they had seen. He had also looked out through the Narrows of New York harbor, and his young heart had yearned to be on the broad ocean beyond. If he could only master all the mysteries of Bowditch, be a skilful navigator, and capable of sailing a ship to any part of the world, and see strange things and people—that day might come, he thought to himself. He had listened, too, for hours at a time, to the stories of old sailors who had come on board the sloop while in port. One had been to India, and another to Ceylon; and both told wonderful stories concerning the voyages they had made and the people they had met. Another had seen every port in the North Pacific, had been wrecked on Queen Charlotte's Island, and told wonderful stories of his adventures in rounding Cape Horn. His adventures among the South Sea Islands were of the most romantic kind, and colored so as to incite the ambition of a venturesome young lad like Tite to the highest pitch. There was another old sailor who had sailed the South and North Pacific, had killed his score of whales, and been as many times within an inch of losing his own life.

These stories so fired the young gentleman's imagination that he resolved to try his fortune at a whaling voyage as soon as the people of Hudson sent their first ship out. There was the wide world before him, and perhaps he might find the means of making a fortune in some distant land. But how was he to break this resolution to his kind parents, whom he loved so dearly? What effect would it have on his mother, who doted on him, and for whom he had the truest affection? His mind hung between hope for the future and duty to his parents. Regularly every Saturday afternoon Tite had come home, received his mother's blessing, and put his earnings into her hands for safe-keeping. There would be an end of this if he went to the South Sea. Then his parents were both getting old, and would soon need a protector, and if anything serious happened to them during his absence how could he ever forgive himself. Week after week and month after month did Tite ponder these questions in his mind, and still his resolution to see the world grew stronger and stronger.

It was about this time that there settled in Nyack a queer and very inquisitive sort of man of the name of Bigelow Chapman. He was a restless, discontented sort of man, very slender of figure, with sharp, well-defined features, keen gray eye, and wore his dark hair long and unkept. His manner was that of a man discontented with the world, which, he said, needed a great deal of reforming; indeed, that it could be reformed, ought to be reformed, and that he was the man to do it. He had been the founder of Dogtown, Massachusetts, where he had built up a very select community of keen-witted men and women—just to set an example to the world of how people ought to live. Dolly Chapman, his wife, (for what would a reformer be without a wife,) was a ponderous woman, weighing more than two hundred pounds, and a proof that even in matrimony the opposites meet. She was a fussy, ill-bred woman, spoke with a strong nasal twang, and a sincere believer in all the reforms advocated by her husband, though she differed with him on one or two points of religion. And there was Mattie Chapman, a bright, bouncing girl of fifteen, with rosy cheeks and fair hair, ambitious for one of her age, and evidently inclined to make a show in the world. These constituted the Chapman family.

Dogtown, of which I made mention, was a creation of Chapman's. With it he was to demonstrate how the world could be reformed, and how the prejudices were to be driven from other people's minds. Strong-minded people from various towns in Massachusetts came and settled in Dogtown, invested their money, were to do an equal share of work, and receive an equal share of profits, and live together as happily as lambs. But Dogtown did not long continue a paradise. Indeed, it soon became famous for two things: for the name of Bigelow Chapman, and for having more crazy and quarrelsome people in it than could be found in any other town in Massachusetts, which was saying a good deal. The brothers and sisters, for such they called themselves, got to quarrelling among themselves on matters of politics and religion, though charity was a thing they made no account of. In truth, there was more politics than religion in their preaching.

Chapman constituted himself treasurer of the community, and some little private speculations of his led to a belief among the brothers and sisters that his mind was not solely occupied with schemes for reforming the world. To tell the truth, Bigelow Chapman was not so great a fool as his followers. He had intended, when Dogtown got thoroughly under way, to sell out, put the money in his pocket, and employ his genius somewhere else. He, however, undertook the enterprise of building a church on speculation, being persuaded to do so by an outside Christian.

The church was to be a large, handsome building, with a butcher's shop and a grocery, a shoe store and a confectionery in the basement, and a school and a dancing academy up stairs; so that the brothers and sisters could get everything they wanted, religion included, in one locality. But the enterprise failed for want of funds to finish it, and Dogtown went to the dogs, and the Chapman family to Nyack. Report has it that the church was afterwards finished and converted into an insane asylum, where several of the brothers and sisters lived for the rest of their lives.

It was hinted that Chapman had brought some money to Nyack with him, but exactly how much no one knew. The only thing positively known about him at that time was that he had a great number of new ideas, all of which he was in great haste to develope. Indeed, he soon had Nyack in a state of continual agitation. He declared it his first duty to open the eyes of the Dutch settlers to truth and right; then to get them to thinking; and finally to make fortunes for all of them. He begun business, however, by quarrelling with nearly everybody in the village, and asserting that he knew more than all of them.

Twice he had Titus Bright, the inn-keeper, up before the magistrate and fined for selling liquor in opposition to law. He proclaimed it highly immoral to sell liquor at all, and told Bright to his teeth that no honest man would do it. For this he had been twice kicked out of the inn by Bright, who damned him as a meddling varlet, not to be tolerated in a peaceable village. Again he had Bright up before the magistrate, who justified the aggression, but fined the aggressor ten dollars a kick, which Bright considered cheap enough considering what was got for his money. Bright declared it a principle with him to give his customers what they wanted, and let them be the judge of their own necessities. Bigelow Chapman held that mankind was a big beast, to be subdued and governed by laws made for his subjection. It never occurred to him, however, that there might be reason in the opinions of others. Finding, however, that he could not get the better of Bright in any other way, he organized a company and set up an opposition tavern, where a traveller could feel at home and have none of the annoyances of beer. The new inn was to be conducted on strictly temperance principles, and the price of board was to be reduced a dollar a week. But the principle of temperance was carried out so rigidly in the fare that travellers, although treated politely enough, found it difficult to get anything to eat, to say nothing of drink.

While this was going on Mrs. Bigelow Chapman was busying herself getting up an anti-tea-and-coffee-drinking society. She declared that this coffee and tea-drinking was nothing less than an oppression, breaking down people's health and making them poor, while the grocers who sold the stuff were getting rich. It