s lost to the world during the
Christmas holidays. After breakfast, I saturated myself with the
delightful battles in that precious book.

My principal duty was to look after the front pavement. In the spring
and summer, it was carefully washed twice a week and reddened with some
kind of paint, which always accompanied a box of fine white sand for the
scouring of the marble steps; but in the winter, this respectable
sidewalk had to be kept free from snow and ice.

Hitherto my battle with the elements had been rather a diversion.
Besides, I was in competition with the other small boys in the block--or
in the "square," as we Philadelphians called it. Now it became irksome;
I neglected to dig the ice from between the bricks; I skimped my
cleaning of the gutter; I forgot to put on my "gums." The boy next door
became a mirror of virtue; he was quoted to me as one whose pavement was
a model to all the neighbours; indeed, it was rumoured that the Mayor
passing down our street, had stopped and admired the working of his
civic spirit, while the result of my efforts was passed by with evident
contempt. I did not care. I hugged Froissart to my heart. Who would
condescend to wield a broom and a wooden shovel, even for the reward of
ten cents in cash, when he could throw javelins and break lances with
the knights of the divine Froissart? The end of my freedom came after
this. The terrible incident of the Mayor's contempt, invented, I
believe, by the boy next door, induced my mother to believe that I was
not only losing my morals, but becoming too much of a book-worm. For
many long weeks I was deprived of any amusing book except "Robinson
Crusoe." After this interval, vacation came; I seemed to have grown
older, and books were never quite the same again.

In the vacation, however, when the days were very long and there was a
great deal of leisure, I found myself reduced to Grimms' "Fairy Tales"
and a delightful volume by Madame Perrault, and I was even then very
much struck by the difference. Of course I read Grimm from cover to
cover, and went back again over the pages, hoping that I had neglected
something. The homeliness of the stories touched me; it seemed to me
that you found yourself in the atmosphere of old Germany. Madame
Perrault was more delicate; her fairy tales were pictures of no life
that ever existed, and there was a great dissimilarity between her
"Cendrillon" and the Grimms' story of "Aschenputtel." As I remember,