con grabbed me and told me to get down on my knees, and before I knew
it he was into the morning devotions, and when he said 'amen' and jumped
and said for us to fire breakfast into us quick and get to work doing
chores. I looked at the clock and it was just three o'clock in the
morning, just the time Pa comes home and goes to bed in town, when he is
running a political campaign. Well, sir, I had to jump from one thing to
another from three o'clock in the morning till nine at night, pitching
hay, driving reaper, raking and binding, shocking wheat, hoeing corn,
and everything, and I never got a kind word. I spoiled my clothes, and
I think another week would make a pirate of me. But during it all I had
the advantage of a pious example. I tell you, you think more of such a
man as the deacon if you don't work for him, but only see him when he
comes to town, and you hear him sing 'Heaven is my Home,' through his
nose. He even is farther from home than any place I ever heard of. He
would be a good mate on a Mississippi river steamboat if he could swear,
and I guess he could soon learn. Now you take these cabbages and give
me ninety cents, and I will go home and borrow ten cents to make up
the dollar, and send my chum back with the horse and wagon and my
resignation. I was not cut out for a farmer. Talk about fishing, the
only fish I saw was a salt white fish we had for breakfast one morning,
which was salted by Noah, in the ark," and while the grocery man was
unloading the cabbages the boy went off to look for his chum, and later
the two boys were seen driving off to the farm with two fishing poles
sticking out of the hind end of the wagon.

CHAPTER XXVII.

DRINKING CIDER IN THE CELLAR--THE DEACON WILL NOT ACCEPT
HENNERY'S RESIGNATION--HE WANTS BUTTER ON HIS PANCAKES--HIS
CHUM JOINS HIM--THE SKUNK IN THE CELLAR--THE POOR BOY GETS
THE "AGER."

"Well, I swow, here comes a walking hospital," said the grocery man as
the bad boy's shadow came in the store, followed by the boy, who looked
sick and yellow, and tired, and he had lost half his flesh. "What's
the matter with you? Haven't got the yellow fever, have you?" and the
grocery man placed a chair where the invalid could fall into it.

"No, got the ager," said the boy as he wiped the perspiration off his
upper lip, and looked around the store to see if there was anything in
sight that would take the taste of quinine out of his mouth. "Had too
much d