Even for purposes of comfort their use was more or less secondary -
granted because the banking-up process was a man's job and an out-door
enterprise. Then, too, it was a lot of fun to rake the big yard and get
the fallen leaves into one or two huge piles; and wheelbarrow them to
the edge of the house where old Spencer had driven the wooden pegs that
held the boards ready to receive the leaves. Load after load was dumped
into the trough-like arrangement and stamped down tight and hard by old
Tom's huge feet and little Willie's eager but ineffective ones - and
then the top board was fastened down, and never a cold winter wind could
find its way under the floors with such a protective bulwark around the
house. . . . And in the spring the boards had to be taken down - and
countless bleached bugs fairly oozed out into the spring sunlight - and
the snow-wet soggy leaves were raked out and burned, and the smoke was
so thick and heavy that it hardly got out of the yard.

But the real use of leaves - their only legitimate function in the Autumn,
according to all accepted boy-law - was for kicking purposes.

Plunging through banks of dry leaves along the edge of the
sidewalk-knee-deep sometimes - scattering them in all directions, even
about our heads - there was such a racket that we could scarcely hear
each other's shouts of glee. And we'd run through them only to dive
exhausted into some huge pile of them, rolling and kicking and hollering
until some kid came along and chucked an armful, dirt and all, plumb
into our face! This was the signal for a battle of leaves - and perhaps
there would have been fewer tardy-marks, teacher, if there had been
fewer autumn leaves along the route . . . Perhaps!

There were influences that tempered the joys of leaf-kicking - some