circuses in the tan-bark rings of the real circuses.

There were flocks of wild ducks on the Reservoirs and on Old River,
and flocks of kildees on the Commons; and there were squirrels in the
woods, where there was abundant mast for the pigs that ran wild in them,
and battened on the nuts under the hickory-trees. There were no other
nuts except walnuts, white and black; but there was no end to the small,
sweetish acorns, which the boys called chinquepins; they ate them, but I
doubt if they liked them, except as boys like anything to eat. In the
vast corn-fields stretching everywhere along the river levels there were
quails; and rabbits in the sumac thickets and turnip patches. There were
places to swim, to fish, to hunt, to skate; if there were no hills for
coasting, that was not so much loss, for there was very little snow, and
it melted in a day or two after it fell. But besides these natural
advantages for boys, there were artificial opportunities which the boys
treated as if they had been made for them; grist-mills on the river and
canal, cotton-factories and saw-mills on the Hydraulic, iron-founderies
by the Commons, breweries on the river-bank, and not too many
school-houses. I must not forget the market-house, with its public
market twice a week, and its long rows of market-wagons, stretching on
either side of High Street in the dim light of the summer dawn or the
cold sun of the winter noon.

The place had its brief history running back to the beginning of the
century. Mad Anthony Wayne encamped on its site when he went north to
avenge St. Clair's defeat on the Indians; it was at first a fort, and it
remained a military post until the tribes about were reduced, and a fort
was no longer needed. To this time belonged a tragedy, which my boy knew
of vaguely when he was a child. Two of the soldiers were sentenced to be
hanged for desertion, and the officer in command hurried forward the
execution, although an express had been sent to lay the case before the
general at another post. The offence was only a desertion in name, and
the reprieve was promptly granted, but it came fifteen minutes too late.

I believe nothing more memorable ever happened in my Boy's Town, as the
grown-up world counts events; but for the boys there, every day was full
of wonderful occurrence and thrilling excitement. It was really a very
simple little town of some three thousand people, living for the most
part in small one-story wooden hous