My Boyhood and Youth 



instead of hauling great heart-cheering loads 

 of it for wide, open, all-welcoming, climate- 

 changing, beauty-making, Godlike ingle-fires, 

 it was hauled with weary heart-breaking indus- 

 try into fences and waste places to get it out 

 of the way of the plough, and out of the way of 

 doing good. The only fire for the whole house 

 was the kitchen stove, with a fire-box about 

 eighteen inches long and eight inches wide and 

 deep, scant space for three or four small 

 sticks, around which in hard zero weather all 

 the family of ten persons shivered, and beneath 

 which in the morning we found our socks and 

 coarse, soggy boots frozen solid. We were not 

 allowed to start even this despicable little fire 

 in its black box to thaw them. No, we had 

 to squeeze our throbbing, aching, chilblained 

 feet into them, causing greater pain than 

 toothache, and hurry out to chores. Fortun- 

 ately the miserable chilblain pain began to 

 abate as soon as the temperature of our feet 

 approached the freezing-point, enabling us in 

 spite of hard work and hard frost to enjoy the 

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