and that, if smaller men declare that it is deep to themselves,
these smaller men shall be regarded as weak, fanciful, and mistaken.
Many people, as they look back upon the sorrows of their own childhood,
or as they look round upon the sorrows of existing childhood, think that
these sorrows are or were very light and insignificant, and their causes
very small. These people do this, because to them, as they are now,
_big people_, (to use the expressive phrase of childhood,) these
sorrows would be light, if they should befall. But though these sorrows
may seem light to us now, and their causes small, it is only as water
four feet in depth was shallow to the tall Mr. Smith. The same water was
very deep to the man whose stature was three feet and a half; and the
peril was as great to him as could have been caused by eight feet depth
of water to the man seven feet high. The little cause of trouble was
great to the little child. The little heart was as full of grief and
fear and bewilderment as it could hold.

Yes, I stand up against the common belief that childhood is our happiest
time. And whenever I hear grown-up people say that it is so, I think of
Mr. Smith, and the water four feet deep. I have always, in my heart,
rebelled against that common delusion. I recall, as if it were
yesterday, a day which I have left behind me more than twenty years. I
see a large hall, the hall of a certain educational institution, which
helped to make the present writer what he is. It is the day of the
distribution of the prizes. The hall is crowded with little boys, and
with the relations and friends of the little boys. And the chief
magistrate of that ancient town, in all the pomp of civic majesty, has
distributed the prizes. It is neither here nor there what honors were
borne off by me; though I remember well that _that_ day was the
proudest that ever had come in my short life. But I see the face and
hear the voice of the kind-hearted old dignitary, who has now been for
many years in his grave. And I recall especially one sentence he said,
as he made a few eloquent remarks at the close of the day's proceedings.

"Ah, boys," said he, "I can tell you this is the happiest time of all
your life!"

"Little you know about the matter," was my inward reply.

I knew that our worries, fears, and sorrows were just as great as those
of any one else.

The sorrows of childhood and boyhood are not sorrows of that complicated
and perplexing nature