e manner
of privateers; though I believe the trade of privateering is regarded as
piracy, now-a-days. How times are changed! We were to go on this expedition
in rotation, from the oldest downward. We commenced, and two of us had
performed the feat. It came George Reese's turn next. You didn't know
George, I suppose. But I wish you had known him. I think you could
appreciate the story better, if you knew him as well as I did. Well, George
went down cellar, with his pitcher in his hand, thirsting for cider and
glory. You must know that there was a flight of stairs that led directly to
the cellar from the room we occupied. You should know, too, that we went
down without a light, and felt our way in the dark. George had not been
below two minutes, when we heard a report from the cellar very like the
discharge of a pistol. It was loud enough to alarm the whole house. We were
frightened. We had reason to be. Who knows, thought we, but they have set a
spring-gun for us, and poor George is badly wounded? We waited in silence,
and with not a little anxiety, for our hero to come up.

He came at last, and a sorry looking fellow he was. He was covered from
head to foot with yeast! The cook had placed her bottle of emptyings,
tightly corked, in the village of cider bottles; and the truth flashed upon
us at once, that George had made a mistake, and captured the wrong bottle;
and the most of its contents, being a little angry at the time, were
discharged into his face. But this was not all. George thought he had
encountered a cider bottle, after all, for he could see nothing in the
cellar, and he had poured what little remained of his yeast into the
pitcher, and brought it up with him. When he made his appearance, there was
such a noisy trio of laughter as that old kitchen had seldom heard before.
This brought in the cook, and she laughed as loudly as the rest of us.
Then, to crown all, the lady of the house, hearing the noise, came to see
what we were all about; and she laughed the loudest of any body. I shall
never forget the image of George Reese, as he entered that room. It gives
me a pain in the side now, only to think of it.

MORAL 1.--Before undertaking any enterprise similar to this cider-plot, it
is desirable to count the cost.

MORAL 2.--In your pursuit after glory, take care that you do not come in
contact with something else that is not so pleasant.

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