Oh, yes, Gertrude agrees, and you tripped and fell down in the snow drift, and oh, grandfather, you ought to have seen him when he got up; he was a sight.  But it all brushed off.

And don’t you feel tired after doing all that?  Grandmother asks.

No, says Gertrude, I’m not a bit tired; are you, Walter?

Not a bit, says Walter.

Well, that’s the beauty of being young, grandmother says, in a tired sort of voice.  I suppose that when I was your age, I was just the same as you children are now.

How long is it since you were our age?  Walter asks.

So many years, says grandmother, that I haven’t time to count them up.  But I can remember it all clearly enough, even if it was so long ago.  Everything about it was very different then from the way it is now.

How was it different, grandmother? asks Gertrude.

Why, in all sorts of ways, grandmother answers.  For one thing, the days seemed ever so much shorter when I was a little girl.

And the nights, adds grandfather.  Nowadays the nights are sometimes quite long, but when I was a boy they were so short, that it almost seemed as though there weren’t any nights at all.

And food used to taste quite different then, says grandmother.  I used to care a lot more for breakfast and dinner and supper then than I do now.

Grandfather, asks Walter, do you wish that you could have stayed on being a little boy, always?

Well, I don’t know, Walter, grandfather replies thoughtfully; there are two sides to that.  I’ll tell you what I would like, though.  I’d like to be a little boy now and then, just for a short time, to see once more how it would feel to run and shout and play and eat and laugh, the way I used to.  But then I think I’d pretty soon want to be myself again, old as I am, because there are some grand things about old age that I think I’d miss if I had to be a little boy for good and all.  A good many wonderful things happen to you when you grow old, and even if my old body does get pretty tired sometimes, and you children think perhaps that grandfather looks very stupid, sitting so quiet by the fire-side here, I’m often thinking, inside, of splendid things that little boys and girls don’t know anything about.

But, grandfather, says Gertrude, tell us some more things that were different when you were a boy.

Well, let me see, grandfather says, and stops for a moment to think.  Then he goes on.  There were the brownies.  I haven’t said anything about them, have I?

The brownies? exclaims Walter, his eyes big with interest.  What about the brownies?

Only that when I was a little boy, answers grandfather, I used to see the brownies sometimes.  But now I never see them.  It’s many a long year since I caught sight of a single one.