After my father and mother,—whom I did not appreciate, and who, I am bound to think, but half understood me,—no other men or women came very near my life. My relations were with the boys and girls,—especially the boys. The men and women were there only to board and clothe the children, and furnish them with a place to sleep at night. To be sure, we knew something of all the men and women in the town, but we saw them only through childish eyes. There was the blacksmith, who was very strong, and whom we liked and called “clever” because he sometimes helped us with our games. There was one old farmer in particular, who had a large orchard and a fierce dog, and who would let his apples rot on the ground rather than give us one to eat. We hated him, and called him stingy and a miser. Perhaps he was not that sort of man at all, and the dog may not have been so very fierce. No doubt someone had given them bad names, and the people preferred to believe evil of them instead of good. Then there was the town drunkard, whom all of us knew. We liked him when he was sober, although we were told that he was very bad; but he always laughed and joked with us, and watched our games in a friendly way, but when we heard that he was drunk we were all afraid of him and ran away. Then there was another man who kept a little store, and we knew he was very rich; we had no idea how much he was really worth, but anyhow we knew that he was rich. And so on, through all the neighborhood, we knew something of the men, and classified them by some one trait or supposed fact,—just as the grown-up world always persists it has a right to do. The women, too, we knew even better than the men, for it was the mothers who controlled the boys, and in almost every case it depended on them alone whether or not the boys might go and play. Still, we children only knew and cared about the grown-up people in a remote secondary way. Every home was full of boys, and by common affinity these boys were always together,—at least, as many of them as could get away from home. As a rule, the goodness and desirability of a parent were in exact proportion to the ease with which the children could get away from home. I am afraid that in this child’s-world my good parents stood very low upon the list,—much lower than I wished them to stand. We children had our regular seasons’ round of games and sports. There was no part of the year in which we could not play, and each season had its special charm. There might not have been much foundation for the custom, but somehow certain games always came at certain times. When the season was over the games were dropped unceremoniously and left for another year.