_The Nagles Family._--The following remarkable and ridiculous affair transpired in a village where the writer once resided. The Nagleses were Irish. The family consisted of old Nagles, his wife,--who did washing for my mother,--John Tom and Tom John, besides Mary. The reason of having the boys named as above was, that in case either died, the sainted names would still be in the family. This was old Mrs. Nagles' explanation of the matter. The old man worked about the wharves, wheeled wood and carried coal, and did such like jobs during summer, and chopped wood in the winter. I well remember of hearing stories of his greenness when he first came to town. He was early employed to wheel wood on board a coaster lying at the dock. The captain told him to wheel a load down the plank, cry "Under!" to the men in the hold, and tip down the barrow of wood. All went well till old Nagles got to the stopping-place, over the hold, when he dumped down the load, and cried out, "Stand ferninst, there, down cellar!" to the imminent peril of breaking the heads of the wood-stevedores below. [Illustration: OLD NAGLES.] I well remember also the first appearance of the two boys at the village school one winter. "What is your name?" inquired the master of the eldest. "Me name, is it? John Tom Nagles, sir, is me name, and who comes after is the same." He always was called by us boys "John Tom Nagles, sir," thenceforward. He certainly was the rawest specimen I ever met. One day the old man was wheeling wood on board a vessel. It was at low water, and there was a distance of sixteen feet from the plank to the bottom of the vessel's hold. The poor old fellow, by some mishap or neglect, let go the barrow, when he called, "Stand ferninst, there, below!" when wood, barrow, and old Mr. Nagles, all went down together. By the fall he broke his neck. I never shall forget the awful lamentation set up by the combined voices of the poor old woman, John Tom, Tom John, and Mary, as they followed the corpse, borne on a wagon, past our house, on the way from the vessel to the Nagles' residence. [Illustration: THE NAGLES BOYS.] On the following day great preparations were made to "wake" the old gentleman according to the most approved fashion in the old country. There were many Irish living--_staying_, at least--in that town, and large quantities of pipes, tobacco, and whiskey were bought up, and the whole town knew that a "powerful time" was anticipated by the Irish who were invited to old Nagles' wake. It was an unusual occurrence, and several boys and young men of the village went to the locality of the Nagles' house to get a look upon the scene when it got under full pressure. I certainly should have been there had not my parents forbidden me to go, and I regret the inability to give my personal testimony to the truth of the statement of what followed, as I do to what preceded, as related above. [Illustration: CHIEF MOURNERS.]