bitter cold winter day, I remember, and my mother, in
the kindness of her heart, brought to light one of those long, narrow,
fringed, brilliantly colored plaided shawls, so that I should not miss
Sunday school. I was perfectly willing to miss it, then or any other
time, for any excuse was a good one for that. But no, I was wrapped up
in it in spite of my frantic protests and despatched with my little
sister--she who wore the cream-colored trousers-jacket--to the church.
Strange to say, she did not mind at all.

We separated outside the house door, and I ran on alone. I had evolved
a deep, dark purpose. I went much more rapidly than she, and as soon
as I turned the corner, and was safely out of sight, I tore off that
hateful shawl and when I arrived at the meeting-house I ignominiously
thrust it into the coal heap in the dilapidated shed in the corner of
the lot. I was almost frozen by the time I arrived, but any condition
was better than that shawl.

The Sunday school exercises proceeded as usual, but in the middle of
them, the janitor who had gone into the coal house for the wherewithal
to replenish the fires, came back with the shawl. I had rammed it
rather viciously under the coal, and it was a filthy object. The
superintendent held it up by finger and thumb and asked to whom it
belonged.

"Why, that's our Johnny's" piped up my little sister amid a very
disheartening roar of laughter from the {321} school. There was no use
in my denying the statement. Her reputation for veracity was much
higher than mine, and I recognized the futility of trying to convince
any one that she was mistaken. At the close of the session I had to
wrap myself in that coal-stained garment and go forth. I was attended
by a large delegation of the scholars when the school was over. They
did not at all object to going far out of their way to escort me home,
and they left me at my own gate.

It was Sunday, and it was against my father's religious principles to
lick us on Sunday--that was one of the compensations, youthful
compensations of that holy day--but Monday wasn't far off, and father's
memory was remarkably acute. Ah, those sad times, but there was fun in
them, too, after all.

There was a little boy who lived near us named Henry Smith. He and I
were inseparable. He had a brother three years older than himself
whose name was Charles. Charles was of course much taller and stronger
than Henry and myself, and he could a