Page:The story of my childhood (1907).djvu/64

54 son of a friend—Lovett Stimpson—a fine, robust, intelligent lad of about my age, who lived with us.

It would be difficult to describe what this new life, for the time it continued, became to me, or indeed I to it. As I look back upon it I realize that we were a group of good children with honorable instincts, obedient and kindly disposed. In later years none of us could recall a serious difference of any kind, no cruelty and no broken faith. It took just six, and no more, to keep a secret. But this portrayal of characteristics gives no clue to, indeed casts no shadow, of what we were capable of accomplishing in a day. The territorial domain comprised something over three hundred acres. We knew it all. From "Peakèd Hill," to "Jim Brown's"—across the