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Updated: May 29, 2025
I used to stand in the row of blessed little rascals in the "deestrick" school and read from McGuffey's celebrated literature, "If I-p-p-play with the f-f-f-i-i-i-i-r-r-e I will g-e-e-et my-y-y-y-y f-f-f-f ingers bur-r-r-rned period!" I did not learn it. I wish I had learned by reading it that if I play with the fire I will get my fingers burned.
Papa and mamma watch them from the window till they turn the corner, and then go back to the Sunday paper with a secure sort of feeling. They won't learn anything they oughtn't to at the Sabbath-school. "'It snows! cries the schoolboy, 'Hurrah! And his shout is heard through parlor and hall." MCGUFFEY's THIRD READER. And if it was the Fourth, what difference does it make?
I reckon I'll take along some of the new income tax receipts, and the recipe for making clover honey out of clabber and apple peelings; and the order blanks for the McGuffey's readers, which afterwards turn out to be McCormick's reapers; and the pearl necklace found on the train; and a pocket-size goldbrick; and a "'That'll be enough, says Andy. 'Any one of the lot ought to land on Ezra.
Captain Scraggs was at Gibney's heels, and between them they came very nearly dislocating Bartholomew McGuffey's arm. "McGuffey, my dear boy," said Captain Scraggs. "Whatever are you a-doin' on this heathen warship?" "Me!" ejaculated Mr. McGuffey, with his old-time deliberation. "Why, I'm the chief engineer of this craft.
He hesitated, a thoughtful expression on his face. Finally he said: "I can't say that I do. Will you tell me why I should?" "You should because he was one of the men who did much to preserve our Union, he may tell us interesting things about the war. Where were you when it was the proper time for you to be studying the speech of Logan's ancestor in McGuffey's Fourth?"
Will Riley and Pewee and other large scholars, who were yet reading in that old McGuffey's Third Reader, which had a solitary picture of Bonaparte crossing the Alps, looked with no kindly eyes on this preposterous infant in the class ahead of them. The piece to be read was the poem of Mrs. Hemans's called "The Better Land."
We're up Salt Creek without a paddle; all hell to pay and no pitch hot." "McGuffey's fired!" Captain Scraggs screeched. "Come, come, Scraggsy, old tarpot," Mr. Gibney soothed. "This ain't no time for fightin'. Thinkin' an' actin' is all that saves the Maggie now." But Captain Scraggs was beyond reason. "McGuffey's fired! McGuffey's fired!" he reiterated. "The dirty rotten wharf rat!
From the point at which they left the trolley to their journey's end was a stiff six-hour jaunt, up hill and down dale, and long before the march was half completed the unaccustomed exercise had developed sundry galls and blisters on the Gibney heels, while the soles of poor McGuffey's feet were so hot he voiced the apprehension that they might burn to a crisp at any moment and drop off by the wayside.
It had been placed there by the Indians who were in ambush close by and were ready to shoot any white man who should stop to pick it up. McGuffey saw through the stratagem instantly; without halting, he gave it a kick and shouted "Indians!" Several Indians fired at once and one of the balls smashed McGuffey's powder horn, and passed through his clothing, but did not wound him.
The last bolt that held it in place had just been screwed tight when clear and shrill over the tops of the jungle and across the still surface of the little bay there floated to McGuffey's ears the single word: "Help!" McGuffey leaned against the gun, and for the moment he was as weak as a child. "Gawd," he muttered, "that was Scraggsy and they're a-goin' to eat him up.
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