changes of the seasons, that we regard winter
merely as an incident having its rightful place among the other
incidents of life.

I had a calendar and I marked off upon it the slowly passing days. At
the commencement of my first year of college life I was oppressed by the
thought of the months of study stretching before me, and by the prospect
of the interminable months that must come and go before we reached the
Easter vacation that was to give us a respite of eight or ten days
from the dreadful schoolroom grind and ennui; I seemed to lose all
my courage, and at times I was almost overwhelmed with despair at the
prospect of the long and dreary days that went so slowly.

In the meantime cold weather, really cold weather set in and aggravated
my sorrows. Oh! the daily journey to school upon those frigid December
mornings, where for two deadly hours the only warmth we obtained came
from the inadequate coal fire, and before me the torture of returning to
my home in the face of the icy winter wind! The other children frolicked
and ran and pushed each other, and they slid upon the ice when it
chanced that the water in the gutters was frozen over. As for me I
did not know how to slide, and, besides, sports such as the other boys
indulged in, I considered highly undignified. I was always escorted
to and from school very sedately, and I felt the humiliation of being
conducted. I was sometimes laughed at by my school-mates with whom I was
not at all popular; and I had a disdain for those who, like myself, were
in bondage. I had scarcely an idea in common with them.

Even Thursdays I had to give to the preparation of lessons that took the
entire day. The written tasks, absurd exercises, I scrawled off in the
most careless and illegible handwriting.

And my disgust for life was so great that I no longer took the least bit
of pains with myself; often now I was scolded for looking so unkempt,
and for having dirty, ink-stained hands. . . . But if I continue in
this strain I will succeed in making my recital as tedious as were the
school-days of my youth.

CHAPTER L.

Cakes! Cakes! My good hot cakes! The old cake woman had resumed her
nightly tour, and again we heard her rapid footsteps and her shrill
refrain. Always at the same hour, with the regularity of an automaton,
she went by our house. And the long winter recommenced in the same
manner as had the preceding ones, and as were similarly to begin the
following two