I sent for the mother, but on her arrival I perceived she was less alarmed than myself; she immediately said, the child was in a fit, and that I had frightened him into it.

I told her that she was mistaken; that the child had only just entered the school, and I was ignorant of the cause of his fright; but several of my little scholars soon set the matter to rest, by stating the particulars of the fright, which they observed when coming to school.
It seems that a man was in the street, who sweeps chimneys with a machine, and just as the little fellow passed him, he called out, "Sweep;" this so alarmed the child, that he thought the man was going to take him, and was affected by his fears in the way I have stated.
The child, however, getting better, and the mother hearing what the children said, begged my pardon for having accused me wrongfully, and then told me the whole particulars of his first fright and the woman and the coal-hole.

I had the greatest difficulty imaginable to persuade him, that a sweep was a human being, and that he loved little children as much as other persons.

After some time, the child got somewhat the better of his fears, but not wholly so.

He had but one fit afterwards.