"From this place we were all carried off in barrels again, and thrown ruthlessly down where there were some steel bars awaiting us, and we started to drop through them, but were caught by our heads, and the bars dropped down with us, and we again dropped—into the holes pricked in the green paper. All of my companions had not been caught by the steel bars, but had dropped below them, and I never saw them again.
"Now that I was a pin, all dressed up in my coat of tin, and having a couple of holes to stick through, I was perfectly happy, especially as I had so many pleasant companions.
"The paper that I had dropped in, had a row of black pins as well as silver-colored ones. These informed me that when they had been carried up to the pots to boil, Japan varnish—whatever that may be—had been used, instead of tin, making them black.
"Soon we were packed, with many others, in a large box, taken to the depot in a wagon, and sent off on the cars. It was very dark in the box; but there were so many of us we had rather lively times, after all. Still we by no means regretted it when at last the journey was ended and our box was opened."
WATCH AND THE MINISTER.
THE minister's pew was a large square one near the pulpit and exposed to a fire of eyes.
Mr. Tyler, the minister, owned a large dog named Watch, who was bent on going to church with Mrs. Tyler. She was opposed, fearing that he might excite the mirth of the children.
Every Sunday a series of manoelig;uvres took place between the two, in which Watch often proved himself the keenest. Sometimes he slipped away very early; and Mrs. Tyler, after having searched for him to shut him up, would go to church and find Watch seated in the family pew, looking very grave and decorous, but evidently aware that it was too late now to turn him out. Sometimes he would hide himself until the family had all started for church, and would then follow the footsteps of some tardy worshiper who tiptoed in during prayers with creaking boots; and then didn't Watch know that Mrs. Tyler would open the pew door in haste, to prevent his whining for admission?
When Mr. Tyler became in earnest in his appeals, he often repeated the same word with a ringing emphasis and a blow on the desk cushion that startled the sleepers in the pews.