I would have changed. I knew now all
my stupidity -- and my good fortune.



III

FRIENDSHIP

WHEN I look back upon the village
where I lived as a child, I can-
not remember that there were any divi-
sions in our society. This group went
to the Congregational church, and that
to the Presbyterian, but each family
felt itself to be as good as any other,
and even if, ordinarily, some of them
withdrew themselves in mild exclusive-
ness, on all occasions of public celebra-
tion, or when in trouble, we stood to-
gether in the pleasantest and most un-
affected democracy.

There were only the "Bad Madi-
gans" outside the pale.

The facts about the Bad Madigans
were, no doubt, serious enough, but the
fiction was even more appalling. As to
facts, the father drank, the mother fol-