The next day being Sunday, I had the privilege of staying in bed, of having my breakfast brought to me, much as if I had been a convalescent gentleman. My aunt would find me propped up in bed, with the novels spread over the bed; and in the midst of a detective romance, always read first, I would be interrupted by some such words as these: “Well, his royal highness! Will he have bacon and eggs and a hot cup of cocoa?” I would merely keep on reading, with a suppressed, growled “Yep!” and after breakfast, though it would be a pleasant day outside, I would sit there in bed and read until I became satiated with thrills, disguised scouts, burgled safes, triumphant, last-chapter endings of “Justice at last!” reunited lovers and pardoning fathers, when I would dress, have dinner, and go out into a slumberous Sabbath afternoon, to stand bored on a street corner until dark, when the gangs of the city moved and planned exciting escapades. When my uncle saw me reading the novels, he interposed with, “That’s cheap stuff, Al, and will never make you any better. You want to read refining things, the great books. There’s many an exciting one that is exciting without being cheap. I wish you would let me plan for you.” I told him that I would--sometime, but I kept on reading Cheap John’s bargain-counter literature. The ten and a half hours in the mill, with its humdrum rattle, its high-pitched hum, the regularity of its fixtures, the monotonousness of its routine, bullied my nerves into a tamed, cowed state. Day by day, day by day, day by day, at the appointed time, in the instructed way, with the same broom or the same-sized bunch of waste, to do the task! And there wanted to stir in me a schoolboy’s expression of vitality, a growing lad’s satisfaction in novelty! But all through the hours of light, from morning till evening, with the sun arising and departing, I had to listen to, and keep time with, the humming of wheels! Consequently, when my feet felt the outside world at night or on Saturdays, at the first refreshing feel of the pure air which took that deep-lodged heat from my white cheeks, I always promised myself some exciting pleasure ere the day passed, to stimulate my cowed nerves and make me a boy again. [Illustration: “PETER-ONE-LEG-AND-A-HALF” LED US AT NIGHT OVER HIGH BOARD FENCES]