Now, I have often thought that if this mighty convulsion had occurred
a year or two earlier than it really did, it would have been bad for
me as I floated idly past, unconscious of danger. As it was, my little
bark was carried out into the broad Pacific, and sank in ten thousand
fathoms of the coldest water!--it makes my teeth chatter to relate it!

* * * * *

TONY ROLLO'S CONCLUSION.

To a degree unprecedented in the Rollo family, of Illinois, Antony was
an undutiful son. He was so undutiful that he may be said to have been
preposterous. There were seven other sons--Antony was the eldest. His
younger brothers were a nice, well-behaved bevy of boys as ever you
saw. They always attended Sunday School regularly; arriving just
before the Doxology (I think Sunday School exercises terminate that
way), and sitting in a solemn row on a fence outside, waiting with
pious patience for the girls to come forth; then they walked home with
them as far as their respective gates. They were an obedient seven,
too; they knew well enough the respect due to paternal authority, and
when their father told them what was what, and which side up it ought
to lie, they never tarried until he had more than picked up a hickory
cudgel before tacitly admitting the correctness of the riper judgment.
Had the old gentleman commanded the digging of seven graves, and the
fabrication of seven board coffins to match, these necessaries would
have been provided with unquestioning alacrity.

But Antony, I bleed to state, was of an impractical, pensive turn. He
despised industry, scoffed at Sunday-schooling, set up a private
standard of morals, and rebelled against natural authority. He
wouldn't be a dutiful son--not for money! He had no natural
affections, and loved nothing so well as to sit and think. He was
tolerably thoughtful all the time; but with some farming implement in
his hand he came out strong. He has been known to take an axe between
his knees, and sit on a stump in a "clearing" all day, wrapt in a
single continuous meditation. And when interrupted by the
interposition of night, or by the superposition of the paternal
hickory, he would resume the meditation, next day, precisely where he
left off, going on, and on, and on, in one profound and inscrutable
think. It was a common remark in the neighbourhood that "If Tony Rollo
didn't let up, he'd think his ridiculous white head off!" And on
divers occasions w