the time, although I have often since smiled at the recollection of it.  I happened one day to be employed in the back kitchen, or what they termed the sink-room, and I soon became aware that I was the subject of conversation by the family in the room adjoining.  “Now if that boy ain’t the most splendid reader I ever did hear,” said my kind old grandmother, “and I think, takin’ all things into consideration it’s a good thing Nathan sent for him; what do you say Lucinda?” “What I say is this,” replied my aunt, “it don’t do to judge folks, specially boys, by first appearances, and I shouldn’t wonder a mite, for all his smooth ways and fine readin’ if the fellow turns out a regular limb for mischief before he’s been here a fortnight.  I think Nathan Adams must have been out of his senses (if he ever had any to get out of) when he went and fetched a boy here to tear about and make a complete bedlam of the house.  I had to work hard enough before, but with a boy of that age round the house to cut up capers and raise Cain generally, I don’t know how we’re to live at all.”  “Well, Lucinda,” replied Grandma, “Nathan’s been a good dutiful boy to me,” (Uncle Nathan was past forty) “and if he took a notion to bring Ellen’s boy here, I don’t see as you ought to say a word against it.  What if you’d a married Joshua Blake as you expected to, and he’d a died and left you with a boy to bring up and school, I guess you’d a been glad if Nathan or somebody else had offered to take him off your hands for a while.”  This reply from her mother, at once silenced Aunt Lucinda, and there was no more said upon the subject.

CHAPTER X.

Weeks and days succeeded each other in rapid succession, till mellow autumn with its many glories was upon the earth.  It had been a very busy season, and long since Uncle Nathan’s capacious barns had been filled to overflowing with their treasures of fragrant hay and golden grain.  The corn-house was filled with its yellow harvest, and the potatoes were heaped high in the cellar.  Each different sort had its separate bin, and my memory is not sufficiently retentive to mention the numerous kinds of potatoes by their proper name which I that autumn assisted in stowing away in the old cellar; and potatoes were not the only good things to be found there when the harvest was completed.  The apples were of almost as many different sorts as the potatoes, and their flavor was very tempting to the fruit-loving appetite, and their red cheeks were just discernible by the dim light, which came faintly through the narrow cellar-windows.  Large quantities of almost every species of garden vegetable were stowed away, each in their respective place.  The cattle and sheep had been driven from the far-off pastures to enjoy for a season the “fall-feed,” of the meadows.  The bright-hued autumn leaves were cast to the ground by every breeze which floated by; the migratory birds were beginning their flight