born.]

There was a fascination about the winter evenings in that cottage.
Scarcely a night passed that did not see some man or woman sitting in
the corner waiting for shoes. A candlestick about three feet high, in
which burned a large tallow candle, was set in front of my father. My
mother was the only one in the house who could read, and she used to
read aloud from a story paper called _The Weekly Budget_. We were
never interested in the news. The outside world was shut off from us,
and the news consisted of whatever was brought by word of mouth by the
folks who had their shoes cobbled; _that_ was interesting. In those
long winter evenings, I sat in the corner among the shoes and lasts.
On scraps of leather I used to imitate writing, and often I would
quietly steal up to my mother and show her these scratchings, and ask
her whether they meant anything or not. I thought somehow by accident
I would surely get something. My mother merely shook her head and
smiled. She taught me many letters of the alphabet, but it took me
years to string them together.

My mother had acquired a taste, indeed, it was a craving, for strong
drink; and, even from the very small earnings of my father, managed to
satisfy it in a small measure, every day, except Sunday. On Sunday
there was a change. The cobbler's bench was cleared away, and my
mother's beautiful face was surrounded with a halo of spotless,
frilled linen.

My father's Sunday mornings were spent in giving the thrush an outing
and in cleaning his cage. Neither my father nor mother made any
pretensions to religion; but they were strict Sabbatarians. My father
never consciously swore, but, within even the limitations of his small
vocabulary, he was unfortunate in his selection of phrases. I bounced
into the alley one Sunday morning, whistling a Moody and Sankey hymn.

"Shut up yer mouth!" said my father.

"It's a hymn tune," I replied.

"I don't care a damn," replied my father. "It's the Lord's day, and if
I hear you whistlin' in it I'll whale the hell out o' ye!"

That was his philosophy, and he lived it. Saturday nights when the
town clock struck the hour of midnight, he removed his leather apron,
pushed his bench back in the corner, and the work of the week was
over--and if any one was waiting for his shoes, so much the worse for
him. He would wait until the midnight clock struck twelve the next
night or take them as they were.

The first tragedy in my life was the deat