CHAPTER XXXI.

At the age of ten he was a well-grown, stout, stocky boy, strong and hearty, trained to hard work, and to patient obedience of his elders. He was tolerably well drilled in Calvinism, and had his head pretty well filled with snatches of doctrine which he caught from his father's constant discussions; but he was very backward in his education. He was placed at the school of the Rev. Mr. Langdon, at Bethlehem, Connecticut, and it was hoped that the labors of this excellent tutor would result in making something of him. He spent a winter at this school, and boarded at a neighboring farm-house, whose kind-hearted mistress soon became so much attached to him that she indulged him to an extent which he had never known at home. With his gun on his shoulder, he passed the greater part of his hours out of school in tramping over the pretty Connecticut hills, in search of game, or, lying down on the soft grass, would pass hours in gazing on the beautiful landscape, listening to the dull whirr of the partridges in the stubble-field or the dropping of the ripe apples in the orchard. The love of