ustom made the mill-dam the winter resort of all the
village sliders and skaters, and my father displayed a good deal of
toleration when those who could not find room for a new slide, or wished
to practise their "outer edge" in a quiet spot, came climbing over the
wall (there was no real thoroughfare) and invaded our pond.

Perhaps it is because gratitude is a fatiguing virtue, or perhaps it is
because self-esteem has no practical limits, that favours are seldom
regarded as such for long. They are either depreciated, or claimed as
rights; very often both. And what is common in all classes is almost
universal amongst the uneducated. You have only to make a system of
giving your cast-off clothes to some shivering family, and you will not
have to wait long for an eloquent essay on their shabbiness, or for an
outburst of sincere indignation if you venture to reserve a warm jacket
for a needy relative. Prescriptive rights, in short, grow faster than
pumpkins, which is amongst the many warnings life affords us to be just
as well as generous. Thence it had come about that the young roughs of
the village regarded our pond to all winter intents and purposes as
theirs, and my father as only so far and so objectionably concerned in
the matter that he gave John Binder a yearly job in patching up the wall
which it took them three months' trouble to kick a breach in.

Our neighbours were what is called "very independent" folk. In the
grown-up people this was modified by the fact that no one who has to
earn his own livelihood can be quite independent of other people; if he
would live he must let live, and throw a little civility into the
bargain. But boys of an age when their parents found meals and hobnailed
boots for them whether they behaved well or ill, were able to display
independence in its roughest form. And when the boys of our
neighbourhood were rough, they were very rough indeed.

The village boys had their Christmas holidays about the same time that
we had ours, which left them as much spare time for sliding and skating
as we had, but they had their dinner at twelve o'clock, whilst we had
ours at one, so that any young roughs who wished to damage our pond were
just comfortably beginning their mischief as Jem and I were saying grace
before meat, and the thought of it took away our appetites again and
again.

That winter they were particularly aggravating. The December frost was
a very imperfect one, and the mill-dam neve