Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III "There was an old woman Who lived in a shoe She had so many children She didn't know what to do." —Mother Goose. JUST what kind of settlement poor Plupy had with his father on his return from Boston that night is known only to Plupy and his father. Before pitying the young man too much it would be well to remember that the elder Shute was more than locally famous for a keen sense of humor, and in his boyhood had done perhaps more than his fair share in turning the village of Exeter upside down. So it is fair to suppose that a graphic description of old Seth Tanner profanely chasing two wholly innocent but active boys, and the further portrayal of his son climbing dripping from the rain-water barrel would tend to put him in socheerful a humor as to practically disarm hostility to that graceless youth. Whatever he thought or did in the matter, he made no objection when Plupy's mother, according to her custom in such cases, prepared a most appetizing meal and carried it up to the imprisoned youth. Indeed, Plupy's father as he sat that evening under the apple tree smoking, laughed heartily now and then and indulged in sinful delight in reminiscences of his boyhood, which showed him to be in the most cheerful humor. It was open to suspicion whether or not he was delighted beyond measure at the good account his son had rendered of himself in his fight with Pewt, as he was heard to remark that if he would only lick that Watson boy too he would be satisfied. The family of which Plupy was a most prominent if not strictly ornamental member, was the most delightful family imaginable. The father, Mr. George Shute, a tall, handsome, well-built and athletic man, was a clerk in the Boston Custorn House, to which municipality he betook himself at a very early ...