me
idea of this place, which became the stage whereon were enacted many
varied and remarkable scenes.

Each of the Minot boys had his own room, and there collected his own
treasures and trophies, arranged to suit his convenience and taste.
Frank's was full of books, maps, machinery, chemical messes, and
geometrical drawings, which adorned the walls like intricate cobwebs.
A big chair, where he read and studied with his heels higher than his
head, a basket of apples for refreshment at all hours of the day or
night, and an immense inkstand, in which several pens were always
apparently bathing their feet, were the principal ornaments of his
scholastic retreat.

Jack's hobby was athletic sports, for he was bent on having a strong and
active body for his happy little soul to live and enjoy itself in. So a
severe simplicity reigned in his apartment; in summer, especially, for
then his floor was bare, his windows were uncurtained, and the chairs
uncushioned, the bed being as narrow and hard as Napoleon's. The only
ornaments were dumbbells, whips, bats, rods, skates, boxing-gloves, a
big bath-pan and a small library, consisting chiefly of books on games,
horses, health, hunting, and travels. In winter his mother made things
more comfortable by introducing rugs, curtains, and a fire. Jack,
also, relented slightly in the severity of his training, occasionally
indulging in the national buckwheat cake, instead of the prescribed
oatmeal porridge, for breakfast, omitting his cold bath when the
thermometer was below zero, and dancing at night, instead of running a
given distance by day.

Now, however, he was a helpless captive, given over to all sorts of
coddling, laziness, and luxury, and there was a droll mixture of mirth
and melancholy in his face, as he lay trussed up in bed, watching the
comforts which had suddenly robbed his room of its Spartan simplicity.
A delicious couch was there, with Frank reposing in its depths, half
hidden under several folios which he was consulting for a history of the
steam-engine, the subject of his next composition.

A white-covered table stood near, with all manner of dainties set forth
in a way to tempt the sternest principles. Vases of flowers bloomed on
the chimney-piece,--gifts from anxious young ladies, left with their
love. Frivolous story-books and picture-papers strewed the bed, now
shrouded in effeminate chintz curtains, beneath which Jack lay like
a wounded warrior in his tent. But t