zen air of the muddy playing-yard for the
stuffy atmosphere of the classroom. The "little boys" and the smallest
of all, for lack of a mother's care, were martyrs to chilblains and
chaps so severe that they had to be regularly dressed during the
breakfast hour; but this could only be very indifferently done to so
many damaged hands, toes, and heels. A good many of the boys indeed
were obliged to prefer the evil to the remedy; the choice constantly lay
between their lessons waiting to be finished or the joys of a slide, and
waiting for a bandage carelessly put on, and still more carelessly cast
off again. Also it was the fashion in the school to gibe at the poor,
feeble creatures who went to be doctored; the bullies vied with each
other in snatching off the rags which the infirmary nurse had tied on.
Hence, in winter, many of us, with half-dead feet and fingers, sick with
pain, were incapable of work, and punished for not working. The Fathers,
too often deluded by shammed ailments, would not believe in real
suffering.

The price paid for our schooling and board also covered the cost of
clothing. The committee contracted for the shoes and clothes supplied to
the boys; hence the weekly inspection of which I have spoken. This plan,
though admirable for the manager, is always disastrous to the managed.
Woe to the boy who indulged in the bad habit of treading his shoes down
at heel, of cracking the shoe-leather, or wearing out the soles too
fast, whether from a defect in his gait, or by fidgeting during lessons
in obedience to the instinctive need of movement common to all children.
That boy did not get through the winter without great suffering. In the
first place, his chilblains would ache and shot as badly as a fit of the
gout; then the rivets and pack-thread intended to repair the shoes would
give way, or the broken heels would prevent the wretched shoes from
keeping on his feet; he was obliged to drag them wearily along the
frozen roads, or sometimes to dispute their possession with the clay
soil of the district; the water and snow got in through some unnoticed
crack or ill-sewn patch, and the foot would swell.

Out of sixty boys, not ten perhaps could walk without some special form
of torture; and yet they all kept up with the body of the troop, dragged
on by the general movement, as men are driven through life by life
itself. Many a time some proud-tempered boy would shed tears of rage
while summoning his remaining en