y, especially the little girls. Think of a small--say
"skinny"--little boy, about nine or ten years old, in a purple
shad-bellied coat which had been made to fit (?) him by cutting off the
sleeves, also the voluminous tails just below the back buttons!

{316} I could never understand the peculiar taste my father manifested
in his younger days, for when I recall the age which permitted me to
wear cut-down clothing (and that age arrived at an extraordinary early
period in my existence, it appeared to me), such a fearful and
wonderful assortment of miscellaneous garments of all colors, shapes
and sizes as were resurrected from the old chests in the garret, where
they had reposed in peaceful neglect for half a generation, the
uninitiated can scarcely believe.

The shad-bellied coat was bad enough--you could take that off,
though--but there was something worse that stayed on. Fortunately
there is one season in the year when coats in the small Western
village, in which I lived, were at a discount, especially on small
boys, and that was summer. But on the warmest of summer days the most
recklessly audacious youngster has to wear trousers even in the most
sequestered village.

One pair rises before me among the images of many and will not down.
The fabric of which this particular garment was made was colored a
light cream, not to say yellow. There was a black stripe, a piece of
round black braid down each leg, too, and the garment was as heavy as
broadcloth and as stiff as a board. Nothing could have been more
unsuitable for a boy to wear than that was. I rebelled and protested
with all the strength of my infantile nature, but it was needs must--I
had either to wear them or to remain in bed indefinitely. Swallowing
my pride, in spite of my mortification, I put them on and sallied
forth, but little consoled by the approving words and glances of my
mother, who took what I childishly believed to be an utterly
unwarranted pride in her--shall I say--adaptation or reduction? Those
trousers had a {317} sentimental value for her, too, as I was to learn
later. As for me, I fairly loathed them.

Many times since then, I have been the possessor of a "best and only
pair," but never a pair of such color, quality and shape. They were
originally of the wide-seated, peg-top variety, quite like the fashion
of to-day, by the way--or is it yesterday, in these times of sudden
changes?--and when they were cut off square at the knee an