ling the kitchen fire,
that I never carried out. It was to have a spring at the head of my
bed, connecting with a wire, which should run to a torpedo which I would
plant over night in the ashes of the fireplace. By touching the spring
I could explode the torpedo, which would scatter the ashes and cover
the live coals, and at the same time shake down the sticks of wood which
were standing by the side of the ashes in the chimney, and the fire
would kindle itself. This ingenious plan was frowned on by the whole
family, who said they did not want to be waked up every morning by an
explosion. And yet they expected me to wake up without an explosion! A
boy's plans for making life agreeable are hardly ever heeded.

I never knew a boy farmer who was not eager to go to the district school
in the winter. There is such a chance for learning, that he must be a
dull boy who does not come out in the spring a fair skater, an accurate
snow-baller, and an accomplished slider-down-hill, with or without a
board, on his seat, on his stomach, or on his feet. Take a moderate
hill, with a foot-slide down it worn to icy smoothness, and a "go-round"
of boys on it, and there is nothing like it for whittling away
boot-leather. The boy is the shoemaker's friend. An active lad can wear
down a pair of cowhide soles in a week so that the ice will scrape his
toes. Sledding or coasting is also slow fun compared to the "bareback"
sliding down a steep hill over a hard, glistening crust. It is not only
dangerous, but it is destructive to jacket and pantaloons to a degree to
make a tailor laugh. If any other animal wore out his skin as fast as a
schoolboy wears out his clothes in winter, it would need a new one once
a month. In a country district-school patches were not by any means a
sign of poverty, but of the boy's courage and adventurous disposition.
Our elders used to threaten to dress us in leather and put sheet-iron
seats in our trousers. The boy said that he wore out his trousers on
the hard seats in the schoolhouse ciphering hard sums. For that
extraordinary statement he received two castigations,--one at home, that
was mild, and one from the schoolmaster, who was careful to lay the rod
upon the boy's sliding-place, punishing him, as he jocosely called it,
on a sliding scale, according to the thinness of his pantaloons.

What I liked best at school, however, was the study of history,--early
history,--the Indian wars. We studied it mostly at noonti