My brother and I were riding along in the grand old forest, and I had just
been singing a few bars from the opera of "Whoop 'em Up, Lizzie Jane,"
when I noticed that the wind was beginning to sough through the trees.
Soon after that, I noticed that I was soughing through the trees also, and
I am really no slouch of a sougher, either, when I get started.

The horse was hanging by the breeching from the bough of a large butternut
tree, waiting for some one to come and pick him.

[Illustration: WAITING TO BE PICKED.]

I did not see my brother at first, but after a while he disengaged himself
from a rail fence and came where I was hanging, wrong end up, with my
personal effects spilling out of my pockets. I told him that as soon as
the wind kind of softened down, I wished he would go and pick the horse.
He did so, and at midnight a party of friends carried me into town on a
stretcher. It was quite an ovation. To think of a torchlight procession
coming way out there into the woods at midnight, and carrying me into town
on their shoulders in triumph! And yet I was once only a poor boy!

It shows what may be accomplished by anyone if he will persevere and
insist on living a different life.

The cyclone is a natural phenomenon, enjoying the most robust health. It
may be a pleasure for a man with great will power and an iron constitution
to study more carefully into the habits of the cyclone, but as far as I am
concerned, individually, I could worry along some way if we didn't have a
phenomenon in the house from one year's end to another.