When a boy is left alone in the world by the death of his aunt and starts out to find his uncle in Cincinnati--if you know Trowbridge’s books--you prepare for hardship and weariness, but still occasional sandwiches and doughnuts (but not the greasy kind). And always you know there must be a haven in the house of the uncle in Cincinnati. Only--if you know the Trowbridge books--you are fearful when you get to the uncle’s door, and you would a little rather the boy went in to meet him while you waited outside. Trowbridge’s uncles are apt to be so sour as to heart, and so bitter as to tongue, and so sarcastic in their remarks relating to boys who come in from the country to the city in order that they--the uncles--may have the privilege of supporting them. Though you know--if you know the Trowbridge books--that Trowbridge’s boys never come into the city for that purpose. The heavy-tempered uncles, too, are made aware of this before long, and change the tenor of their remarks accordingly--and after some just pride on the part of the nephews, all goes well. Whereupon your feeling of satisfaction is more than that of the boy, of the uncle, of Trowbridge himself. But these roasted ears of corn and cold-boiled eggs are among the lesser delights of the young-books of Trowbridge. The most fascinating things in them are the conversations. They are so real that you hear the voices and see the expressions of the faces. Trowbridge is one of the kind that listens twice and thrice to persons talking, so that he hears the key-note and the detail, and his pen is of the kind that can write what he hears. It is never too much, never too little; it is not noticeable at all, because it is all harmony. It is entirely and utterly common. And it is real. In the young-books of Trowbridge, and nowhere else, I have heard boys talking together so that I knew how their faces looked, and how carelessly and loosely their various collars were worn, and their dubious hats. I have heard a grasping, grouty old man pound on the kitchen floor with his horn-headed cane--he had come over while the family were at breakfast to inform them that their dog had killed five of his sheep, and to demand the dog’s life. I have heard the lessons and other things they said in a country school-room sixty years ago, where boys were sometimes obliged, for punishment, to sit on nothing against the door. I have heard the extreme discontent in the voice of another grouty, grasping farmer when it became evident to him that he would be obliged to give up a horse that had been stolen before he bought him. But here I must quote, as nearly correctly as I can without the book: “‘And sold him to this Mr. Badger’ (said Kit) ‘for seventy dollars.’ “‘Seventy gim-cracks!’ exclaimed Uncle Gray, aghast. ‘I should think any fool might know he’s worth more than that.’ “He was thinking of Brunlow, but Eli applied the remark to himself.