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The Story of My Childhood
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were no longer mysteries in paint and paper. I knew them all, and that work would bring callouses even on little hands.

When the work was finished and everything gone, I went to my room, lonesome in spite of myself. I found on my candle stand a box containing a pretty little locket, neatly inscribed, "To a faithful worker." No one seemed to have any knowledge of it, and I never gained any.


The new home presented a phase of life quite unfamiliar to me. From never having had any playmates, I now found myself one of a very lively body of six—three boys and three girls nearer of an age than would have been probable in the same family. My father had taken charge of the young