Across the brook and farther down the street was the little brown schoolhouse, with its stiff hard benches, and open Franklin stove. Behind was an old apple tree, and a barnyard flanked it on the north side. There was a row of maples under which we played, and built stone houses in the soft sand, making wonderful china closets of bricks and shingles and filling them with bits of bright crockery laboriously gathered from the children's homes and carried to school in our aprons. Early rising was the rule in our house, for the early breakfast was always preceded by family prayers, from which none might be excused; and after it my father went to his office and the children to school. We were happy children then; our simple sports and homely pleasures had a zest which, it seems to me, children in these days of multiplied means of diversion know little of. The free life of the fields and woods; the fun of driving the cows to and from the mountain pastures, and, in spring, carrying home pails of maple sap, and boiling it into sugar; scouring the mountain-sides and pastures for berries and nuts, picking up apples and potatoes in the fall, by which we gained a little money which was all our own; and, in winter, the joys of coasting down the steep hill and far across the fields below by moonlight. The wonderful snow-forts our brothers built and stormed, and the rides over the snow behind the frisky steers on the ox-sled they made; in-doors the home-made dolls and pleasant games, and in the evenings the delightful stories and songs with which our mother entertained us--all these were enjoyed with a relish so keen as to leave nothing more to be desired.