Few boys were mean enough to threaten to tell our parents or teacher of our misdeeds, yet there were children who for days or even weeks would hold this threat over their playmates and drag it forth on the slightest provocation. But among children this species of cruelty was generally condemned. We knew of no circumstances that could justify the threat to tell, much less the telling. A “tattle-tale” was the most contemptible of boys,—even more contemptible than a “cry-baby.” A “cry-baby” did not rank much below a girl. Still, we would suffer a great deal without flinching, to avoid this name. In my time boys were not always so democratic as children are supposed to be. Somehow children do pick up a great deal from their elders, especially things they ought not to learn. I know that in our school there was always the same aristocracy as in our town. The children of the first families of the village were the first in the school. In games and sports these would usually get the foremost places, and each one soon knew where he belonged in the boys’ social scale. Certain boys were carefully avoided,—sometimes for sanitary reasons, more often, I fancy, for no reason at all. I am sure that all this discrimination caused the child sorrow and suffering that he could in no way defend himself against. So far from our teachers doing anything to show the cruelty and absurdity of this caste spirit, it was generally believed that they were kinder and more considerate and what we called “partial” to the children of influential parents than to the rest. And we were perfectly sure that this consideration had an important bearing on our marks. As a general rule, we children did not care much to read; and, for that matter, I am inclined to think that few healthy children do. A child would rather do things, or see them done, than read about how someone else has done them. So far as we did read, we always chose the things we were told we should not read. No doubt this came from the general belief that the imagination of children should be developed; and with the ordinary teacher and parent this meant telling about fairies, giants, and goblins, and sometimes even ghosts. These stories were always told as if they were really true; and it was commonly believed that cultivating the imagination of a child meant teaching him to see giants instead of men, and fairies and goblins instead of beasts and birds. We children soon came to doubt the whole brood of fairies, and we never believed in ghosts except at night when there was no candle in the room, and when we came near the graveyard. After these visions were swept away, our minds turned to strong men, to kings and Indians and warriors, and we read of them.