The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter

hopes of making me a schoolmaster, perhaps an inspector of fish, in which office excellent opportunities for increasing one's fortunes were offered; but I had been rendered quite useless to the pa

osed persons are too much afraid of being drowned in the violence of the storm politicians with shallow brains and empty pockets create, by their anxiety to take the affairs of the nation into their own keeping. Remember, too, that if you fail in the object of your ambition (and you are not vagabond enough to succeed), the remotest desert will not hide you from the evil designs of your enemies. You may seek some crystal stream; you may let your tears flow with its waters; but such will not lighten your disappointment, for the persecuted heart is no peace-offering to the political victor. Politically vanquished; and you are like an unhappy lover who seeks him a rural deity and sings his complaints to the winds. Your eye will become jealous at the fortunes of others, but your sighs

atronly portion of the parish he would even try and make a parson of me, which was, in his opinion, a promotion still higher than schoolmaster. Having got

were in high favor with the villagers, among whom he had given it out that he was a graduate of Yale and Harvard, both of which celebrated institutions had conferred high honors upon him. This high throwing of the parson's lasso getting abroad atoned for innumerable antiquated and very dull sermons, for the delivery of which he would excuse himself to his private friends by saying that his salary was but four hundred dollars a year, one third of which he took in No. 2 mackerel no one would buy of him. He was excessively fussy; and if he advocated temperance to-day, he would to-morrow take a sly smash, never forgetting to add that it was recommended by his physician, who was likewise a man of great learning. Under the influence of this medicine, it was said, by malicious people, which no parish is with--out, that if the occasion demanded a serious sermon he was sure to preach one that would send all the young folks of his congregation into a titter. If the occasion was such as to tolerate a little humor, he was sure to send them all into a melancholy mood with the gravity of his r

so doted on me that she had a ready excuse for all my follies. Indeed, she would often smile at the combined alarm of my father and the parson, saying she held it infinitely better that a youth like myself go out upon the world in search of distinction, for therein lay the virtue of his example. Children were born to t

away in my valise, which likewise contained an ample supply of unmentionables, and homemade shirts, and stockings, and other articles appertaining to the wardrobe of an adventurous young man. My mother also exercised a wise discretion in the selection of such books as she thought would afford me "maxims of guidance," as she called it, through the world. A pocket Bible, and a small volume of the "Select Edition of Franklin's Maxims," a book in high favor with the good people of the Cape, were got of a bookseller in Barnstable, a queer wag, who had got rich by vending a strange quality of literature and taking fish in e

ally abstruse, but no less essential to the objects of primary meetings. The author of this invaluable work is my learned friend and very erudite scholar, Dr. Easley. And as some readers hold the study of an author of much

accompanied by their sturdy parents. The last jar of jam and applesauce was stormed, the two fattest pullets in the yard brought to the block, choice mince and pumpkin pies were propounded, three dollars were expended upon a citron cake such as Cape Cod had never seen before, and no less than a dozen bottles of Captain Zeke Brewster's double refined cider was got of M

tea the parson declared could not be excelled, were all discussed with great cheerfulness. My father, as was his custom, drew his chair aside after supper, and engaged two of h

therly watchfulness, drew her chair beside the damsels, with whom I was exc

my mother, whose mind was too pure to conceive their attentions aught else than blessings. And thus, with an abundance of good cheer, and the interchange of those civilities so common to villagers, and the si

ar, and took an affectionate leave. Among them there was one Altona Marabel, the daughter of a worthy fisherman. This damsel had a face of exquisite beauty; and her great lustrous eyes and blushing cheeks had caused me many a sigh. And now I saw that her heart beat in unison

my mother. Such joviality was uncommon with the parson, and so surprised and astonished my father, that he intimated to the doctor that it would not be amiss to get him home. Being something of a wag, the doctor intended to vanquish the parson with the cider, and then perform certain mischievous tricks with his features. But this my father, who was not given to

church, but let not your eyes fall upon the faces of pretty women so that your ears be sealed to the sermon. Never make love to another man's wife. Remember this when you are a great man, for with them it is become a fashion. Let ruffians go their own way. Let gentlemen be your companions, and never fail to show them that you can at least be their equal in courteous demeanor. Always pay your washerwoman; be not ashamed to acknowledge your father, and remember that the fonder you speak of your mother, the more you will be beloved by strangers. Avoid politicians, who are come to be great vagabonds, who drink bad liquor and give their thoughts to base designs against the nation's gold. If you become great and valorous, historians will no doubt defame you, and lay crimes of which you were innocent at your door, as is common with them. But you must bear what they say of you with Christian fortitu

. He then shook hands with my mother and father, expressed his surprise at the lateness of the hour to the docto