He told us on one occasion, in answer to our inquiring into the cause of his lameness, that when a young man he was employed on the farm of the chief magistrate of a neighboring State; where, as his ill-luck would have it, the governor's handsome daughter fell in love with him.

He was caught one day in the young lady's room by her father; whereupon the irascible old gentleman pitched him unceremoniously out of the window, laming him for life, on the brick pavement below, like Vulcan on the rocks of Lemnos.

As for the lady, he assured us "she took on dreadfully about it." "Did she die ?" we inquired anxiously.

There was a cun-ing twinkle in the old rogue's eye as he responded, "Well, no, she did n't.
She got married." Twice a year, usually in the spring and autumn, we were honored with a call from Jonathan Plummer, maker of verses, pedler and poet, physician and parson,--a Yankee troubadour,--first and last minstrel of the valley of the Merrimac, encircled, to my wondering young eyes, with the very nimbus of immortality.

He brought with him pins, needles, tape, and cotton-thread for my mother; jack-knives, razors, and soap for my father; and verses of his own composing, coarsely printed and illustrated with rude wood-cuts, for the delectation of the younger branches of the family.