It appears to me in writing these pages that I am very anxious to get out of my childhood, and out of my boyhood days, and as I cannot get back to them once I get out, nor see any use in singing: “Would I were a boy again,” I will remain a boy as long as I can. I was naturally very quiet and gentle when a boy--just as I am to-day--except when I was put to it, and when I was forced to be otherwise. I had five or six boxing bouts with schoolfellows--with Mike Crone, Micky Feen, Stephen Lovejoy, Pat Callanan and Paak Cullinane--but I never struck the first blow. Paak Cullinane and I were among the boys who went up to the Ardagh road bowling. He and I were made markers. On one occasion I thought he marked the throw of one of his friends a foot ahead of where the bowl stopped. I objected, and without his saying a word, the first thing he did was to give me a thump in the face. He had the name of being the best boxer in the school, and could with impunity strike any one he got vexed with, but when he struck me, I struck back, and the fight had to be stopped, to stop the blood that was running from his nose. The fight with Mike Crone ended by my getting a lump on the forehead that made me give up the contest, and the other three were drawn battles. But I never had any fight or falling-out with any of the girls of my acquaintance. They were all very fond of me, and when my mother would keep me in, to learn my lessons, I’d hear Mary Hurley and Ellen Fitzpatrick and Menzie Crone and Ponticilia Barrett come as a delegation from the girls outside, asking her to let Jer. come out to play with them. You never saw any illuminations at the bottom of the sea. I saw them, and I used to take those girls to see them. Bounding our fields, was the strand. This strand was about a half a mile wide, every way; it had a sandy bottom, in which cockles had their home. There was no water in the strand, when the tide was out. But when the tide was coming in, or going out, and when the water would be about twelve inches deep, as pretty a sight as you could see would be to walk through that water, and see “the cockles lighting.” The sun should be shining, and you should walk the strand with your face to the sun, so that your shadow would fall behind you. Then every home of a cockle would be lighted: you’d see through the cockle’s chamber door,--through a little hole that a knitting needle would fill--the light down in the sand, like a little taper burning. ’Twas a pretty picture; I’d go a mile off to-day to see it again. But those days are passed and gone. Nor, can I ever again, see the sun dancing on an Easter Sunday morning as it used to dance when I was a boy, over the general rejoicing on that day. It was to be seen through burned glass, and on Saturday night I’d have my glass burned, ready to look at the sun next morning, if the morning was fine.