In my younger days I was a resident of Hannibal, Mo., and you and I were schoolmates attending Mr.Dawson's school along with Sam and Will Bowen and Andy Fuqua and others whose names I have forgotten.

I was then about the smallest boy in school, for my age, and they called me little Aleck for short.
I only dimly remember him, but I knew those other people as well as I knew the town drunkards.

I remember Dawson's schoolhouse perfectly.

If I wanted to describe it I could save myself the trouble by conveying the description of it to these pages from "Tom Sawyer." I can remember the drowsy and inviting summer sounds that used to float in through the open windows from that distant boy-Paradise, Cardiff Hill (Holliday's Hill), and mingle with the murmurs of the studying pupils and make them the more dreary by the contrast.

I remember Andy Fuqua, the oldest pupil--a man of twenty-five.