"Burden of labor?" Why should any man call labor a burden? It's the sweetest pleasure of life, if we will but look aright. Give me nothing of the "man with the hoe" sentiment, as depicted by Markham, but let me see the man with a light heart; that labors; that fulfills a destiny the good God has given him; that fills an honored place in life even if in an humble station; that looks upon the bright side of life while striving as best he may to do his duty. I am led into these thoughts by what I see around about me, so changed from that of my boyhood days where labor was held to be honorable, even though in humble stations. But, to return to my story. My earliest recollection, curiously enough, is of my schoolboy days, of which I had so few. I was certainly not five years old when a drunken, brutal school teacher undertook to spank me while holding me on his knees because I did not speak a word plainly. That is the first fight I have any recollection of, and would hardly remember that but for the witnesses, one of them my oldest brother, who saw the struggle, where my teeth did such excellent work as to draw blood quite freely. What a spectacle that, of a half-drunken teacher maltreating his scholars! But then that was a time before a free school system, and when the parson would not hesitate to take a "wee bit," and when, if the decanter was not on the sideboard, the jug and gourd served well in the field or house. To harvest without whisky in the field was not to be thought of; nobody ever heard of a log-rolling or barn-raising without whisky. And so I will say to the zealous temperance reformers, be of good cheer, for the world has moved in these eighty-five years. Be it said, though, to the everlasting honor of my father, that he set his head firmly against the practice, and said his grain should rot in the field before he would supply whisky to his harvest hands, and I have no recollections of ever but once tasting any alcoholic liquors in my boyhood days. I did, however, learn to smoke when very young. It came about in this way: My mother always smoked, as long as I can remember. Women those days smoked as well as men, and nothing was thought of it. Well, that was before the time of matches, or leastwise, it was a time when it was thought necessary to economize in their use, and mother, who was a corpulent woman, would send me to put a coal in her pipe, and so I would take a whiff or two, just to get it started, you know, which, however, soon developed into the habit of lingering to keep it going. But let me be just to myself,—for more than thirty years ago I threw away my pipe and have never smoked since, and never will, and now to those smokers who say they "can't quit" I want to call their attention to one case of a man who did.