strain on the other key was so much greater that the conclusion was not clear. I could see and in some degree understand what I was about, and yet there was an idea that there was a somebody else in all that was transpiring, for whom I entertained emotions of pity, but over whose movements and reckless deportment I had no control. Sometimes the thought would be clear that it was myself, and then there would be a feeling of shame that my wits were not strong enough to subdue my body and control my tongue. On the other hand, running counter and distinct, as I have already stated, was unreasoning madness.

"A little later I became exhausted, lay down and immediately fell asleep. It was a troubled sleep, for I looked into the prison at the other end of the valley,' and lived the secluded and burdensome life of a convict. I was fatigued from labor and suffered for companionship, I longed with an aching heart for the cheer and smiles of the friends of other days, and the society of the young men and young women whom I had known and loved in the days of my freedom. I sighed for the free air of heaven; I yearned for an hour among editors and printers; I envied the office devil; and I wondered if any one of them would acknowledge that he ever knew me. More particularly did I grieve because of the disgrace my downfall would bring upon the woman I had sworn to honor and cherish, the child born to us, and also upon my aged par

ents.

"While in this condition of body and mind I fancied that I could welcome death, for I somehow realized that it would end my suffering. Look

which way I might, take the most favorable view of the situation I could master, there was no dawn that foreshadowed a bright future. I lay in that bunk a broken-hearted man, a wreck, a human being who thought himself dead to this world, and who, in his disordered mind, was passing away from its trials, perplexities, and disappointments.

"A little later and these ugly imaginings passed away, and great happiness came to me. I laughed at the sufferings and remorse of the hours I had spent in the dungeon's gloom. They were but the flimsy fabric of a dyspeptic dream, release from which caused a buoyancy of spirit in which bright prospects were in the ascendency, and hope everywhere renewed. I saw myself surrounded by my old friends; there was warmth in their greeting, and joy in every word that was spoken. I beheld the beautiful world, more beautiful now than it ever appeared to me before. I was assured of success as a journalist, and my future seemed secure. Added to this was the new happiness which I beheld in my wife, and a knowledge that my report of the affair which I had been assigned to write up had reached my journal on time. In the midst of all, the managing editor had said my work was intelligently and satisfactorily performed, which to a man of my desponding mood was sufficient ground for more of happiness than I could well express. I dreamed a good deal more; and when I awoke and realized that it was only a dream after all, I was more miserable, if that were possible, than I had been before, and had less control over my mind in directing it to a successful resistance to gloomy forebodings.

"In a word, I lost my courage. The old fear came upon me with added force. Prison walls and cell bars, hard task-masters and scanty food, stared me in the face and thrilled me with terror, such terror as I had never before experienced, and which I pray I may never again experience. Faintness, weakness, and nauseating sickness followed. I moaned and cried piteously. Presently I was a raving maniac, and, although conscious that I was making a fool of myself, passed through the trials that beset me before my dream. It was terrible, I assure you. After a while I became active again; and shortly after, a voice at my cell door aroused me and partially restored my mental equilibrium. I staggered to the now open cell door. I shall never forget my feelings or the look of pity which the officer gave me, as I inquired what was wanted.

"You are wanted at the chief's office,' replied the man in blue and bright buttons emphatically, his voice and manner robbing me of the last ray of hope to which, like a drowning man who seizes upon a straw, I had tenaciously clung.

"I followed him mechanically, with trembling body and feeble step, with such dread of consequences as I have since imagined must possess the mind of a condemned man when ascending the scaffold from which he is to be launched into eternity. How I managed to pilot myself through several dark passage-ways and up a flight of winding stairs I shall never be able to make clear to myself. It must be, I think, that the officer assisted me, for somehow I have an indistinct recollection that his hand was upon my

arm.

"The chief-I have forgotten his name-was a man of wide experience and wise discrimination. He had not been long enough in the business to be calloused. In a word, he took me in at a glance, and somehow reassured me that all would come out right. I began to see silver linings in the dark clouds. Said he,

"Young man, you are under arrest on a very serious charge, which, if proven against you, is at the minimum five years in prison. I will say to you, however, that from the best information I can obtain, and after a searching examination of the gentleman who claimed to have been robbed, but who was not, I have come to the conclusion that you should be discharged from custody at once, and my personal assurance given that the officer making the arrest exceeded his duty. He should have used his judgment rather than have acted upon the request of an excited complainant. I regret exceedingly the annoyance to which you have been subjected, and sincerely hope the circumstance will not work to your disadvantage among your companions, or cause you trouble with your employers. You may go.'

"It was exceedingly cold comfort, but I took it without murmur or argument, and suddenly, yes, hurriedly, put that city jail behind my back. I suppose I ought to have thanked him, but I did not. At least I have no memory to that effect. The truth is, my anxiety to get into the sunlight, to regain my freedom, to demonstrate to my satisfaction that I was not insane or dreaming, was such that I had no thought of anything else, and was therefore completely off my guard in the matter of the manners, which

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are a part of the stock in trade of a well regulated journalist, and which he is expected to exhibit at all times and under all circumstances to all people."

There was an ominous pause and profound silence, in which it was somehow made as clear as sunshine that Mr. Bragg desired to speak the tag or control the story-teller. He evidently knew the end from the beginning, and feared that some one was likely to be in some way exposed or compromised.

McVeaigh quickly comprehended the situation, and in a side speech, which we did not understand, gave some sort of assurance which overcame the brother's modesty, and caused him to withdraw threatened interruption.

When I reached the next city," continued McVeaigh, "I met Brother Bragg, and this is what came of it: "What became of you?' he inquired.

"Of course I acknowledged that I had been in durance vile, incarcerated in a city jail on the serious charge of larceny from the person.

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"I heard so,' he replied, but did not have the time to search you out. I should have returned, however, after doing this place. if you had not put in an appearance. But you are all right below. It was a pretty hard job, considering the magnitude of the event, to double and duplicate despatches successfully, but I succeeded. Your report went in on time, and in your own name, and here is the evening edition of your paper, which proves it.'

"You may be sure a heavy load was lifted from my mind, and guess

that I thanked him and gave assurance of my gratitude and my happiness."

"What happened a year or so later?" inquired Mr. Bragg.

"What happened? Why, I met that same chief of police at the Parker House, in Boston. He recognized me. We engaged in a chat like two old school-day cronies that had not seen each other in many years. Just as we were on the point of separation, he looked me squarely in the face, and in a frank and manly way said,

"I ought to tell you something that you would like to know, and which you have probably never mistrusted, about your incarceration in the jail in the city which I have the honor to represent.'

"I assured him, of course, that I would like very much to hear it.

"A short time following that unhappy experience in your life,' he continued, I learned upon the most positive evidence that a jealous journalist from a neighboring city "put up the job" on you. In other words, he cheated an ambitious and overzealous policeman by making him believe that he knew you as a celebrated New York thief who had done service, and for whose apprehension a reward was offered. It was a trick to get you out of the way, so that he could secure exclusive reports of the events which were happening.'

"We laughed heartily; we have been good friends ever since, and I can get the best accommodations in the matter of news of any outside man who visits that chief's borough.

"Gentlemen, you have the full particulars of 'A Jail Adventure.'"

Fiction is sometimes truer than history or biography,-paradoxical as it may seem; for in dealing with feelings and motives, one can reason from the inner consciousness, and, by a natural sequence of ideas, arrive at truer understanding than by the rendering of facts as they appear in incident and event.

Thus, in a work of the kind we have in hand, it is lawful, I think, to allow the imagination to roam over the fertile fields of the past, and gather here and there posies of thought ungar nered by the strict historian. Many times have I gazed beyond the beautiful, mosaic meadows at the gleaming surface of our winding Connecticut, or stood upon its banks, and fancied myself back to the time when the primeval forest with its undergrowth of bushes lay close to its banks, and rendered our now beautiful valley well-nigh impassable, except to the trained hunter or the Indian. And I can see now in imagination the dusky savages silently assembling from behind the trees,. stepping into their bark canoes, and floating down the river with hunting or warlike intentions. Again, I see the adventurous white man entering the wilderness after his toilsome march of a hundred and fifty miles, blazing his way by cutting notches in the trees-alert, and daring to thus brave the Indian and the wild beasts in their forest home. He has passed. Will he return in safety, or fall a victim to his dauntless courage? Who

can tell? but we know that the blood of the pioneer has baptized every land where gleams now the light of happy homes.

Anon the foot-path in our forest has become a bridle-path, for seven families have wrested from the wilderness their log huts. The sound of the axe is heard on the clear air; the wild beasts recede somewhat, coming now at nightfall to howl around their dwellings, or to gaze through the windows at the family seated about the blazing fire; while the Indian, with growing hatred, passes by, or scowls at the peaceful sight from behind the bushes.

Ah! and here comes a horseman. As his horse's feet fall with soft thud upon the yielding earth, he is saying to himself, perhaps (who knows?), as did Tennyson's Northern Farmer:

"Do's n't thou 'ear my 'orse's legs as they canters away?

Propertty, propertty, propertty, that's what I 'ears 'em saäy."

But we love to think it was something besides property that induced our forefathers to settle in the wilderness. High courage and dauntless will were theirs first of all, and these traits, united to the smiling valley they have left us, make a priceless heritage indeed.

The pioneer has invariably been possessed of unusual character; for it requires not only great hope, force, and courage, but discrimination and endurance, to successfully map out and plant a colony: so when it is said

of a man that he was one of the first settlers, respect should immediately `embalm his memory.

Our forefathers were always, likewise, men of great individuality. In cities there is to be found the finest symmetry of character, but strong individuality is far more rare, owing to the constant friction of mind upon mind, which is apt to wear away the strong points of individual character, and to make too many of the same pattern. The man remarkable for action is seldom a growth of the city, but an influx from the country. How often do the newspapers give the names of prominent men who came from the plow or the anvil to head the lists of the city in honor and wealth. Genius can thrive only when certain faculties are allowed to subjugate other ones to their needs, and this cannot go on so well in cities where all ideas must more impartially come to the front. But genius is a kindly tyrant when upheld by the twin sisters Industry and Perseverance, and the natural growth of the sturdy first settler whose individuality grew strong and rank in his forest home. Shut out as he was from intercourse with the outside world, it often bristled into points, however, and anecdotes of our ancestors prove the truth of this assertion.

Deeds of courage, feats of strength, and tales of hunting valor show these old worthies to have been worthies indeed, but men who would have pined and sickened in our day of easy action. Prominent in every settlement was the church, and around this as the nucleus grew up those interchanges of civilities which finally were merged into merrymaking or frolics.

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy-and Jill, a dull girl," perhaps reasoned the elders. Anyway, they accepted the idea of first work and then play, and so was instituted the husking frolic, the apple-bee, the quilting, and, at last, amusement without its modicum of work-the junket. Let us again call fancy to our aid, and go to the house of some local magnate where there is to be a husking frolic and junket. Perhaps it is a husking-bee. Let us say that the log hut has given place to the large, square structure with manypaned windows, its keeping-room and long kitchen, and its immense chimney breaking out into every room with the broad, kindly smile of an open fire-place. In the long kitchen the hearth-stone, of more than a ton's weight, and eight feet long, stretches before the fire-place-watchful, restful, and cheering. An immense backlog, as thick as a man's body, forms the foundation of the big, roaring fire, and around the leaping flames cluster privileged guests, while the small aspirant for future honors sits in the corner of the fire-place studying his horn book, or watching the stars that gleam so kindly above his head.