Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: STEP THREE: FROM SIX TO NINE O CHOOL-DAYS! They wear a halo now as I view them through the vista of the years; yet twice in my life I approached them with a great deal of dread. Once, when as a country boy, browned and freckled by the summer’s sun, clad in homespun clothes and well-greased leather boots, I started from home that first morning and loitered along the road that I might delay the fearful moment when I should stand before the master. They were masters in those days,? past-masters in the art of sternness and birch- swinging. Loitering availed me nothing, for the school-house seemed to rush toward me,?a horrible monster in league with a cruel fate which rendered the poor little country urchin helpless. The big and terrifying aspect has departed from that old school, for nowadays I think of it as the little school-house and recall with a thrill of pleasure its many happy memories. Once again I dreaded the school-days when I saw my own boy so rapidly approaching them. Of course, I was proud of the sturdy little fellow, and glad he was growing and developing; but I could not shake off the notion that we would lose something when he went to school. We did lose our baby, but we gained a boy. It was this change in him that brought us our third child?a child with greater mental ability, wider interests, keener and more accurate power of perception, a better memory and a new creative imagination. For a time I refused to be reconciled to the change, for I wanted my baby again. What a sweet, affectionate, trustful, dependent little fellow he had been for six years! Small wonder that I rebelled against giving him up. As the days passed, however, I began to realize that the boy with his new characteristics was a distinct gain. I smiled as I watched him that first m…