This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1884 edition. Excerpt: ...ole Haskins he ordered 'em off an' wouldn't let nobody stay thar, though they had a mighty stretchin' time gittin' the dogs away." "It seems to me," said I, " that there wasn't much profit in that hunt." "Well," said Martin, putting his pipe in his pocket, and feeling under his chair for his string of fish, which must have been pretty dry and stiff by this time, "the fun in a 'coon-hunt aint so much in gittin' the 'coon, as goin'arter him--which is purty much the same in a good many other things, as I tell ye." And he took up his fish and departed. HIS WIFE'S DECEASED SISTER. IT is now five years since an event occurred which so colored my life, or rather so changed some of its original colors, that I have thought it well to write an account of redeeming that its lessons may be of advantage to persons whose situations in life are similar to my own. When I was quite a young man I adopted literature as a profession; and having passed through the necessary preparatory grades, I found myself, after a good many years of hard, and often unremunerative work, in possession of what might be called a fair literary practice. My articles, grave, gay, practical, or fanciful, had come to be considered with a favor by the editors of the various periodicals for which I wrote, on which I found in time I could rely with a very comfortable certainty. My productions created no enthusiasm in the reading public; they gave me no great reputation or very valuable pecuniary return; but they were always accepted, and my receipts from them, at the time to which I have referred, were as regular and reliable as a salary, and quite sufficient to give me more than a comfortable support. It was at this time I married. I had...