Knowledge and Inventions 



this wonderful indulgence; and next morning 

 to my joyful surprise I awoke before father 

 called me. A boy sleeps soundly after working 

 all day in the snowy woods, but that frosty 

 morning I sprang out of bed as if called by a 

 trumpet blast, rushed downstairs, scarce feel- 

 ing my chilblains, enormously eager to see how 

 much time I had won ; and when I held up my 

 candle to a little clock that stood on a bracket 

 in the kitchen I found that it was only one 

 o'clock. I had gained five hours, almost half 

 a day! "Five hours to myself!" I said, "five 

 huge, solid hours!" I can hardly think of any 

 other event in my life, any discovery I ever 

 made that gave birth to joy so transportingly 

 glorious as the possession of these five frosty 

 hours. 



In the glad, tumultuous excitement of so 

 much suddenly acquired time-wealth, I hardly 

 knew what to do with it. I first thought of 

 going on with my reading, but the zero weather 

 would make a fire necessary, and it occurred to 

 me that father might object to the cost of fire- 

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