sober history-books, and
Robinson Crusoe was our autobiography. But I did occasionally take note
of concrete appearances, too; and some of them I remember.

The house--the third which we had inhabited since my father became
surveyor--was on Mall Street, and was three stories in height, with a
yard behind and at one end; this yard, which was of importance to my
sister and myself, had access to the street by a swinging gate. There
were three or four trees in it, and space for play. The house was but
one room deep, and lying as it did about north and south, the rooms were
open to both the morning and the afternoon sunshine. They opened one
into the other in a series; and when my father was safe up-stairs in
his study, my mother would open all the doors of the suite on the lower
floor, and allow the children to career triumphantly to and fro. No
noise that we could make ever troubled her nerves, unless it was the
noise of conflict; the shriek of joy, however shrill, passed by her
harmless; but the lowest mutter of wrath or discontent distressed her;
for of such are the mothers of the kingdom of heaven! And so zealous was
our regard for her just and gentle law that I really think we gave way
as little as most children to the latter.

Of course, whenever the weather permitted, we were out in the yard,
or even promenaded for short distances up and down the street. And
once--"How are you?" inquired a friend of the family, as he drove by
in his wagon. "Oh, we've got the scarlet fever!" we proudly replied,
stepping out gallantly along the sidewalk. For we were treated by a
homoeopathic doctor of the old school, who was a high-dilutionist, and
mortal ills could never get a firm grip on us. In winter we rejoiced in
the snow; and my father's story of the Snow Image got most of its local
color from our gambols in this fascinating substance, which he could
observe from the window of his study.

The study was on the third floor of the house, secluded from the turmoil
of earth, so far as anything could be in a city street. No one
was supposed to intrude upon him there; but such suppositions are
ineffectual against children. From time to time the adamantine gates
fell ajar, and in we slipped. It seemed a heavenly place, tenanted by a
being possessed of every attribute that our imaginations could ascribe
to an angel. The room and its tenant glimmer before me as I write,
luminous with the sunshine of more than fifty years ago. Both were