what kind of man this being could be and wondered whether in any way he
resembled St. Nick.

In electrical storms he supposed that the man must be very angry and that
the sounds and flashes were the result of throwing or rolling heavy or
combustible articles of furniture as he had so repeatedly known his mother
and uncle to do. As such a view of life was all that he knew, it was not
strange that he could make no better comparison.

Occasionally he noticed his uncle and Elmer throwing stones high up in the
air, and sometimes when the stones went too high to be followed by the
naked eye, he supposed that they pierced the arch and lodged on the other
side.

The fact that while he was at the poorhouse a few persons had died and been
buried in the ground was till fresh in his memory, and from the oaths and
unkind language of his mother he had come to the conclusion that all must
die and be buried in the same manner. What became of them after death he
could not fathom, but he concluded that the frost in the winter-time was a
sort of cold vapor arising from the bodies of those who were dead and that
such things were all governed by the great man above the arch.

In the village where his mother had lived, very little attention was given
to family quarrels or to the troubles of children, but in this new
neighborhood it was different. A dear old couple by the name of Hahn,
living very close, soon became greatly interested in the child Edwin. Many
times they listened with deepest sympathy to his cries of agony and terror,
knowing that his cries were caused by cruel blows or kicks. Then when the
little fellow, all bleeding and bruised, would be discovered hobbling about
and endeavoring to comprehend what was expected of him that he might the