at is
theologically called "unfulfilled prophecy." We cannot, at any rate, be
too thankful that the only occasion on which it was ever hinted to an
American boy that he might one day become President has not been
suffered to pass into oblivion, but has found in this little volume a
monument more durable than brass. To go on with our inventory. A whole
flock of thirteen pigeons shot by the Ferry Boy answered through their
misty shroud to the Pioneer Boy's turkey which called to them aloud. He
taught school two weeks, and then had leave to resign. He went to
Washington and said his prayers like a good boy: we trust he has kept up
the practice ever since.

From such a record there is but one inference: if the man is not
President, he ought to be!

One great element in the success which these little books have met, the
one fact which, we are persuaded, accounts for the quiet, but
significant "twenty-sixth thousand" that we find on the title-page of
one of them, is the pains which their authors take to make their meaning
clear. They do not, like too many of our modern authors, leave a book
half written, forcing the reader to finish their work as he goes along.
They are instant, in season and out of season, with explanation,
illustration, reflection, until the idea is, so to speak, reduced to
pulp, and the reader has nothing to perform save the act of deglutition.

"When he ['Nat'] was only four years old, and was learning to read
little words of two letters, he came across one about which he had quite
a dispute with his teacher. It was INN.

"'What is that?' asked his teacher.

"'I-double n,' he answered.

"'What does i-double n spell?'

"'Tavern,' was his quick reply.

"The teacher smiled, and said, 'No; it spells INN. Now read it again.'

"'I-double n--tavern,' said he.

"'I told you that it did not spell tavern, it spells INN. Now pronounce
it correctly.'

"'It _do_ spell tavern,' said he.

"The teacher was finally obliged to give it up, and let him enjoy his
own opinion. She probably called him obstinate, although there was
nothing of the kind about him, as we shall see. His mother took up the
matter at home, but failed to convince him that i-double n did not spell
tavern. It was not until some time after that he changed his opinion on
this important subject.

"That this instance was no evidence of obstinacy in Nat, but only of a
disposition to think 'on his own hook,' is evident from the following
circ