. Wit bought, or, A New York boy's adventures when the empire state was young . ile there. Thefalse indulgence of my uncle, and the servilepartiality of the school-master, had botha very bad effect upon my mind. I wasselfish and wilful. When I was master of myown time, I at first used to feel an aversionto my uncles bar-room, but this feelingpassed away by degrees. Under the stronginfection of the place, I partially adopted itshabits; I learned to smoke arid chew to-bacco, though several fits of nervous sick-ness warned me of the violence I was doingto my nature. I even ventured to swearoccasi
. Wit bought, or, A New York boy's adventures when the empire state was young . ile there. Thefalse indulgence of my uncle, and the servilepartiality of the school-master, had botha very bad effect upon my mind. I wasselfish and wilful. When I was master of myown time, I at first used to feel an aversionto my uncles bar-room, but this feelingpassed away by degrees. Under the stronginfection of the place, I partially adopted itshabits; I learned to smoke arid chew to-bacco, though several fits of nervous sick-ness warned me of the violence I was doingto my nature. I even ventured to swearoccasionally; and, if the truth must be told,I followed out, in various ways, the badlessons that I learnt. That I have escaped ruin is attributable LEAVING SCHOOL. 49 to the kindness of Providence, and not toany resistance of evil which originated inmy own breast. If Heaven had desertedme, I had been lost for ever. One night after we had been drinking atthe tavern, my companions and myself wentout, bent on what was called a spree. Ourfirst exploit was to call up the doctor of the. village, and ask him to hasten to Mrs. SallySt. John, who has been noticed before inthese memoirs, insinuating that she wasdesperately ill. Our next adventure was tocatch the parsons horse in the pasture, andtie him to the whipping-post. We then pro-ceeded to a garden of water-melons, se- 50 WIT BOUGHT. lected the largest and finest fruit and rippingthem open, strewed the contents over theground. We then went to a garden belonging to arich old farmer, who was celebrated for pro-ducing very fine pears. The window ofthe proprietor opened into the garden, andas he had the reputation of exercising avigilant watch over his fruit, we felt the ne-cessity of caution. But we were too muchelated by our liquor and success in sport tobe very circumspect. We got over the tallfence, and two or three of us ascended oneof the trees. We had begun already topluck the fruit, when the window of the oldfarmer slid silently upw
Size: 1313px × 1903px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookidwitboughtorn, bookyear1887
