MEMORIES OF THE 



and, out of everybody's sight, stayed in the water to our hearts' 

 content and until we were ''blue as whetstones; " then we would 

 go ashore and dry ourselves in the sun if there was any, and run 

 up and down the bank and shake our heads to dry our hair so 

 it would not give us away. In this we generally succeeded, but 

 mother used sometimes to convict us by raising our back hair 

 and running her fingers over our heads, at the same time exam- 

 ining our bare feet, which would be uncommonly white, not- 

 withstanding we had gone through every mudhole or dirty place 

 on the way home to bring them back to their regular color and 

 looks. 



In the fall, after thrashing, we had sport in playing ''hide 

 and seek " and "hi-spy" around our own and the neighbors' 

 barns. We dug holes through the mows and went in and out 

 like rats, at the risk of getting stuck or smothered to death. 



Picking berries and gathering beechnuts and butternuts was 

 an amusement combined with utility. 



One little game indulged in, and one that really made us 

 smart, was called "licking jackets," and was this: Two boys of 

 a size each selected for himself a great bull thistle or Canada 

 thistle, then took off their coats and jackets — if they wore any 



and, taking hold of each other's shirt collars with their left 



hands, belabored each other's backs till one or the other caved. 

 The signal for surrender was the word "Sim-i-si." Matches of 

 this kind were promoted and managed by the big boys to test 

 the "grit" of the smaller ones, and were quite apt to lead to 

 unpleasant feelings, if not to a fight. I well remember that, up 

 by the French-lot barn, Dwight Webb once filled my seat so full 

 of thistle prickers that I had but little occasion to sit down for a 

 week. 



In the long, winter evenings we used to go back and forth 



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