scratch. In our town they didn't spend Sunday; they kept the
Sabbath, which is a very different thing.

Looking back on my juvenile years it seems to me that, generally
speaking, when spanked I deserved it. But always there were two
punishable things against which--being disciplined--my youthful
spirit revolted with a sort of inarticulate sense of injustice.
One was for violation of the Sunday code, which struck me as wrong
--the code, I mean, not the violation--without knowing exactly why
it was wrong; and the other, repeated times without number, was
when I had been caught reading nickul libruries, erroneously
referred to by our elders as dime novels.

I read them at every chance; so did every normal boy of my
acquaintance. We traded lesser treasures for them; we swapped
them on the basis of two old volumes for one new one; we maintained
a clandestine circulating-library system which had its branch
offices in every stable loft in our part of town. The more daring
among us read them in school behind the shelter of an open geography
propped up on the desk.

Shall you ever forget the horror of the moment when, carried away
on the wings of adventure with Nick Carter or Big-Foot Wallace or
Frank Reade or bully Old Cap, you forgot to flash occasional glances
of cautious inquiry forward in order to make sure the teacher was
where she properly should be, at her desk up in front, and read
on and on until that subtle sixth sense which comes to you when
a lot of people begin staring at you warned you something was amiss,
and you looked up and round you and found yourself all surrounded
by a ring of cruel, gloating eyes?