During the latter part of a certain week a little more than three years after we removed to the town, I was given a holiday, and determined at once to spend it in Fairview, for I had not seen Jo in a great many weeks, nor Agnes in as many months. I remember I earned it by working at night by the light of candles for a long while, and that a certain carpenter’s son read the copy while I set the type, while another boy kept the night bugs away with a fan. It was a part of the contract with my father that for the extra work I was to have the use of his horses in addition to the vacation, both of which I fully earned, and Martin understood the situation so well that he said if I did not get back until Monday he would see that the work was not behind. I started very early in the morning, and the road led over gentle hills and through light woods for a few miles, when the great prairie began which ended at Erring’s Ford. It was a very pretty country, and though we frequently referred to it in the “Union of States” as the garden spot of the world, I knew it was not necessarily true, for every paper coming in exchange to the office said exactly the same thing of the different localities in which it was published. But it pleased the people who did not see the exchanges, and who no doubt regarded it as a very neat compliment. It looked unusually attractive that morning, and in riding slowly along I admired it so much that I did not notice the approach of a horseman, who was riding very rapidly, and going in the same direction. When he came so close that the noise of the animal’s hoofs attracted my attention, I turned and saw that it was Lytle Biggs, who had by this time become an old acquaintance, for he frequently wrote letters to the paper in a very bad hand, signed “Pro Bono Publico,” “Tax-Payer,” “Citizen,” or “Farmer,” and which I was usually compelled to put in type. He was a very sociable fellow, and I was pleased with the prospect of his company. I said as much, to which he replied:-- “If you have no objection, I will tie the horse behind, and ride with you, for I detest riding on a horse’s back. It may do for exercise, as you swing dumb-bells on the advice of a physician, but I am surprised I did not have better sense than to attempt it with a serious intention of travelling.” I replied that I should be delighted, and when he got down I could not help wondering how he ever got on, he was such a little man, and the horse so uncommonly large. As he climbed into the buggy, and took a seat beside me, I noticed he was as faultlessly dressed as ever, and that he seemed to be growing shorter and thinner.