gs, which, as there was
nobody to be hoodwinked by it, was stratagem wasted. But no sooner did
his foot touch the great oaken sill than with a sheep-like jump he had
cleared his skirts of the gate, and now across the open clearing, in the
center of which stood the fort, he was clipping away with a swiftness
perfectly marvelous in one of his age. Splendidly done, my fine rogue!
How the mother of a well-ordered family of precise boys and prim girls
would like to have the mending of your morals--_i.e._, the switching of
your skedaddling young legs--this fine morning!

Gaining the covert of the woods unobserved, he struck into a bridle-path
which ran winding amongst the trees and grape-vines toward the field,
where he soon subsided, first into a dog-trot, then into a brisk walk,
which he maintained for the rest of the way with long and guilty
strides. When he was come to the fence which divided the woods from the
field, with squirrel-like nimbleness he climbed up and perched himself
on the rider, or topmost rail, just where his black chum and old
Cornwallis should be coming out at the end of the furrow.

Perhaps it were well to take advantage of the present moment, while we
have him so conspicuously before us, to draw a life-size portrait of our
little hero--which, however, at first glance may seem somewhat larger
than life, the subject being uncommonly well grown for a boy of his age.
His body and limbs are as round, smooth, tight, and hard as those of a
buckskin doll; the materials used in their construction being of the
most substantial description, and consisting chiefly of Johnny-cakes,
hominy, venison and other wild meat, with as much milk, maple molasses,
and pumpkin-pie as the unsettled nature of the times would admit. His
eyes are blue and bright, large and wide open--such as can look you full
in the face, yet without boldness or impertinence. One would naturally
suppose that a boy who was in the weekly habit of breaking away from
apron-string control, and getting a whipping for it, ought to have long,
narrow, half-shut eyes, of some uncertain color, which, though they can
stare boldly enough at your boots, buttons, or breastpin, can never look
you full in the face, like those big blue ones we have up there before
us. His hair does not fall in clustering ringlets over his ears and
around his neck, as we usually find it in nice, interesting little boys
who figure in story-books; but it is pretty enough, being of a d