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This Etext prepared by an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer.

Back Home
by Eugene Wood

TO THE SAINTED MEMORY OF HER WHOM, IN THE DAYS
BACK HOME, I KNEW AS "MY MA MAG" AND WHO WAS
MORE TO ME THAN I CAN TELL, EVEN IF MY TARDY WORDS
COULD REACH HER THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
"That she who is an angel now Might sometimes think of me"

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION THE OLD RED SCHOOL-HOUSE THE
SABBATH-SCHOOL THE REVOLVING YEAR THE
SWIMMING-HOLE THE FIREMEN'S TOURNAMENT THE
DEVOURING ELEMENT CIRCUS DAY THE COUNTY FAIR

CHRISTMAS BACK HOME

INTRODUCTION
GENTLE READER: - Let me make you acquainted with my book,
"Back Home." (Your right hand, Book, your right hand. Pity's sakes!
How many times have I got to tell you that? Chest up and forward,
shoulders back and down, and turn your toes out more.)
It is a little book, Gentle Reader, but please don't let that prejudice you
against it. The General Public, I know, likes to feel heft in its hand
when it buys a book, but I had hoped that you were a peg or two above
the General Public. That mythical being goes on a reading spree about
every so often, and it selects a book which will probably last out the
craving, a book which "it will be impossible to lay down, after it is
once begun, until it is finished." (I quote from the standard book notice).
A few hours later the following dialogue ensues:
"Henry!"
"Yes, dear."
"Aren't you 'most done reading?"
"Just as soon as I finish this chapter." A sigh and a long wait.
"Henry!"
"Yes, dear."
"Did you lock the side-door?" No answer.
"Henry! Did you?"
"Did I what?"
"Did you lock the side-door?"

"In a minute now."
"Yes, but did you?"
"M-hm. I guess so."
"'Guess so!' Did you lock that side-door? They got in at Hilliard's night
before last and stole a bag of clothes-pins."
"M."
"Oh, put down that book, and go and lock the side-door. I'll not get a
wink of sleep this blessed night unless you do."
"In a minute now. Just wait till I finish this . . . "
"Go do it now."
Mr. General Public has a card on his desk that says, "Do it Now," and
so he lays down his book with a patient sigh, and comes back to it with
a patent grouch.
"Oh, so it is," says the voice from the bedroom. "I remember now, I
locked it myself when I put the milk-bottles out . . . . I'm going to stop
taking of