my theft be discovered. After my last trouncing, I became disgusted with the theatre, and resolved to go no more to witness such nonsense. Soon afterwards, I told John Horsewell that for a dozen marbles, I would give him some of my father’s corn, that would parch as white as snow, and as round as hail, And would pop as high As the pretty sky. John assented, and we went up stairs to the attic, where father kept his corn. John brought his father’s rainy hat, so that he could get much corn, and while I was filling it, I heard footsteps on the lower stairs that closely resembled father’s. John’s hat was about half full, and when I put it on his head, it sunk so far as to require both his hands to keep it above his eyes. We met father on the garret stairs, when John boldly looked up into his face, (with corn pouring down over both ears,) and gravely exclaimed: “Mr. Branch, I aint got no corn.” Father uplifted the hat, and down went about two quarts of horse corn on poor John’s head. I crawled between father’s legs, and was at the bottom of two pairs of stairs in about two strides, and away I flew to the woods, about two miles distant, and did not return for two days, fearing that father would murder me for stealing corn so soon after my rope and fishing-line, and theatrical operations. When I next saw John, he complained of a sore back and legs, and declared that father grabbed and wrenched a handful of his posterior pants clean off, and tore hair enough from his skull to render it slightly bald. I trembled at this intelligence, but I got cold and hungry, and went home to take my licking, but my step-mother was ill, and she ardently plead my cause, and father forgave me. (_To be continued._) Stephen H. Branch’s Farewell to his Country. [From the New York Daily Times, of 1856.]