yo MY LIFE 



fruit an apple tree which bore delicious ribston-pippins, of 

 which I was allowed to eat as many as I liked of the wind- 

 falls. In this house there was a loft in the roof, which I was 

 told was full of old furniture and other things, so I one day 

 asked if I might go up into it. Miss Davies, who was very 

 kind though melancholy, said I might. So I went up, and 

 found all kinds of old broken or moth-eaten furniture, broken 

 lamps, candlesticks, and all the refuse of a house where a 

 family have lived for many years. But among these interesting 

 things I hit upon two veritable treasures from my point of 

 view. One was a very good, almost new, cricket-bat, of a 

 size just suitable to me ; and the other was still more sur- 

 prising and attractive to me, being a very large, almost 

 gigantic, box-wood pegtop, bigger than any I had seen. It 

 seemed to me then almost incredible that such treasures could 

 have been ranked as lumber, and purposely left in that old 

 attic. I thought someone must surely have put them there 

 for safety, and would soon come and claim them. I there- 

 fore waited a few days till Miss Davies seemed rather more 

 communicative than usual, when I said to her, " I found some- 

 thing very nice in the lumber-room." " Oh, indeed ; and what 

 is it?" said she. "I did not know there was anything nice 

 there." " May I go and fetch them for you to see?" said I; 

 and she said I might. So I rushed off, and brought down 

 the top and the bat, and said, " I found these up there ; do 

 you know whose they are ? " She looked at them, and said, 



" They must have belonged to ," mentioning a name 



which I have forgotten. " They have been there a good 

 many years." Then, as I looked at them longingly, she said, 

 " You can have them if you like " — as if they were not of the 

 least value. I felt as if I had had a fortune left me. The 

 top was the admiration of the whole school. No one had so 

 large a top or had even seen one so large, yet I was quite 

 able to spin it properly, my hands being rather large for my 

 age. This occurred in the winter, and when the cricket 

 season came, I equally enjoyed my bat, which at once ele- 

 vated me to the rank of the few bigger boys who had bats of 

 their own. 



