with the
great Michael Hacket of the Canton Academy. Hacket was a big, brawny,
red-haired, kindly Irishman with a merry heart and tongue, the latter
having a touch of the brogue of the green isle which he had never seen,
for he had been born in Massachusetts and had got his education in
Harvard. He was then a man of forty.

"You're coming to me this fall," he said as he put his hand on my arm
and gave me a little shake. "Lad! you've got a big pair of shoulders! Ye
shall live in my house an' help with the chores if ye wish to."

"That'll be grand," said Uncle Peabody, but, as to myself, just then, I
knew not what to think of it.

We were picking up potatoes in the field.

"Without 'taters an' imitators this world would be a poor place to live
in," said Mr. Hacket. "Some imitate the wise--thank God!--some the
foolish--bad 'cess to the devil!"

As he spoke we heard a wonderful bird song in a tall spruce down by the
brook.

"Do ye hear the little silver bells in yon tower?" he asked.

As we listened a moment he whispered: "It's the song o' the Hermit
Thrush. I wonder, now, whom he imitates. I think the first one o' them
must 'a' come on Christmas night an' heard the angels sing an'
remembered a little o' it so he could give it to his children an' keep
it in the world."

I looked up into the man's face and liked him, and after that I looked
forward to the time when I should know him and his home.

Shep was rubbing his neck fondly on the schoolmaster's boot.

"That dog couldn't think more o' me if I were a bone," he said as he
went away.

END OF BOOK ONE

BOOK TWO

Which is the Story of the Principal Witness

CHAPTER IX

IN WHICH I MEET OTHER GREAT MEN

It was a sunny day in late September on which Aunt Deel and Uncle
Peabody took me and my little pine chest with all my treasures in it to
the village where I was to go to school and live with the family of Mr.
Michael Hacket, the schoolmaster. I was proud of the chest, now equipped
with iron hinges and a hasp and staple. Aunt Deel had worked hard to get
me ready, sitting late at her loom to weave cloth for my new suit, which
a traveling tailor had fitted and made for me. I remember that the
breeches were of tow and that they scratched my legs and made me very
uncomfortable, but I did not complain. My uncle used to say that nobody
with tow breeches on him could ride a horse without being thrown--they
pricked so.

The suit which I had gr