It must have been a Saturday in June. It was still broad day, though it was past seven o’clock when I came back to the house, and on the edge of the garden there was still a haycock which Tem Bossette must have mown, taking plenty of time. I just muttered, “How d’ye do, Yes-yes; how d’ye do, Zeez,” without so much as waiting for their reply; did not close the door which they had left open, and slipped into the passage that led to the kitchen, for I had lingered on the way home from school to play with some schoolmates in a narrow street that we called “behind the walls,” because it bordered a row of houses shut in like fortresses. I had no quarrel with this unsocial way of shutting every one out, though I preferred such fences or hedges as permit one to satisfy his curiosity, and do not so abruptly shut off the view; but grandfather, when he passed that way, never concealed his disgust. “The earth is for everybody, and they mew her up as if they feared she would run away!” He spoke of it as of a living person. Except for our house I should have been quite willing to do away with all enclosures. Did not the earth belong to me? “Behind the walls” we used to have great games of marbles in the very middle of the street, certain of not being disturbed. If a chance cart should enter the street, the driver, held up by our protests, would wait patiently until we had finished our game, sometimes he would even interest himself in the process; after which he would go on his way. Nobody was in a hurry in those days. At the present time that road is the Boulevard of the Constitution, and one has to look out for automobiles. I have no idea where children go to play now-a-days.