a team-boat, not a steamboat. More than
seventy years ago, they had no steamers running between Fairport and the
islan