The Believing Years

September was horribly near. And worse,--there was coming that 5th day of September when a certain bell should ring again, and we trudge up Elm Street, fidgeting uneasily about...

As the two smallest, we were told off to represent the English at Bunker Hill. It was a revised and thoroughly patriotic Bunker Hill, for the English never reached the top, but...

There was never a Washington Avenue which looked so little like one. A pleasant old road,--it had not greatly changed its appearance since the day when the man for whom it had b...

We passed the afternoon gloomily. There seemed to be no use in returning to the circus field without the once influential Horace. Except for him, we appeared to be almost the on...

During the time that Jimmy stayed at his grandmother's farm--a period that was lengthened to more than two weeks--we were all agitated by the approach of a circus. Excitement ha...

The day before the circus found me at home again. Without delay I set out to find Ed Mason, Charley Carter, and any of the others who could give me the latest information on the...

On an afternoon early in the following week, Jimmy Toppan, Ed Mason, and I were seriously engaged at the frog pond. We had discovered, in the morning, an outlet, through which a...

From far off came a sound of popping and snapping,--some boy, unable to wait, was trying a few fire-crackers. It still lacked a day or two of the Fourth of July, and the strain...

I was to take a note up to the Bigelow's house on Elm Street, and I was to give the note to Miss Carew. There was no answer. After delivering the note I might do as I pleased, b...

Jimmy Toppan was worth knowing for the sake of his grandmothers, if for no other reason. He had two of them. With one, and a great-aunt, he lived on Elm Street.

Elm Street, into which we rushed that afternoon, was a broad thoroughfare extending from one end of the town to the other. On both sides it was lined with trees, set at the edge...

About the middle of the month my family went to spend a week or two in a cottage at a neighboring beach. I enjoyed being at the sea-side, but I was hard up for playmates. For a...

You took rose-leaves--fresh rose-leaves--and mixed them with brown sugar. Then you wrapped them in a leaf from a grape-vine, and buried the whole business in the ground. You let...

But I had the velocipede,--that was the main thing. It was built mostly of wood, and painted red. On it, I spent four happy days, riding up and down the sidewalks of Oak Street.

In the garden, at the side of our house, there was an apple tree. There were two routes to the top of it. One, the common everyday path, was obvious and easy, almost like climbi...

On the morning following our return from the flight, there was an uncomfortable chill about my house. When I met Ed Mason, I found that he had noticed the same coolness in his h...

It was Peter Bailey who organized the siege. We had long ago made up the quarrel that arose on the day of the Indian raid. He still maintained that Ed's and my conduct had been...

It was sprung on me without any pretence of a fair warning. Rob Currier, Ed Mason, and I had just rounded up a herd of buffaloes in the back of my garden, and we were busily eng...

We had thought of it, thought of it far back when snow still covered the ground; planned for it, lived in hope of it. To-morrow the tyrannical bell should be silent, and no one...

Not that any of us were neglected. School was our portion, Mr. Colburn's and other improving but uncomfortable books were our fare through nine months of the year. On Sundays we...