OR, THE WORLD HAS CHANGED. 97 



told my mother it was I who « cut the cherry tree with my little 

 axe. " I then laid open to my compassionate and sympathetic 

 mother the whole story from beginning to end, as best I could, 

 between sobs, and my kind and considerate mother concluded 

 I had ah-eady been sufficiently punished, and even tried to 

 console me under this, my great trial, but somehow the whole 

 affair leaked out and became the talk for a full week in the 

 neighborhood. I was greatly prostrated for a time, but finally 

 recovered my wonted enthusiastic disposition. 



Years after this occurrence, I visited Milledgeville, Ga.; 

 went to see the penitentiary, and among the convicts I discov- 

 ered my gallas-buckle mould inventor. Mart Howell, making 

 shoes for the State. My talented friend had surpi ised me once 

 more, and upon inquiry he explained that he had been unjustly 

 incarcerated in that unhallowed place; said he was a martyr to 

 cruel circumstantial evidence ; that some years ago, while in 

 attendance on a camp meeting, just for a joke, he took a 

 fellows horse and rode a little ways out, intending to bring it 

 rio-ht back, when a crowd of rascals got after him and accused 

 him of wanting to steal the horse, when such a thought had 

 never entered his head ; said he was just about to turn around 

 and go back with the fellows horse when they came upon him- 

 I asked Mart how far he had got with the fellows horse when 

 they came upon him ? He answered, "But a little ways, not 

 more than twelve or fifteen miles;" and such is life; our 

 inventive genius in the Georgia penitentiary, and a would-be 

 millionaire and philanthropist keeping an Atlanta boarding- 

 house. 



" I set me up a bakers' shop, 



And thought I was improving, 

 But a bakers' shop will never do, 

 So must push along, keep moving. " 



