Irving Ayres--but no matter, he is dead.

Then there was George Butler, whom I remember as a child of seven wearing a blue leather belt with a brass buckle, and hated and envied by all the boys on account of it.

He was a nephew of General Ben Butler and fought gallantly at Ball's Bluff and in several other actions of the Civil War.

He is dead, long and long ago.
Will Bowen (dead long ago), Ed Stevens (dead long ago) and John Briggs were special mates of mine.

John is still living.
[Sidenote: (1845.)] In 1845, when I was ten years old, there was an epidemic of measles in the town and it made a most alarming slaughter among the little people.
There was a funeral almost daily, and the mothers of the town were nearly demented with fright.