he were dead—she turned a deaf ear to them all.

March Marston’s infancy was spent in yelling and kicking, with the exception of those preternaturally calm periods when he was employed in eating and sleeping. As he grew older the kicking and yelling decreased, the eating increased, and the sleeping continued pretty much the same. Then came a period when he began to learn his A, B, C. Mrs Marston had been well educated for her station in life. She had read much, and had brought a number of books to the backwoods settlement; so she gave her boy a pretty good education—as education went in those days—and certainly a much better one than was given to boys in such out-of-the-way regions. She taught him to read and write, and carried him on in arithmetic as far as compound division, where she stuck, having reached the extreme limits of her own tether.

Contemporaneously with the cessation of squalling and kicking, and the acquirement of the A, B, C, there arose in little March’s bosom unutterable love for his mother; or, rather, the love that had always dwelt there began to well up powerfully, and to overflow in copious streams of obedience and considerate attention. About the same time the roving, reckless “madness,” as it was styled, began to develop itself. And, strange to say, Mrs Marston did not check that! She was a large-minded, a liberal-minded woman, that semi-widow. She watched her son closely, but very few of his deeds were regarded by her in the light of faults. Tumbling off trees was not. Falling into ditches and horse ponds was not. Fighting was, to some extent; and on this point alone did mother and son seem to entertain any difference of opinion, if we may style that difference of opinion where the son fell into silent and extreme perplexity after a short, and on his part humble, discussion on the subject.

“Why, mother,” said March in surprise (having attained the mature age of eight when he said it), “if a grisly bear was to ’tack me, you’d let me defend myself, wouldn’t you?”

Mrs Marston smiled to see the rotund little object of two-feet-ten standing before the fire with its legs apart and its arms crossed, putting such a question, and replied—

“Certainly, my boy.”

“And when Tom Blake offered to hit Susy Jefferson, wasn’t I right to fight him for that?”

“Yes, my boy, I think it right to fight in defence of the weak and helpless.”

The object of two-feet-ten began to swell and his eyes to brighten at the unexpected success of this catechising of its mother, and went on to say—

“Well, mother, why do you blame me for fightin’, then, if it’s right?”

“Because fighting is not always right, my boy. You had a fight with Bill Summers, hadn’t you, yesterday?”

“Yes, mother.”

Two-feet-ten said this in a hesitating tone, and shrank into its ordinary proportions as it continued—

“But I didn’t lick him, mother, he licked me. But I’ll try again, mother—indeed I will, and I’ll be sure to lick him next time.”

“I don’t want you to try again,” rejoined Mrs Marston; “and you must not try again without a good reason. Why did you fight him yesterday?”

“Because he told a lie,” said the object promptly, swelling out again, and looking big under the impression that the goodness of its reason could not be questioned. It was, therefore, with a look of baffled surprise that it collapsed again on being told that that was not a sufficient reason for engaging in warfare, and that it was wrong to take the law into its own hands, or to put in its word or its little fist, where it had no right to interfere—and a great deal more to that effect.

“But, March, my boy,” said Mrs Marston, drawing the object towards her and patting its round little fair head, “what makes you so fond of fighting?”

“I ain’t fond o’ fighting, mother, but I can’t help it.”

“Can’t help it! Do you ever try?”

“I—I—no, I don’t think that I do. But I feel so funny when I see Bill Summers cheatin’ at play. I feel all over red-hot—like—oh! you’ve seen the big pot boilin’ over? Well, I just feel like that. An’ w’en it boils over, you know, mother, it must be took off the fire, else it kicks up sich a row! But there’s nobody to take me off the fire when I’m boilin’ over, an’ there’s no fire to take me off—so you see I can’t help it. Can I?”

As the object concluded these precociously philosophical remarks, it looked up in its mother’s face with an earnest inquiring gaze. The mother looked down at it with an equally earnest look—though there was a twinkle in each eye and a small dimple in each cheek that indicated a struggle with gravity—and said—

“I could stop the big pot from boiling-over without taking it off the fire.”

“How?” inquired Two-feet-ten eagerly.

“By letting it boil over till it put the fire out.”

The object opened its eyes very wide, and pursed its mouth very tight; then it relaxed, grinned a little with an air of uncertainty, and was about to laugh, but checked itself, and, with a look of perplexity, said—

“Eh?”

“Ay, my boy,” resumed the mother, “just you try the boiling-over plan next time. When you feel inclined to fight, and know, or think, that you shouldn’t, just stand quite still, and look hard at the ground—mind, don’t look at the boy you want to fight with, but at the ground—and begin to count one, two, three, four, and so on, and I’m quite sure that when you’ve counted fifty the fire will be out. Now, will you try, my son?”

“Mother,” replied Two-feet-ten earnestly (and becoming at least two feet eleven while he spoke), “I’ll try!”

This ended the conversation at that time, and we beg leave to apologise to our reader for having given it in such full detail, but we think it necessary to the forming of a just appreciation of our hero and his mother, as it shows one phase of their characters better than could have been accomplished by a laboured description.

Before March Marston had attained to the age of sixteen he had read aloud to his mother—not once, but several times—the “Vicar of Wakefield,” “Robinson Crusoe,” the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” and “Tales of a Grandfather,” “Aesop’s Fables,” and a variety of tales and stories and histories of lesser note—all of which he stored up in a good memory, and gave forth in piecemeal to his unlettered companions as opportunity offered. Better than all this, he had many and many a time read his Bible through, and was familiar with all its leading heroes and histories and anecdotes.

Thus, it will be seen that March Marston was quite a learned youth for a backwoodsman, besides being a hero and a “madman.”