The two sons of the crippled but devout shoemaker, Mr. Winter, were the most remarkable scholars that attended the school, for the reason that they seemed to have mastered all sorts of depravity by sheer force of native genius; for though they possessed all the accomplishments of street Arabs, and we thought they must surely be town boys, the truth was that they were seldom allowed even to go to town, and therefore could not have contracted the vices of civilization from the contagion of evil society. When one of them did go he returned with a knife for nearly every boy in the school, and cloves and cinnamon bark to last for weeks, which were stolen from the stores. If one of us longed for anything in their presence, they said it would be forthcoming immediately if we got them opportunity to go to town. This was only possible by inducing some one to allow them to drive a team, as their father was poor, and did not keep horses. The older (and I may add the worse) one was probably named Hardy, but he was always known as Hard. Winter, because of his hard character; and his brother’s evil reputation was so woven into his name that we never knew what the latter really was, for he was known as Beef Hide Winter, a rebuke, I believe, for his failure to get away with a hide he had once stolen, but the boys accepted these titles with great cheerfulness, and did not mind them. They were the mildest mannered villains, I have no doubt, that ever lived, for no difference how convincing the proof was against them, they still denied it with tears in their eyes, and were always trying to convince those around them by kindness and civility that they were not so bad as represented (though they were worse), and I fear they were rather popular in spite of their weakness for things not belonging to them. In course of time their petty peculations came to be regarded in about the same light as was their father’s shouting--one of the peculiarities of the neighborhood--and we paid them no other attention than to watch them. At the Fourth of July celebrations in the woods, where all sorts of persons came to set up business, the Winter boys stole a little of everything they saw on exhibition, and generously divided with their friends. If they were sent together to a house near the school after water, one went through the cellar while the other went to the well, and if he secured anything he made a division at the first opportunity.