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                           Transcriber Notes

 Obvious printer errors, typos and missing punctuation fixed.
   Misspellings in the pupil’s speech in the Stephen and his Adult Pupil
   story have been retained, as have archaic spellings and inconsistent
   hyphenation.
 The table of contents has been created and added by the transcriber.
 A description of an illustration with no caption has been added.
 Italics are represented by underscores surrounding the _italic text_.
 Small capitals have been converted to ALL CAPS.

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                Early Boyhood and its Merry           1
                  Pastimes.

                The Alligator Lives for Another       2
                  Week.

                Stephen and his Adult Pupil.          3

                Stephen H. Branch, in his Cell at     3
                  Blackwell’s Island—A Mournful
                  Scene.

                Advertisements                        4

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[Illustration: STEPHEN H. BRANCH’S ALLIGATOR.]

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  Volume I.—No. 23.    SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1858.    Price 2 Cents.




                 Early Boyhood and its Merry Pastimes.


I remember the woman’s school at four years old, and the merited
chastisement of the school marm; my desperate descent on the sugar bowl;
the military company of which I was commander; my annual cries in the
trundle bed at 12 o’clock and one second, A. M.: “I wish you merry
Christmas, Ma,—I wish you happy New Year, Pa,—now gim me cent;” with my
father’s: “Go to sleep, you young rascal, or I’ll come and spank you;”
the two cents I always got on the 4th of July, if I had been a good boy,
and the solitary penny if I hadn’t; the death of my mother of twins; the
copious tears of my father and Aunt Lucy; my grief at her sudden demise;
the country boarding school, and the blast of lightning that felled me
to the earth, while whittling on the summer green; my eyes soon open on
the glories of the lurid universe, and I scamper into the pretty
cottage, and bound into the arms of my aunt, who nearly smothers me with
affectionate embraces; the storm passes; a bow appears, with crimson
arrows, and lingers on the concave’s rosy verge, till Venus gleams
through the twilight leaves, when its gorgeous hues are vailed by the
revolving spheres, and it descends the dazzling west.

               Whose Archer follows the resplendent sun,
               Before whose darts the stormy Furies run;

the moon ascends the east in matchless splendor, and roams in tranquil
beauty through infinitude, spreading its snowy light on vale and mead,
that vie with lakes of liquid silver; my aunt lingers at my bed, while I
say my evening prayer, and invests my heart with sacred feelings; myself
and brother William, on our way to school, through a dreary wood, espy a
boy in a wagon, when I exclaim: “Why, Bill, there’s our brother Albert;”
Bill stares and says: “Steve, your perceptions are very foggy, and I
begin to think you aint got good sense;” I closely scan the boy, and
smile, but elicit no response, the little rogue riveting his bright blue
eyes on the vacant air; Bill passes on to school, with: “Steve, you are
raving mad, and I’m going to tell Aunt Freeman so;” when I address the
stranger thus: “Little boy, you look like my brother Albert, and this
horse and wagon resemble ours, and won’t you please to tell me if you
aint my brother Al, who lives far away from here, in a place called
Providence? I always dearly loved him, and I havn’t seen him for a long
time now, and I would like to see him very much; come, now, little boy,
aint you Ally Branch, and if you are, won’t you please to tell me so?”
Tears roll down his pale cheeks, followed by the sweetest smiles, (like
simultaneous rain and sunshine,) extending his arms, with: “How do you
do, dear brother Stevy;” I scream; dart into the wagon, and, placing my
arms around his neck, fondly kiss him. And then I made the woods ring
with my cries for Bill to return, and behold our dear brother, found so
mysteriously alone in the forest wild. Bill slowly returns; and I hear
the echo of a laugh, and see a man emerge from the monarch oaks, whom I
discern as father, whose playful stratagem blares brightly before my
enraptured vision. And with the velocity of light, I spring from the
wagon, and at a bound, am in the embraces of my adored father. The vail
slowly passes from the eyes of Bill, who stands like a statue in the dim
perspective, crying lustily over my triumphant conquest. We all shout
and wave our hands, and Willie bounds into Albert’s and father’s arms,
whose fervent kisses soon dispel his tears; when his crescent and
revolving eyes gently threaten to eclipse the sun and moon with
hilarious splendor; three happy brothers then rock the forest solitude
with merry vociferations, and run like deer, and sing like infant
Jubals, with sweet responses from congenial birds, prancing on the oaks’
majestic branches. And with hearts of gladness, we spring like hounds
into the wagon, and return to Aunt Freeman’s, and that I regard as one
of the happiest days of my early boyhood. On the following morn, we
leave for Providence, which I scarcely reach, ere our yard is a camp of
boys, eager to embrace their favorite commander, after his long
captivity in the desert wilds of Woodstock; myself and Albert soon go to
another country school; we board with a minister who has a large family,
and a small salary, which was tardily and scantily paid with very poor
provisions; myself and Al don’t like the fare; has fried pork too often
for breakfast, and pork and beans for dinner, with a cold cut of pork
and beans at nightfall; and we enter our solemn protest against so much
fried hog, and so many baked beans; we protest, too, against his not
fastening the doors and windows nights, as father does at home; we hear
strange noises nights, while abed; and respectfully implore him to put
locks on the doors, and nails in the windows, who refuses, and says,
that good boys are never afraid of robbers or assassins; we still hear
dreadful sounds at midnight; and bury ourselves, head and all, in the
bed clothes; sweat terribly, and nearly smother; grow pale; lose flesh;
get very weak; have cold night sweats; finally despair, and threaten to
leave for home; write long letters to father, full of bad writing and
spelling, who doesn’t answer them, because he can’t read them; we start
for Providence; our sacred host pursues us on a cadaverous horse, whose
ribs rattle, and captures us in the haunted woods, where, in old