a match game of ball, very unlike the present base ball.
Boys played with boys and men with men. The New England bootmakers, of
whom there were some in most villages, were the leaders in these games.
Fast Day was above all days the established one for shooting and burning
powder. Why, it would be hard to discover, as it was too late for winter
game and too early for any other. However, it was fun and made men and
boys jolly and important to roam through the woods and fields with a gun
over the shoulder, for that was still the soldiery way of carrying it.
It was more often fired at a mark than at bird or beast. Powder had to
be exploded to give expression to the holiday exuberance and a noise
made, game or no game. I suffered dreadfully for several years in not
being able to have a gun, and my misery grew acute at the approach of
Fast Day. I had to content myself with percussion caps, powder and lead
cannon. The latter I made myself and when I had no lead I made them of
wood. These I fired as long as the ammunition held out and then with one
mighty charge I would burst them into fragments, and Fast Day was over
for me.

As Fourth of July approached, my chief concern was to get possession of
twenty-five cents. This was the traditional limit of a boy's spending
money for that day. He must save or earn it, or expect a miracle. How to
save on nothing a year was an early problem of mine; and as to earning,
my services, even then, were not in demand, and I cannot remember ever
to have been hired to be a good boy. My mother had a cheaper way and a
more effectual. Such is the miserable history of poor boys and poor
mothers. Thus it was that I rarely had the twenty-five cents; it was
oftener a dime. Even that seemed large enough to fill one pocket and buy
a world of things. To think over all the single articles that it would
purchase was to possess them for that moment, and I never had a truer
ownership in my life than that which was enjoyed in these imaginary
possessions. Strangely enough, I could so feel my own what I knew the
dime or the quarter would purchase, that I was content not to spend it
at all. Yet a day would come when some sudden impulse or appetite would
snatch it away from me; then with what penitence was I overcome; for, as
soon as I had a thing in my hand it ceased to have the least value; if
eaten, it did not fill me; if a plaything, I soon tired and then hated
it; and only its destruction gave me one passing mo