[Illustration: SCENE IN THE OLD WOLF STORY.]
When I was quite a little boy, it used to be the fashion for many people
to fill children's heads with all manner of frightful stories about
wolves, and bears, and gentry of that sort--stories that had not a word
of truth in them, and which did a great deal of mischief. I remember to
this day, the horror I used to have, when obliged to go away alone in
the dark. Many a time I have looked behind me, thinking it quite likely
that a furious wolf was at my heels. The reason for this foolish
fear--for it was foolish, of course--was, that a servant girl, in the
employ of my mother, used to tell me scores of stories in which wolves
always played a very prominent part. I remember one story in particular,
which cost me a world of terror. The principal scene in the tale, and
the one which most frightened me, was at the time pictured so strongly
on my imagination, that it never entirely wore off. It was much after
this fashion. The wolf's jaws were opened wide enough to take a poor
fellow's head in, and fancy pictured that event as being about to happen
scores of times. Indeed, the nurse told me, over and over again, that
unless I kept out of mischief--which I did not always, I am sorry to
say--I should be sure to come to some such end. Boys and girls, if you
have ever heard such stories, don't let them trouble you for a moment.
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