LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 A MEMORY OF BOYHOOD 
 
 BY 
 
 E. O. LAUGHLTN 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 WILL VAWTER 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 Of 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS 
 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
Copyright 1898 
 The Bowen- Merrill Company 
 
 Copyright 1903 
 The Bobbs- Merrill Company 
 
 September 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 BRAUNWORTH & CO. 
 
 BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS 
 
 BROOKLYN, N. Y. 
 
I 
 
 DEDICATED TO 
 
 JOHNNIE 
 
 Whose surname may "be supplied by the reader 
 from the throng of other Johnnies, just such 
 happy-hearted little youngsters as was this one. 
 
 192318 
 
THE matter presented in this little volume has 
 assumed its present form and dress with those 
 mingled feelings of bravado and timidity which 
 afflict the boy when first he appears in long 
 trousers. The distress of such a boy becomes 
 more evident the more it is concealed. He is 
 painfully conscious of being mostly arms and 
 legs and clothes. If he swings along care 
 lessly, he is afraid people will accuse him of put 
 ting on; if he adopts a stiff and dignified man 
 ner, as best suits his attire, he thinks that he is 
 awkward; and, in any case, he is likely to be 
 overtaken at last by the comfortless conviction 
 that people are not noticing him at all. With 
 these emotions, and others, the author makes his 
 bow. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I His FIRST APPEARANCE 1 
 
 II TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS 9 
 
 p III BOYISH DREAMS 18 
 
 IV As FATHER OF THE MAN 27 
 
 V THE LAST DAT OF SCHOOL 35 
 
 VI VACATIONS AND CHORES 44 
 
 VII THE HIRED HAND AND "HA NTS" 54 
 
 VIII BEING SICK 64 
 
 IX A SUMMER DAY 72 
 
 X THE COUNTY FAIR 79 
 
 XI IN WINTER 89 
 
 XII CHRISTMAS 98 
 
 XIII THE PLOWMAN S WEARY WAY 104 
 
 XIV BUDDING 116 
 XV THE BANE OF BASHFULNESS 126 
 
 XVI THE RALLY 136 
 
 XVII A SORROWFUL DENOUEMENT 145 
 
 XVIII A BOOK WORM 153 
 
 XIX THE BOY INVENTOR 161 
 
 XX WHEN His MOTHER DIED 168 
 
 XXI THE FLEDGLING S FLIGHT 175 
 
 XXII IN A GREAT CITY 183 
 
 XXIII A MISFIT 191 
 
 XXIV THE MIRACLE OF MARRIAGE 199 
 XXV THE NEW BOY 207 
 
" O wonderland of way ward childhood ! what 
 An easy, breezy realm of summer calm 
 And dreamy gleam and gloom and bloom and balm 
 Thou art! The Lotus-Land the poet sung 
 It is the Child -World, when the heart beats young. 
 
 RILEY. 
 

 JOHNNIE 
 
 HIS FIRST APPEARANCE 
 
 IT was in the morning of the first day of 
 school. The boys had collected in the far corner 
 of the yard, where they were industriously tak 
 ing turns at wrestling with the New Boy with 
 the intent of determining once for all his proper 
 place in the social scale of the district. The 
 girls, in blue-checked and red-plaid pinafores, 
 were grouped upon the stile, their arms sweetly 
 encircling one another s waists, while they made 
 scornful remarks about the New Girl, a shy, frail 
 midget in drooping black sunbonnet, who stood 
 sadly apart grasping a battered dinner-pail, her 
 eyes fixed on the ground. 
 
 "Well, here comes another !" exclaimed one of 
 the larger girls, glancing up the road. "Who 
 can it be? I thought everybody was here." 
 1 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 No one was actually in sight as yet; but far 
 up the road there approached a revolving, pyra 
 midal pillar of dust, such as only a schoolboy 
 or a runaway horse can produce. On it came, 
 swaying and wavering like a miniature whirl 
 wind ; and the girls went gingerly out to meet it. 
 As it drew near, the wraith of a round, smiling 
 face could be discerned, a faint nucleus floating 
 in the midst of the yellow nimbus. Then a 
 dust-covered waist was revealed below the face, 
 and, finally, two tiny twinkling feet. The 
 nucleus suddenly halted opposite the school- 
 house, and, as the dust dissolved and drifted 
 away, a fixed and mask-like grin took the place 
 of the smile. It was another new scholar, and 
 the girls immediately gathered about him with 
 the curiosity of fawns and women. 
 
 "I believe it s Mrs. Winkle s little boy," ob 
 served one. "What is your name, dear?" 
 
 "Jawnnie Winkle, n I m six years old," he 
 recited promptly with automatic solemnity, put 
 ting on the grinning mask again with a smirk 
 as soon as he finished. His mother had drilled 
 him all morning upon this phrase so that he 
 might properly introduce himself to the teacher, 
 2 
 
HIS FIRST APPEARANCE 
 
 and he had repeated it with every step as he 
 came careening down the road. The bevy of 
 girls pressed closer, and one bent over and tried 
 to kiss him. Without changing his expression 
 he ducked and dodged through the phalanx of 
 skirts with the celerity of a weasel. Stopping 
 at some distance he suddenly thrust his hand 
 into his pocket and brought forth a panting, 
 half-dead toad. 
 
 "Say, this ll make warts!" he exclaimed with 
 dilating eyes. 
 
 "Why Johnnie Winkle!" cried the girls in 
 dismay. "Throw that nasty thing away! 
 You ought to be ashamed !" 
 
 "I don t keer," he laughed, "I like em, an 
 I m goin to have warts on both hands an on 
 my toes, too," and sitting down in the middle 
 of the road he proceeded to rub the batrachian 
 over his feet. Then there came a jangle of bells 
 and a pell-mell rush for the schoolroom. When, 
 a few moments later, the teacher looked up in the 
 full glow of her new-found dignity, all her sub 
 jects had preempted their claims. Every back 
 seat had from two to four occupants, and the 
 foreground contained only Johnnie and the New 
 3 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 Girl, who in their innocence had taken a seat 
 side by side directly under her nose. 
 
 It was Johnnie s first appearance his initial 
 journey out into the world. Heretofore all his 
 wisdom had been drawn from his mother s lips, 
 and his naughtiness spun from his own little 
 heart ; but now a new era had arrived, and hence 
 forth he was to learn wisdom and wickedness by 
 contact with the world. It was with such re 
 gretful reflections that his mother had started 
 him schoolward that morning and then gone 
 sobbing into the house. 
 
 It was with the shade of a similar thought, 
 too, that the teacher looked down into the depths 
 of his blue eyes as he grinned shyly up at her; 
 but Johnnie himself was oppressed by no dis 
 mal forebodings. His mind was completely oc 
 cupied with the novelties and wonders about him. 
 His name and age were soon successfully im 
 parted to the teacher, and, this having been im 
 pressed upon him as the chief duty to be per 
 formed, he felt himself free to look about. The 
 huge blackboards and gaily colored maps on 
 the wall, the queer seat he occupied, the teacher, 
 the pupils, the droning stillness, the cracks in 
 
HIS FIRST APPEARANCE 
 
 the floor, the toad in his pocket, all drew his 
 attention by turns. 
 
 Gradually the steady monotony of school life 
 completely possessed him, and the day grew 
 long and drowsy. Little twinges of homesick 
 ness contorted his features toward evening, but 
 he was brave, and would have held out firmly 
 except for an untoward circumstance. The 
 toad, which he had secretly cherished in his 
 pocket all day, died, and at recess an older boy 
 informed him gravely that this disaster would 
 cause his father s cows to give bloody milk. 
 Such a distressing calamity was too much for 
 his already tremulous emotions, and he broke 
 down. Kind words on the part of the big girls 
 were unavailing; even the gentle teacher could 
 not comfort him. 
 
 "I want to go-o-o home!" he sobbed, and 
 home he went. 
 
 Long and weary was the way. The very dust 
 seemed heavy and cheerless, and he would have 
 cried all the way but that he was alone. The 
 most lavish boy will not waste many tears on 
 the desert air. Once he thought he saw a snake, 
 and after that he imagined it was trailing close 
 5 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 at his heels, thus adding a new terror to his bur 
 den. As he came by the pasture he noticed the 
 cows calmly munching grass, apparently un 
 mindful of the dire spell upon them, and the 
 tears started afresh as he thought of their 
 blameless innocence and his own guilt. He said 
 nothing about the true cause of his perturba 
 tion at home, but after milking-time examined 
 the crocks with stealthy care. No blood could 
 be detected, yet his faith in the potency of the 
 murdered toad was unshaken. The bona-fide 
 appearance of several warts on his hands within 
 the week had demonstrated the power of the liv 
 ing creature beyond peradventure. 
 
 The melancholy and somewhat unheroic end 
 ing of his first day at school made Johnnie re 
 solve never to go again. But he was forcefully 
 persuaded to reconsider the matter next morn 
 ing, and he set out once more with a bold heart. 
 
 Thereafter he speedily developed into a genu 
 ine schoolboy a species of urchin distinctively 
 and everlastingly differing from the home-boy. 
 That he acquired knowledge can not be denied, 
 but that he made any conscious effort to do so 
 is extremely doubtful. The average small boy 
 6 
 
HIS FIRST APPEARANCE 
 
 in school spends one-fifth of his time looking 
 out of the window, one-fourth in dreaming, and 
 one-half in miscellaneous mischief. The re 
 mainder is devoted to his studies. 
 
 As time went on, Johnnie, being a boy of 
 some native originality, dreamed all sorts of 
 things and invented several new forms of mis 
 chief. One of his favorite ways of amusing 
 himself was to borrow a tremendous "jogaphy" 
 from one of the older girls and study its illustra 
 tions, or make imaginary journeys across the 
 maps, which he vaguely knew represented the 
 big world outdoors. As he became better versed 
 in geographical matters, he learned that Eng 
 land was a red country, that Germany was blue, 
 and that Italy was boot-shaped and green. He 
 discovered yellow and purple and beautiful pink 
 countries, also, here and there, and pictured 
 their marvelous radiance to himself by the hour. 
 When the contemplation of these wonders grew 
 tiresome the huge book made a splendid screen 
 behind which he could retire to indulge in other 
 pleasant diversions. 
 
 Johnnie made remarkable progress in the art 
 of reading. Within a few weeks he could read 
 7 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 quite as well off the book as on. After noting 
 the pictorial part of the lesson for an instant, 
 he would look toward the ceiling and chant, 
 "The cat is on the mat ;" or, fixing his eyes 
 on the teacher, exclaim emphatically, "I see a 
 fat hen!" 
 
 Spelling was a particularly delightful vocal 
 exercise to him, and he would wriggle and 
 squirm and twist his fingers ecstatically as he 
 sang, "Sa-ty, cat ; ba-ty, bat ; ra-ty, rat ; ta-ty, 
 tat; za-ty, zat" and he could have gone still 
 farther if the alphabet had held out. 
 
 Penmanship he found more difficult. The 
 arbitrary way in which pot-hooks had to be 
 made perplexed him; and in following the elu 
 sive copy it was necessary for him to call into 
 play every muscle in his body, contorting his 
 toes and twisting his tongue convulsively with 
 each right or left curve. 
 
 In the main, school life was running smoothly 
 enough for Johnnie; but, alas, he had yet to 
 experience his first fight, his first flogging, and 
 his first love affair. 
 
 8 
 
TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS 
 
 JOHNNIE, being a very important member of 
 a small family, was somewhat spoiled. A few 
 days at school sufficed to reveal a certain un 
 seemly air of pride and superiority about him. 
 This was evinced more especially in his manners 
 and general appearance. Instead of the blue 
 "hickory" shirt and jeans trousers of his mates, 
 he wore a starched cambric waist and cloth 
 knickerbockers. His face was clean and his hair 
 combed each morning. Moreover, now and 
 then he used strange, grammatical forms of 
 speech. Once he said, "I saw a bird s nest." 
 Whereupon he was greeted by the jeering in 
 quiry, "Did ye saw it clean in two?" Ah, woe 
 fully out of place is boyish aristocracy in the 
 democratic public school! 
 
 His peculiarities came more and more into 
 notice as time passed, and the other boys took 
 to calling him "girly." They also made faces 
 9 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 at him and thumped him and wallowed him in 
 the dirt for his pride s sake. Being by nature 
 non-combatant, Johnnie put up with this con 
 tumely in meekness for some time, answering 
 jeers with grins and spiteful words with silent 
 tears; but there came a day when forbearance 
 was exhausted. 
 
 Jimmy Jenks proved to be the last straw. 
 Jimmy was a little wisp of impudence and vi- 
 ciousness of Johnnie s own age, but belonging 
 to the opposite extreme of Boydom. He had 
 the cheeks of a pig, the beady eyes of a rat, and 
 a suggestively simian head mounted by a shock 
 of bristling red hair. To these conglomerate 
 features, his mental and moral attributes corre 
 sponded to a nicety. One recess he made his 
 first and last attack on Johnnie. Johnnie was 
 in the best of humors as he approached the group 
 of boys behind the school building and breath 
 lessly began to introduce what he expected would 
 be a delightful bit of information with, 
 
 "Say!" 
 
 "Aw, say t yourself, ye ve got yer mouth 
 open," drawled Jimmy, stepping forward. 
 
 10 
 
TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS 
 
 Johnnie s mouth immediately closed droop- 
 ingly. 
 
 "Ye re a purty feller," continued Jimmy, 
 still advancing, "an ye darsn t take it up !" 
 
 Johnnie backed away, and the whole crowd 
 began hooting him and urging his adversary 
 on. 
 
 "Cowardy! Cowardy-calf !" they cried; and, 
 "That s right, Reddy; give it to him!" 
 
 "I double dare ye," exclaimed Jimmy scorn 
 fully, "an if ye ll take a double dare, ye ll steal 
 a hog an eat the hair !" 
 
 Johnnie was growing pale and restless. He 
 dug his toes into the ground and clenched his 
 hands. Jimmy leaned forward and valiantly 
 tapped him on the cheek. Then Johnnie fled. 
 Jimmy was at his heels, and a hilarious yell 
 went up from the other boys as they joined in 
 the chase. Suddenly they brought up at the 
 back fence, and Johnnie was compelled to face 
 his foe. Further retreat was impossible. 
 
 "Look out now, Reddy; I m goin to fight," 
 warned Johnnie; and fight he did. There was 
 not much science in the battle, but there was a 
 
 11 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 great deal of fury. All the gibes and slights 
 and snubs of many days welled up in Johnnie s 
 breast, and made a hero of him. Jimmy was 
 thrown to the ground, was chugged, was pinched 
 and slapped, and finally sat upon in the region 
 of the stomach and churned. 
 
 "Now, I guess you ll behave yourself," ob 
 served Johnnie, pausing astride his victim. 
 Then came the teacher. 
 
 "Boys! Boys!" she cried; and the battle was 
 ended. 
 
 "He called me names!" whined Jimmy, when 
 the trouble was under investigation behind closed 
 doors that evening. 
 
 "What did he call you, James?" asked the 
 teacher. 
 
 "Why, he he cussed, an called me R-r-red- 
 dy." 
 
 "Johnnie, what have you to say to this?" 
 
 "Nothin ." 
 
 "You may step this way, Johnnie," came the 
 stern command. 
 
 The boy outside at the key-hole clapped his 
 hands softly as he whispered to his mates : 
 
TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS 
 
 "By hoky, Girly s game! He ain t even 
 whimpered." 
 
 Whack, whack, whack, went the whip within. 
 Then there was a lull, but no sound of sobs could 
 be heard. 
 
 "Now it s Reddy s turn," said the boy ex 
 pectantly. 
 
 "O teacher, O boo-hoo I couldn t help it 
 he pitched onto me, Oh, my back s awful 
 sore, an I got biles on my legs. Oh, please, 
 please don t, teacher, " 
 
 Thus wailed Jimmy, and the boy at the key 
 hole danced gleefully until pushed aside by a 
 companion, when he rolled on the grass and 
 hugged himself and kicked up his heels. 
 
 Johnnie Winkle was straightway placed up 
 on a pedestal by his admiring schoolmates, and 
 the porcine Jimmy became his high priest. But 
 there was a sorrowful sequel to the flogging. 
 Johnnie s mother had often assured him that if 
 he ever got a whipping at school he would get 
 another at home. This threat caused him to be 
 very reticent about the affair, and his silence 
 might have saved him had not his cousin, Elmira 
 
 13 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 Mulkins, gone home with him on Friday night. 
 She was a girl of confiding ways. She confiden 
 tially told Johnnie on the way home that she 
 would say nothing about his trouble, and then 
 confidentially informed Mrs. Winkle of the 
 whole affair. A double punishment was the re 
 sult. The long-suffering Johnnie was whipped 
 
 for getting whipped at school, and sent to bed 
 supperless for not telling about it. And it all 
 happened because he had resented an unpro 
 voked insult. 
 
 A boy s sense of justice is very keen. When 
 punished for downright remissness he accepts it 
 as a matter of course, but one single lick amiss 
 puts him out of joint with the entire system of 
 domestic government legislative, judicial, and 
 executive. Johnnie s state of mind, as he 
 limped off to bed, was desperate. So rebellious 
 was his mood that he deliberately omitted saying 
 his prayers, and went to bed without washing 
 his feet. He kicked all the covers off the bed, and 
 had a notion to die. There was some consola 
 tion in picturing his mother s grief and the dis 
 tress of his teacher when he should be discovered 
 next morning, beaten and starved and frozen to 
 14 
 
TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS 
 
 death. But so overwrought was his childish 
 imagination that he soon passed from the mere 
 conception to the absolute conviction of impend 
 ing dissolution. Then he became frightened. 
 Bouncing out of bed, he repeated his "Now I 
 lay me down to sleep" anxiously on penitent 
 knees. This solemn duty having been per 
 formed, he felt more calm, and once more took 
 up the thread of vengeful thoughts. 
 
 Probably his wounded spirit would take its 
 upward flight about midnight, when the house 
 was still and all were sleeping ; but in case it did 
 not, in case he should open his eyes on the 
 cruel world again to-morrow, he resolved to run 
 away. It had come to this. There was no use 
 in trying to be a good boy in a community where 
 the wicked were pardoned, while the upright 
 were trodden in the dust. He searched through 
 his meager knowledge of geography for a 
 region that would suit him, and finally hit upon 
 Ethiopia. He would take a box of shoe polish 
 along, and, blacking his face, become a fierce 
 little cannibal boy and a heathen, and if mis 
 sionaries from dark America came fooling 
 around he would help eat them. 
 15 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 With this soothing reflection he fell asleep. 
 He was still alive next morning, and so very 
 hungry that he decided to take breakfast once 
 more with his obdurate parents. 
 
 But he remained silent and sullen, and slipped 
 the shoe polish into his pocket ominously at the 
 first opportunity. Before going, however, he 
 concluded to give cousin Elmira a crushing fare 
 well. 
 
 "You ll be sorry for what you done fore 
 long, Smarty," he began reproachfully as soon 
 as he found her alone. 
 
 "Now, Johnnie," replied the girl tearfully, 
 "I didn t mean to to " 
 
 "Yes, you did. D ye see that?" and he pro 
 duced the box of blacking. "That s to black 
 my face with when I git to be a wild cannibal," 
 and he tried to look terrible. 
 
 "Oh, Johnnie Winkle!" 
 
 "Yes I m goin to run off," he went on des 
 perately. "I m goin to Ethiopia an kill an 
 eat people up; an you caused it all, too," he 
 added, choking as the pathos of the situation 
 overcame him; "an you re a mean thing!" 
 
 "Johnnie Winkle, I ll tell your ma !" 
 16 
 
TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS 
 
 "Yes, you re nothin but a reg lar tattletale, 
 dog-gone it !" 
 
 "Oh-h, an I ll tell her you swore !" 
 This dreadful slip of profanity turned the 
 tide. In order to persuade Elmira not to tell 
 of it, Johnnie was forced to promise "hope to 
 die" that he would not run away this time, 
 at least. Moreover he consented to do penance 
 by playing house with her, and was kind and 
 gentle all day long. 
 
 17 
 

 BOYISH DREAMS 
 
 CHILDHOOD is strikingly a time of action, 
 and yet essentially a season of dreams. The 
 boy s brain is as nimble and restless as his body. 
 He is always thinking, thinking; and the num 
 ber of facts at his command is so limited that 
 he is constantly compelled to resort to fancies 
 for mental aliment. The seven-year-old s store 
 of absolute knowledge is very lean. "The earth 
 is round like a ball or an orange. It rotates on 
 its axis and has a pole at each end." He has 
 seen axes and poles ; and here his imagination 
 steps in and draws the mental picture of a huge 
 yellow orange, with a telegraph pole protruding 
 from each end and resting on a pile of polished 
 axes. 
 
 Whichever way he turns it is the same. A 
 few inconsistent and distorted facts are given 
 him, out of which fancy proceeds to weave a 
 queer fabric of consistent but erroneous concep 
 tions. 
 
 18 
 
BOYISH DREAMS 
 
 Day after day he puts the one great unan 
 swerable query, "Why?" He asks it of him 
 self, of the beasts of the field, the fowls of the 
 air; he inquires of his omniscient parents; and 
 the replies he receives what are they? The 
 seasons change, the squirrels go on sorting the 
 good nuts from the bad, the birds build their 
 nests and sing and fly away, and his father says, 
 "Never mind !" 
 
 Perhaps the real knowledge of his elders is 
 not so far in excess of his own ; but men have 
 become accustomed to their own ignorance, they 
 have accepted the immutable relationship of 
 things, have separated the natural from the 
 supernatural, and attained poise. They have 
 learned to crawl and abandoned all hope of fly 
 ing. But to the boy all things are strange and 
 contradictory. To him the probable, the pos 
 sible, and the impossible are confusingly alike 
 and confoundingly different. 
 
 Out of his heterogeneous stock of fact and 
 fancy he compiles a philosophy all his own ; and 
 there are few things, indeed, in heaven and 
 earth of which his philosophy never dreams. 
 
 19 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 No two children have quite the same code, or 
 see the same visions ; but they are dreamers, all. 
 
 Johnnie Winkle s mental vagaries were 
 boundless. He was always wondering and wish 
 ing. On the way to school he saw a hawk so 
 high in the air that it seemed a mere gray speck 
 against the azure. He sat down at the roadside 
 and followed it with envious eyes. He wished 
 he could fly, and wondered why he could not. 
 Why should a vicious bird of prey be permitted 
 to soar among the clouds, while a nice little boy, 
 who attended Sunday-school regularly and 
 obeyed his parents, had to trudge along in the 
 dust? If boys could not learn to fly, why was 
 he a boy? Why wasn t the hawk a boy, and 
 the boy a hawk? How pleasant to be a baby- 
 hawk, with nothing to do from day to day but 
 lounge about in a downy nest and eat worms 
 and grow feathers ! And to know that some day 
 you could go sailing away, away, oh, every 
 where ! Sometimes it was a squirrel that he en 
 vied, sometimes a mouse. The happy lot of the 
 little fledgling chicken he particularly coveted. 
 How inexpressibly cozy it must be at bed-time to 
 

BOYISH DREAMS 
 
 creep under the hen-mamma s soft wing, and 
 chirp one s self to sleep ! 
 
 Having formulated the wish, the fairy wand 
 of fancy would often come to his aid with magic 
 make-believes. Flapping his arms, he would 
 give a glad cry and go soaring down the road, 
 with bird-like grace and lightness, finally to 
 perch on the school-yard fence and plume his 
 wings and sing. Now and then he would come 
 to school in the guise of a horse or a cow. He 
 was frequently transformed into a fox or a rab 
 bit, and sometimes he impersonated a whole pack 
 of hounds. On occasions he even became an 
 engine and train of cars, puffing and whistling 
 laboriously. 
 
 Johnnie was a dreamer, with plenty of time 
 and material for dreams ; but his imaginings 
 were not always of this idle and extravagant na 
 ture. Slowly, as the days passed, there sprout 
 ed odd little germs of sentiment within his 
 breast. From the first day at school he had 
 formed childish prejudices for and against cer 
 tain of his mates; but now he began to feel a 
 strange awkward attachment for a particular 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 big girl, which was more than a mere liking. 
 She was a large, luminous miss of about twice 
 Johnnie s age. Her name was Alice Jones, a 
 remarkably sweet name he thought. It was she 
 who had startled him by an attempt to kiss him 
 on the morning of his first appearance, and he 
 was more frightened than ever now when he 
 looked back at the occurrence. It seemed to 
 Johnnie that if she should ever actually kiss 
 him, he would surely collapse with embarrass 
 ment and rapture. 
 
 He fell to dreaming largely of Alice, and 
 would sit and stare at her in school time long 
 and worshipfully. Whenever his eyes chanced 
 to meet hers, however, he would wince and blush 
 guiltily, turning it off as best he could by smil 
 ing stupidly at the New Girl who sat near Alice, 
 and whom he really detested. 
 
 In this way Johnnie went on for weeks. At 
 length the conviction became fixed that he ought 
 to declare his passion in some way ; and instinct 
 and observation alike pointed to writing her a 
 note as the easiest and safest plan. It was a 
 weighty and laborious matter; and he consumed 
 
BOYISH DREAMS 
 
 much time and paper before he was able to pro 
 duce a satisfactory declaration. It ran thus : 
 
 Dear allie sum loves 1 and sum loves 2, But I love 1 and 
 that is you. Yours truly, J. W. 
 
 He folded it carefully, and stowed it away 
 in his pocket to await the time when courage 
 and opportunity should be ripe for its delivery. 
 But Johnnie s pocket was a precarious place for 
 a note. The constant friction of pebbles, and 
 nails, and pencils, and chalk made it age rapid 
 ly, and when at last it was fondly deposited be 
 tween the pages of Alice s geography, borrowed 
 for the purpose, it looked more like an ancient 
 bit of papyrus than a modern love tale. It was 
 no wonder, under these conditions, that the fair 
 Alice failed to grasp its import and thoughtless 
 ly tossed it to the floor. Johnnie saw her do it, 
 and his heart sank. He winked and glared at 
 her, and pointed to the note until he perspired, 
 but she only smiled cheerily back at him. He 
 resorted to all manner of pantomime to no avail, 
 and finally in utter desperation attempted to 
 creep across the floor and rescue it while the 
 teacher s back was turned. 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 "Johnnie Winkle," cried the teacher sharply, 
 before he was half across, "come here! Now 
 you may explain what you were doing on the 
 floor." 
 
 "Lookin for my my pencil," he gasped in 
 terror. 
 
 "Has any one seen Johnnie s pencil?" she 
 asked, turning to the school. 
 
 "It s here, on his desk," piped the boy who 
 sat behind him. 
 
 Johnnie registered a vow to thrash that boy. 
 
 "You may take your seat and remain after 
 school," said the teacher. 
 
 In the meantime the New Girl had discovered 
 the ill-fated note, and was deciphering its con 
 tents with pleasant thrills. But her name was 
 not "allie," and as she read it again, it dawned 
 upon her that it had been intended for other 
 eyes. Then her heart closed like a clam. Plac 
 ing the grimy bit of paper in her spelling book, 
 she approached the teacher s desk and, after a 
 feint of asking how to pronounce a certain word, 
 slipped the note into the teacher s hand. 
 
 "That s what he was hunting," she whispered 
 scornfully. 
 
BOYISH DREAMS 
 
 Johnnie observed that the note was gone, but 
 dared not guess its fate. Perhaps Alice had 
 found it after all, and hugging this hope and 
 fear he awaited developments. 
 
 As the other scholars filed out he looked with 
 furtive anxiety toward the teacher, and was re 
 assured to note a mild twinkle in her eyes. Pos 
 sibly his punishment was not to be so very 
 severe. At length she came and sat down at 
 his side. Producing a scrap of paper, "I wish 
 you would write your initials for me, Johnnie," 
 she said kindly. That was easy enough; but 
 since she was so good he would take great pains. 
 He ran his tongue out and proceeded slowly, 
 scrupulously with as great care as when in 
 diting the note to Alice. 
 
 "That is excellent," said the teacher approv 
 ingly. "It looks very much like this, too, does 
 it not?" and she thrust the dreadful note under 
 his nose. It was terrible. Johnnie could not 
 stir could not lift his eyes from the accusing 
 missive could not even clear his throat. His 
 entire vitality seemed to have been diverted into 
 blushes. 
 
 "Did you write it, Johnnie?" 
 25 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 It would be gratifying to be able to state 
 that he replied bravely in the affirmative. 
 But Johnnie was not a model; he was just a 
 boy, and he answered sheepishly but resolutely, 
 "No m." And the teacher, rightly guessing 
 that his conscience would visit sufficient retribu 
 tion upon him, let him go. 
 
zip i m 
 
 AS FATHER OF THE MAN 
 
 PERHAPS the one theme which furnished 
 Johnnie the broadest field for speculation, and 
 supplied the tissue of his richest dreams, was 
 what he would do when he became a man. At 
 different stages of his boyhood he aspired to 
 almost every craft and calling, and resolved to 
 accomplish all sorts of things from murder to 
 missionary work. Few of his intentions for the 
 future were at all fixed. Most of them depended 
 upon some particular mood, and were subject to 
 daily revision. There was but one thing that he 
 was steadfastly sure he did not want to be, and 
 that was a boy. 
 
 Among his earliest and most revered heroes, 
 whose example he longed to emulate, was the 
 threshing-machine man. This man was jolly 
 and wise, was always saying things at which 
 people laughed, and knew all about the wonder 
 ful thresher, inside and out. Moreover, he was 
 27 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 "boss," and only worked when he liked. John 
 nie watched him worshipfully whenever the ma 
 chine came upon the Winkle place. At the 
 wave of his brawny hand every wheel started, 
 and stopped. If anything went wrong he knew 
 exactly how to adjust it. He would even crawl 
 calmly under or inside of the monster machine 
 sometimes, and this was a feat to be admired and 
 envied indeed. Then, when the threshing was 
 under way when the vibrating riddles kept 
 time to the whirling cylinder s eery song, till the 
 very ground quaked and trembled with awe 
 how airily he would grasp a huge oil can and go 
 climbing here and there amongst the maze of 
 moving belts and pulleys, and no one dared tell 
 him not to do it. For days after his departure 
 Johnnie nursed the one ambition to become a 
 famous threshing-machine man. 
 
 But when he grew somewhat acquainted with 
 the lot of the locomotive engineer his desires 
 took a decided turn in that direction, and he be 
 gan to dream of the delights of driving an en 
 gine across the country, with nothing to do but 
 to ride and blow the whistle. What an endless 
 holiday such a life must be ! Still, he would like 
 28 
 
AS FATHER OF THE MAN 
 
 to be a brakeman, too, because the brakeman 
 could run along the tops of the moving cars. 
 
 Once there came a wonderful temperance re 
 vival, and Johnnie straightway relinquished all 
 other aspirations, and wished only to become a 
 reformed drunkard. It would be so good and 
 grand to be able to travel about denouncing 
 rum, preaching salvation, and telling what a bad 
 man he had once been. To stand before 
 charmed audiences and wave one s hands and call 
 everybody sisters and brothers, to provoke smiles 
 and tears at will, to pour alcohol over eggs and 
 show how it cooked them, to repeat the story of 
 the man adrift on the raging river, and describe 
 the terrible plunge over the falls ah! it would 
 be glorious ! Johnnie practised temperance 
 oratory secretly in the barn at every opportu 
 nity, and preached to the horses and cows until 
 they presented plain evidence of being under 
 conviction. 
 
 But the fact that he had never actually been 
 a drunkard was against him, and finally caused 
 him to abandon the field. The advent of a cir 
 cus doubtless helped to precipitate this step. 
 Although his parents were scrupulously opposed 
 29 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 to "shows," this one was so lavishly magnificent 
 in its advertisements that they resolved to make 
 an exception in its favor, compromising with 
 their consciences by arguing that it was really 
 the instructive menagerie which they wished to 
 see. So they went early and stayed through con 
 cert and all. They would not have entered the 
 circus tent at all, but that the elephants were 
 going to perform there, and they could not af 
 ford to miss the edifying sight of an elephant 
 standing on its head. Mrs. Winkle was pained 
 by many things she saw at the performance, es 
 pecially the profound interest in every act mani 
 fested by Johnnie and Mr. Winkle. 
 
 Johnnie walked and lived in a dream of pranc 
 ing horses, of trapeze and tights, for weeks. 
 He fully determined to be a showman, and prac 
 tised faithfully to that end. He came near 
 breaking his neck in an attempt to execute a 
 double somersault in the hay-mow by making a 
 mathematical mistake and carelessly turning 
 over just once and a half instead of twice. He 
 constructed a trapeze out of halter ropes and 
 a pitchfork handle, from which he dangled in 
 daring poses. He painted his face with poke- 
 
 so 
 
AS FATHER OF THE MAN 
 
 berries and surreptitiously borrowed his mother s 
 hat in order to play clown, and practised stand 
 ing on his head till he nearly wore his hair off. 
 But the lack of proper trappings was a con 
 stant source of embarrassment. His failure to 
 accomplish certain feats he believed to be due 
 solely to this dearth of tights and trunks. 
 So he went about constructing an outfit. 
 From the dark depths of the garret he unearthed 
 certain gauzy remnants, out of which, with scis 
 sors, needle, and thread he pieced together a 
 strange and wonderful garment. When fin 
 ished, it presented an undue fullness here and 
 there, and occasional holes, which he had neg 
 lected to mend, but the warm weather rendered 
 them of no consequence. 
 
 It seemed an auspicious day for him to ap 
 pear. His mother had company. Aunt Mary 
 and Cousin Elmira had come to spend the day, 
 and shortly after them the minister and his wife. 
 The latter couple had probably never seen an 
 acrobatic performance, and Johnnie thought 
 how pleased they would be, and how proud his 
 mother ought to be, when he should present 
 himself. It chanced that the subject of circuses 
 31 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 was under discussion. The minister had mild 
 ly rebuked Sister Winkle for her recent worldli- 
 ness, and she was feebly protesting. 
 
 "Now, Brother Potter, I don t believe it hurt 
 a thing for us to go just that one time. The 
 animals were real instructive, an while I didn t 
 approve of the performance, I don t think it 
 harmed us a mite. Now, there s Johnnie " 
 and even as she spoke, there Johnnie really was. 
 A sleeveless shirt with extremely low neck, a 
 green veil for trunks, and a nameless nether 
 garment of gauze and striped hosiery, consti 
 tuted his costume. He smiled and bowed grace 
 fully as he came into view upon the lawn. Then 
 he began jauntily with a succession of hand 
 springs. Mrs. Winkle was stricken dumb. 
 
 "Very instructive," murmured the minister, 
 while his wife looked pained, and Aunt Mary 
 tittered. 
 
 Johnnie stood on his head, waving his feet. 
 
 "My! But that s splendid!" cried Elmira, 
 clapping her hands. 
 
 Suddenly the air was rent with a sound of 
 tearing. Then Mrs. Winkle found her tongue. 
 
 "You, Johnnie !" she screamed. "You, John- 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
AS FATHER OF THE MAN 
 
 nie!" and Johnnie retired in hasty disorder. 
 But punishment was visited upon him before he 
 had time to put on more substantial clothes, and 
 its severity was such that he never donned tights 
 again. 
 
 There were many wrongs which Johnnie ex- 
 spected to avenge when he should become a man. 
 A certain big boy who was always bullying him 
 was to be so thoroughly thrashed that he would 
 weep and beg for mercy. Cousin Elmira was to 
 suffer for her tattling, and even his parents 
 were to be made to realize the injustice of their 
 acts. Yet a due amount of reflection upon this 
 subject tended to soften his asperity, and he al 
 ways decided it were better to be generous than 
 merely just. 
 
 He would do a great many nice things. 
 Those who were becomingly meek and penitent 
 he would magnanimously discharge with the in 
 junction to "go, and sin no more." And if he 
 ever had any little boys of his own, how beauti 
 fully he would treat them. This was one of his 
 favorite topics for speculation. His little boys 
 should go to school only when they pleased; 
 they should not have to do chores; they should 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 have pie for breakfast as many pieces as they 
 wished; they should have hip pockets and wear 
 suspenders, and go to all the circuses, and have 
 ponies and lots of dogs, and a little train of 
 cars to run by steam. Other little boys would 
 come for miles around to see what a kind papa 
 his boys had. 
 
 Thus would Johnnie dream and ponder until 
 he fairly worshiped the ideal man that he in 
 tended to be. Truly the child is father of the 
 man; but how degenerate a descendant he be 
 comes when he has reached maturity! 
 
THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL 
 
 GOING io school was compulsory. That was 
 the chief reason Johnnie disliked it. If his par 
 ents had held it out to him as a luxury, if they 
 had spoken of it as an indulgence they could ill 
 afford and tried to persuade him to be satisfied 
 with picture-books at home, he would have gone 
 or died. But it was continually presented to him 
 in the light of a serious duty, and duties are 
 always bugbears to boyhood. On general prin 
 ciples Johnnie disliked the things he ought to do, 
 and the things he had to do he hated. Such has 
 been the primitive perverseness of his kind since 
 Adam s fall. 
 
 For weeks he had been looking longingly for 
 ward to vacation. There was nothing he de 
 sired so much as to be free once more. It seemed 
 to him that when school closed, he would be the 
 happiest boy in the world. He laid a hundred 
 plans for the holidays, including in their scope 
 35 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 every sort of diversion from fishing to chasing 
 butterflies. 
 
 But when the last day of school really came, 
 he did not rejoice as he had anticipated. All 
 day long strange regrets kept rising in his 
 throat and choking him, an unaccustomed sad 
 ness dimmed his eyes, and dark-browed melan 
 choly came and sat at his side. The last day of 
 school ! The last day of baseball and black man, 
 of hide-and-seek and Ant ny Over, of Green 
 Gravel, of Ring Around a Rosy the last 
 happy day of whispering, of smiling at girls and 
 writing notes, of play, of joy, of companionship. 
 To-morrow he would be at home and alone. To 
 morrow he would be disconsolate and altogether 
 miserable. The last day. He wished yes, he 
 wished it were but the beginning of school again, 
 with all the long, delightful months to follow ! 
 
 He borrowed Alice s geography, and slowly, 
 as he turned the leaves for the last time, re 
 viewed the events of the hallowed past. How 
 many and how dear were the recollections that 
 floated there between him and the book! Every 
 blessed page was intimately connected with some 
 irretrievable by-gone pleasure. And it was 
 36 
 
THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL 
 
 Alice s book. His affection for her, which had 
 languished of late, came surging back resist- 
 lessly. It was her book; her name was on the 
 fly-leaf, written beautifully. Her thumb-marks 
 underscored each lesson; the faint, meadowy 
 odor, exhaling from its pages ah, futile in 
 cense to departed days whispered of her! And 
 this was the end of all. Doubtless other eyes 
 would gaze on the book, other hands caress 
 it, other hearts throb with the love of her, 
 ere school opened again. With brimming eyes, 
 which shamed him, Johnnie inscribed on the last 
 page that soulful sentiment, sacred to all school- 
 memories: "When this you see, remember me," 
 and sealed it with a tear. 
 
 Nay, the love affairs of boyhood are not to be 
 passed over in derision. Is not childhood a part, 
 the very best part, of life? And its passions, 
 though often transient, are they not intense and 
 pure? He is hopelessly old to whom the senti 
 ment of the young appears utterly inane. 
 
 On this last day of school Johnnie s heart soft 
 ened toward the teacher also. He had regarded 
 her always as a sort of natural enemy, whom it 
 was his prerogative to oppose, and for whom 
 37 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 anything more than a cold respect was weakness. 
 Yet she was not such a bad teacher, after all; 
 and he almost wept again with the thought of 
 not seeing her any more. All the boys and girls 
 seemed to assume more amiable outlines in the 
 perspective of the past. Even the familiar fur 
 niture of the room took on a golden glamour, 
 and his hardest lessons smiled up into his face in 
 the guise of old friends. 
 
 The day was not all given to gloom, however. 
 School was to close with a flourish. A program 
 had been prepared, consisting of compositions, 
 declamations and a grand finale of competitive 
 spelling. Johnnie, himself, was to "say a piece," 
 upon which his mother had been drilling him for 
 weeks, and she was coming after dinner to hear 
 him. 
 
 Among the throng of visitors came Alice s 
 mother, too. Johnnie looked upon her with awe. 
 To be the parent of his Dulcinea was to be great. 
 Perhaps it was largely owing to her presence 
 that Johnnie muddled his "speech." Another 
 enervating circumstance may have been the fact 
 that Alice immediately preceded him with a soul- 
 stirring essay on "Love Thy Neighbor." At 
 38 
 
THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL 
 
 any rate, when Johnnie s name was announced a 
 strange numbness came over him, his knees trem 
 bled, and his identity was lost. It was not really 
 Johnnie who staggered to the rostrum and, in a 
 sepulchral voice, murmured dolefully: 
 
 "Twinkle little twinkle star, 
 
 How I wonder" here he paused and tried to 
 swallow the lump in his throat 
 
 "How I wonder what you are, 
 
 Up above" another gulp "above tha world 
 so high, 
 
 How I wonder what you are, 
 
 When the golden grass is set," 
 
 Some one tittered, and, panic-stricken, John 
 nie rushed on like a flock of frightened sheep : 
 
 "When the sky with dew is wet , 
 Then you show your little light, Twin 
 kle all the night" gulp "night." 
 
 He finished in a husky whisper and flew to 
 his seat, where his temporarily departed spirit 
 presently rejoined him. The remainder of the 
 exercises he enjoyed very well, especially the 
 New Girl s recital of Curfew and the Big Boy s 
 interpretation of Antony on the Death of Caesar. 
 
 The spelling-match came next, and here 
 39 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 Johnnie shone. Spelling was his forte. He 
 caught the words in mid air as the teacher gave 
 them out and hurled them back confidently, al 
 most defiantly. Now and then he made a feint 
 of missing one, but he would always catch it on 
 the first bounce if not on the fly and, tossing it 
 up a time or two, would send it back unerringly. 
 Some of the more difficult words he literally 
 seemed to hold in his mouth and masticate a 
 while, just to get the juice out of them, but 
 they always came forth right. 
 
 When the teacher loaded her mortar with 
 "daguerreotype" and fired, a hush fell on the 
 room, and every one thought how heartless it 
 was to aim such deadly artillery at so small a 
 boy. But, ere the smoke had cleared away, 
 Johnnie was seen to square himself and swell up 
 proudly for the answering volley. 
 
 "D-a, da, g-u-e-r-r-e, gar, o, garo, t-y-p-e, 
 type, daguerreotype," spelled Johnnie in meas 
 ured tones. 
 
 "Right!" called the teacher, and the house 
 roared with applause. 
 
 At length every scholar was spelled down, ex 
 cept Johnnie and Alice, and for half an hour the 
 40 
 
THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL 
 
 victory lay between them. The dictionary was 
 drawn upon, and strange, unnatural words never 
 before heard of, were pronounced. It was a tedi 
 ous battle. Finally in despair, the teacher called 
 incisively, "Caoutchouc !" 
 
 It was Alice s turn, and she misspelled the 
 ghastly word miserably. 
 
 "Next," sighed the teacher, with an air of 
 relief. 
 
 And Johnnie spelled it right. 
 
 It was certainly either a miracle or an acci 
 dent, the people whispered. But, in fact, it was 
 neither. Johnnie had come upon the word in 
 the back of the geography one day, and its very 
 formidableness had fascinated him into master 
 ing it then and there. He was lionized by all, 
 and it would have been a proud moment for him 
 but for the lamentable fact that his gain had 
 been Alice s loss. In the excitement of the con 
 test he had hardly realized the personality of his 
 opponent. He had been oblivious of everything 
 except the words he was spelling. All uninten 
 tionally, he felt that he had done a very ungra 
 cious thing had defeated and put to shame the 
 girl he adored. 
 
 41 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 "It s just the teacher s partiality," he heard 
 Alice s mother whisper ; "I don t believe he spelt 
 it right at all. I doubt if they is such a word, 
 anyway. The idea !" 
 
 And amid all the buzz of congratulations 
 Johnnie was profoundly wretched. 
 
 But, at all odds, he had won the prize, and 
 he hoped its possession might compensate him 
 to some degree. He was called to the platform, 
 where, with words of praise, such as she had 
 never bestowed before, the teacher presented him 
 a book. He thrust it into his pocket and started 
 to his seat amid renewed applause. But his 
 mother intercepted him. 
 
 "Johnnie Winkle," she whispered shrilly, 
 "where are your manners? Go back and thank 
 your teacher !" 
 
 Johnnie had not learned that inconsistent but 
 imperative rule of custom, which requires an ad 
 ditional payment of thanks for honors already 
 well earned. 
 
 "I m much obliged," he admitted diffidently, 
 facing about. 
 
 There was much curiosity expressed as to the 
 
THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL 
 
 book s probable contents and value, but Johnnie 
 stubbornly refused to permit its inspection. 
 
 The actual breaking up of school was not so 
 painful after all. Farewells were lightly spoken 
 for the most part, and sighs and tears kept in 
 abeyance by an assumption of gaiety. Regret 
 at parting with a friend was largely assuaged 
 by getting his tag. 
 
 When he arrived at home, Johnnie examined 
 his prize book. It was a very small and some 
 what rusty looking volume, across whose cover 
 was emblazoned the melancholy title "Paradise 
 
 Lost" ! 
 
 "H m poetry," murmured Johnnie dejected 
 ly, as he turned the pages. Before night the 
 book had been given a place in the family book 
 case, where it reposed undisturbed for many 
 years. 
 
 WftM&telf 
 
 r 037~. /A 
 
 43 
 
.^ f;m**J 
 
 VI 
 
 VACATIONS AND CHORES 
 
 JOHNNIE WINKLE S world was narrow. It 
 consisted only of two or three square miles of 
 farm land, bounded by an irregular horizon of 
 timber, out of which the sun rose each morn 
 ing, and into which it disappeared each night. 
 Strange, unearthly shadows filled this sylvan 
 border-land, and beyond lay mystery impenetra 
 ble. But the sky reached to a stupendous height, 
 and was very blue above. Across this world, as 
 the Milky Way girds the heavens, ran the coun 
 try road, a wonderful, unknown path, leading 
 out of space into space, and joining together a 
 universe of a vastness and importance but dimly 
 guessed. 
 
 It was a small world, but it was a busy and 
 contented one, full of life and sunshine, and so 
 abundant in production that its harvests contin 
 ually overflowed into each other. To a so- 
 journer from the city it might have presented a 
 44 
 
VACATIONS AND CHORES 
 
 somewhat drowsy, humdrum appearance at 
 times its peace might have been mistaken for 
 solitude, its quietude for dullness ; but to its na 
 tive inhabitants, who knew its under-life and the 
 subtile, silent magic of the seasons, it was the 
 best and most beauteous of worlds. For them it 
 did not lack entertainment. The grand opera 
 opened with frog choruses and closed with a rare 
 solo by Madame Whippoorwill. Nature set 
 fireflies aglow and hung out jack-o -lanterns 
 each Fourth of July ; and the moon and stars oc 
 cupied the firmament night after night. Flowers 
 sprang up and bloomed of their own accord, and 
 birds came and sang melodies of freedom. Fruit 
 clustered on every bush, to be had for the pick 
 ing. In May mulberries grew luscious, straw 
 berries in June, blackberries in July; and all 
 sorts of nuts, not to mention pumpkins, persim 
 mons, and papaws, ripened during the fall. 
 There was plenty of fish in the brooks, game in 
 the woods, and health, wealth and happiness 
 everywhere. 
 
 Such was Johnnie s world such was the gar 
 den of Eden ! But the tree of knowledge was 
 there, and the serpent ; and when one had tasted 
 45 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 the fruit he was sure to realize his own naked 
 ness and recognize good and evil, even as in 
 Paradise. Moreover, his bread was not to be ac 
 quired except by profuse perspiration, and John 
 nie early learned this lesson. 
 
 Chief among his duties was doing chores, a 
 term including all manner of unclassified labor 
 on the farm hewing wood, drawing water, feed 
 ing cattle, milking, riding, driving, walking, 
 running. The catalogue was simply endless. 
 Chores awoke him early each morning, and al 
 ways bade him a tardy, tired good night. They 
 were never done. They assumed Protean shapes 
 and Titanic dimensions. He turned the horses 
 into the pasture at night to trudge after them 
 again in the morning; he weeded the onion bed 
 to-day, hoed potatoes to-morrow, and weeded 
 the onion bed on the day after. Whatsoever he 
 sowed that also he had to reap, and sow and reap 
 again. Nay, the Biblical axiom did not express 
 it by half; for not only must he reap and sow, 
 but prepare the soil and till it. 
 
 One of the most formidable subdivisions of the 
 chores was known as running errands. It was 
 always run ; never walk or ride. Run over to 
 46 
 
VACATIONS AND CHORES 
 
 Mr. Smith s and borrow his post-auger; run 
 down to Aunt Mary s and get a pint of flour; 
 run to the house and fetch a jug of water; run 
 to the field and call the men to dinner; run the 
 calf out of the yard; run the pigs out of the 
 corn-field ; run away ; run home ; run, run every 
 where ! That was Johnnie s strongest reason for 
 wanting wings, so that he could rest his limbs 
 now and then by flying. 
 
 Some people seemed to think that boys never 
 grow tired, as if they were not always tired, 
 except when playing. 
 
 Running errands would doubtless exhaust all 
 boys and dwarf their natures beyond repair were 
 it not for their genius for evasion. Imagine 
 Johnnie running all the way to Aunt Mary s 
 and back again without once stopping. He 
 knew it was impracticable, preposterous ; for 
 how could he run over fences and through the 
 creek? No boy could run in water up to his 
 neck, and the only other way to cross was on a 
 dangerous, slippery log. Being convinced that 
 the command could not be obeyed literally, he 
 did not undertake it. He would start in a run ; 
 but when he came to the creek he usually 
 47 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 stripped and swam it, dog-fashion, back and 
 forth several times, and then walked cautiously 
 over the log; and when he reached home he ex 
 plained that his hair was wet from having run so 
 fast. 
 
 But running the pigs out of the corn pre 
 sented no pretext for diversion. There was no 
 creek in the corn-field, and if there had been the 
 pigs would never have gone near it. Pigs are 
 peculiar creatures. Johnnie believed they were 
 all possessed of devils, and that it w r as pure per- 
 verseness which caused them to circle round and 
 round the field, apparently unable to find the 
 crack in the fence through which they had en 
 tered. He would come upon them rooting in the 
 middle of the field. "Woof! woof!" they would 
 snort, and scatter in more directions than there 
 were pigs. Then he would follow some particu 
 lar one in a zigzag race to the fence. Just 
 ahead appeared the space between two rails, 
 marked by mud and bristles, where the marauder 
 had got in. Straight to the crack the pig 
 would run until fairly there, when, with a scared 
 look, it would utter another "woof!" and go 
 scurrying off at a right angle. In the mean- 
 48 
 
 i 
 
 m 
 
 
 
VACATIONS AND CHORES 
 
 time its companions in crime were peacefully 
 feeding again, and, seeking them out, Johnnie 
 would choose another for a second heat, with the 
 same exasperating result as before. Finally, 
 when he had become absolutely worn out and 
 flung himself in a shaded fence-corner to 
 breathe, the whole herd of swine would file de 
 murely past him, and with squeal and grunt 
 march deliberately out of their own free will. 
 
 There are some kinds of work which can be 
 slighted, and, if Johnnie could have had his 
 preference, he would always have chosen these. 
 For instance, when sent alone to plant a pint of 
 beans by sticking holes near hills of corn one 
 for each bean he could economize time at the 
 expense of beans by planting a dozen at each 
 place, and throwing the last double handful into 
 a bottomless crawfish hole. 
 
 But perhaps the most satisfactory variety of 
 labor was that which, by a stretch of the imag 
 ination, he could persuade himself was not work 
 at all, but play, or at least some novel and won 
 derfully lucrative employment. Johnnie was not 
 an utterly lazy boy. It was not action he dis 
 liked, but tedium and restraint. Chiefly he 
 49 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 wanted to be a man, to do a man s work, to ac 
 complish great things. Digging potatoes was, 
 in itself, dismal drudgery, but by making-be 
 lieve each potato was a nugget of gold and him 
 self a delving miner it became a really splendid 
 vocation. Nor was cutting thistles in the pas 
 ture a playful thing, yet, when he called each 
 plant an armed enemy and himself a bold 
 knight-errant, it became a pleasant pastime. So 
 it was with many forms of chore-work, but he 
 could never conjure up any satisfactory glamour 
 for the tasks of weeding onions and chopping 
 stove-wood. 
 
 All in all, Johnnie s vacations were far from 
 empty, and he found little time and less inclina 
 tion for schoolward yearnings. In the intervals 
 between chores, he devised many ways of amus 
 ing himself, and the dearth of boy-companions 
 was largely supplied by his dog Pluto. A dog 
 is almost as good a playmate and is a better 
 friend than a boy. He never tires of being "It" 
 in a game of tag, and will endure every form of 
 imposition without complaining. 
 
 Pluto was a democratic dog, having no more 
 of a pedigree than his master. True, he pos- 
 50 
 
VACATIONS AND CHORES 
 
 sesscd traits which led Johnnie to believe that 
 he was full-blooded; but his ancestry was un 
 known. His yellow coat and squatty legs lent 
 color and form to the conviction that he was just 
 an ordinary "fice." Johnnie and Pluto were 
 inseparable. Much of Johnnie s spare time was 
 spent in teaching the dog tricks. These tricks 
 were wonderful to relate, but rather disappoint 
 ing to see, needing a boy s sympathetic imagina 
 tion to point out their intelligence. At driving 
 cattle Pluto was a success, except that he al 
 ways approached them from the front and drove 
 them the wrong way. He was an admirable 
 hunting dog, so far as hunting was concerned, 
 but he seldom actually found any game. 
 
 Johnnie had two other occasional comrades, 
 the Hired Hand and Cousin Henry. The latter 
 was three years his senior, and the relationship 
 between him and Johnnie was somewhat similar 
 to that existing between Johnnie and Pluto. 
 Great concessions were necessary on Johnnie s 
 part before Cousin Henry would deign to play 
 with him ; and then the sport had to be conducted 
 with manly dignity. Cousin Henry chewed to 
 bacco in secret and could "cuss." Moreover, 
 51 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 it was whispered, and never denied by him, that 
 he had gone with girls, escorting them home 
 from meetings and parties. These accomplish 
 ments commanded respect, and respect for him 
 compelled obedience to his wishes. 
 
 Cousin Henry condescended to pay Johnnie a 
 visit about once a fortnight. For an hour they 
 would get on well enough, playing Indian or 
 cowboy. Then Henry would grow disgusted. 
 
 "Aw, say, this is no fun. Where s yer pa s 
 musket ?" 
 
 "In the house," Johnnie would answer hesi 
 tatingly. 
 
 "Go get it." 
 
 "Pa don t low me to." 
 
 "Who ast him? Go git it, I tell ye." 
 
 Then Johnnie would sneak into the house, and, 
 after a short absence, would return with the in 
 telligence that he couldn t find the gun "no 
 place" which was grammatically true, but to 
 all intents a lie. 
 
 "I ll tell ye what," Henry would exclaim a 
 few minutes later, "let s go over to Shank s 
 melon-patch." 
 
VACATIONS AND CHORES 
 
 "All right!" Johnnie would answer with ill- 
 assumed alacrity. 
 
 Across the fields they would hasten with bated 
 breath until the fence in the rear of the Shanks 
 premises was reached. There Henry would kneel 
 and point out the melon-patch to Johnnie, whis 
 pering : 
 
 "Now, you re smaller n me. You ll find the 
 best ones up next to the garden. Be quick an 
 keep yer eyes peeled for the dog !" And quak 
 ing with terror, Johnnie would obey. In almost 
 every instance the dog saw Johnnie and charged 
 on him before he got half way across the lot. On 
 one occasion he was forced to climb a peach-tree 
 to save himself. Cousin Henry forsook him ig- 
 nominiously, and he might have perished there 
 if Shank s hired girl had not come to his re 
 lease. Yet such experiences never shook his faith 
 in Cousin Henry. His constancy was very like 
 Pluto s. 
 
 There are men, as well as dogs and boys, who 
 will take kicks from one and resent a look from 
 another. 
 
 53 
 
THE HIRED HAND AND 
 
 THE Hired Hand was Johnnie s oracle. His 
 auguries were infallible ; from his decisions there 
 was no appeal. The wisdom of experienced age 
 was his, and he always stood willing to impart 
 it to the youngest. No question was too trivial 
 for him to consider, and none too abstruse for 
 him to answer. He did not tell Johnnie to "never 
 mind" or wait until he grew older, but was ever 
 willing to pause in his work to explain things. 
 And his oracular qualifications were genuine. 
 He had traveled had even been as far as the 
 State Fair; he had read from Robinson Cru 
 soe to Dick the Dead Shot, and, more than all, 
 he had meditated deeply. 
 
 The Hired Hand s name was Eph. Perhaps 
 he had another name, too, but if so it had become 
 obsolete. Far and wide he was known simply as 
 Eph. 
 
 Eph was generally termed "a cur ous feller," 
 54 
 
THE HIRED HAND AND "HA NTS" 
 
 and this characterization applied equally well to 
 his peculiar appearance and his inquiring dispo 
 sition. In his confirmation nature had evidently 
 sacrificed her love of beauty to a temporary pas 
 sion for elongation. Length seemed to have 
 been the central thought, the theme, as it were, 
 upon which he had been composed. This effect 
 was heightened by generously broad hands and 
 feet and a contrastingly abbreviated chin. The 
 latter feature caused his countenance to wear in 
 repose a decidedly vacant look, but it was seldom 
 caught reposing, usually having to bear a smirk 
 of some sort. 
 
 Eph s position in the Winkle household was 
 as peculiar as his personality. Nominally he 
 was a hired servant, but, in fact, from his own 
 point of view at least, he was Mr. Winkle s pri 
 vate secretary and confidential adviser. He had 
 been on the place "ever sence old Fan was a 
 yearlin ," which was a long while, indeed; and 
 had come to regard himself as indispensable. 
 The Winkles treated him as one of the family, 
 and he reciprocated in truly familiar ways. He 
 sat at the table with them, helped entertain 
 their guests, and often accompanied them to 
 55 
 
VII 
 
 Hand was Johnnie s oracle. His 
 ;re infallible ; from his decisions there 
 ?al. The wisdom of experienced age 
 id he always stood willing to impart 
 >ungest. No question was too trivial 
 consider, and none too abstruse for 
 er. He did not tell Johnnie to "never 
 ait until he grew older, but was ever 
 >ause in his work to explain things, 
 ular qualifications were genuine, 
 iveled had even been as far as the 
 he had read from Robinson Cru- 
 the Dead Shot, and, more than all, 
 litated deeply. 
 
 Hand s name was Eph. Perhaps 
 bher name, too, but if so it had become 
 ar and wide he was known simply as 
 
 generally termed "a cur ous feller, 
 54 
 
v 
 
 THE HIRED HAND AND lA YIV 
 
 nnd this characterization applied e ally well tc 
 his peculiar appearance and his inciring dispo 
 sition. In his confirmation nature xd evidently 
 sacrificed her love of beauty to a tciporary pas 
 sion for elongation. Length sened to lm< 
 been the central thought, the then, as it were, 
 upon which he had been composed This effect 
 was heightened by generously broi hands and 
 feet and a contrastingly abbreviati chin. The 
 latter feature caused his countenace to wear in 
 repose a decidedly vacant look, butt was seldom 
 caught reposing, usually having tbear a smirk 
 of some sort. 
 
 Eph s position in the Winkle busehold was 
 as peculiar as his personality, [ominally he 
 was a hired servant, but, in fact, rom his own 
 point of view at least, he was Mr.vVinkle s pri 
 vate secretary and confidential ad^er. He had 
 been on the place "ever sence ol Fan was a 
 yearlin ," which was a long while indeed ; and 
 had come to regard himself as ndispensable. 
 The Winkles treated him as one f the family, 
 and he reciprocated in truly familir ways. He 
 sat at the table with them, hejed entertain 
 their guests, and often accompaied them to 
 55 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 church. In regulating matters on the farm Mr. 
 Winkle proposed, but Eph invariably disposed, 
 in a diplomatic way, of course; and, although 
 his judgment might be based on false logic, the 
 result was generally successful and satisfactory. 
 
 With all his good qualities and her attach 
 ment to him, however, Mrs. Winkle was not 
 sure that Eph s moral status was quite sound, 
 and she was inclined to discourage Johnnie s 
 association with him. As a matter of fact she 
 had overheard Johnnie utter several bad words, 
 of which Eph was certainly the prime source. 
 But a mother s solicitude was of little avail 
 when compared with Eph s Delphian wisdom. 
 Johnnie would steal away to join Eph in the 
 field at every chance, and the information he 
 acquired at these secret seances was varied and 
 valuable. 
 
 It was Eph who taught him how to tell the 
 time of day by the sun ; how to insert a "dutch- 
 man" in the place of a lost suspender button; 
 how to make bird-traps ; and how to "skin a cat." 
 Eph initiated him into the mysteries of magic 
 and witchcraft, and showed him how to locate 
 a subterranean vein of water by means of a twig 
 56 
 
THE HIRED HAND AND "HA NTS" 
 
 of witch-hazel. Eph also confided to Johnnie 
 that he himself could stanch the flow of blood or 
 stop a toothache instantly by force of a certain 
 charm, but he could not tell how to do this be 
 cause the secret could be imparted only from 
 man to woman, or vice versa. Even the shadowy 
 domain of spirits had not been exempt from 
 Eph s investigations, and he related many a 
 terrifying experience with "ha nts." 
 
 Johnnie was first introduced to the ghost 
 world one summer night, when he and Eph had 
 gone fishing together. 
 
 "If ye want to ketch the big uns, always go 
 at night in the dark o the moon," said Eph, 
 and his piscatorial knowledge was absolute. 
 
 They had fished in silence for some time, and 
 Johnnie was nodding, when Eph suddenly whis 
 pered : 
 
 "Let s go home, sonny, I think I see a ha nt 
 down yander." 
 
 Johnnie had no idea what a "ha nt" might be, 
 but Eph s constrained manner betokened some 
 thing dreadful. 
 
 It was not until they had come within sight of 
 home that Johnnie ventured to inquire : 
 57 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 "Say, Eph, what is a ha nt?" 
 
 "Huh! What is ha nts? Why, sonny, you 
 mean to tell me you don t know what ha nts is?" 
 
 "Not exactly; sompin like wildcats, ain t 
 they?" 
 
 "Well, I ll be confounded! Wildcats! Not 
 by a long shot ;" and Eph broke into the soft 
 chuckle which always preceded his explanations. 
 They reached the orchard fence, and, seating 
 himself squarely on the topmost rail, Eph began 
 impressively : 
 
 "Ha nts is the remains of dead folks more 
 specially them that s been assinated, cr, that is, 
 kilt understan ? They re kind o like sperrits, 
 ye know. After so long a time they take to 
 comin back to yarth an ha ntin the pre-cise 
 spot where they wuz murdered. They always 
 come after dark, an the diff runt shapes they 
 take on is supprisin . I have seed ha nts that 
 looked like sheep, an ha nts that looked like hu 
 man persons ; but lots of em ye cain t see a-tall, 
 bein invisible, as the sayin is. Now, fer all we 
 know, they may be a ha nt settin right here be 
 twixt us, this minute !" 
 
 With this solemn declaration Johnnie shiv- 
 58 
 
THE HIRED HAND AND "HA NTS" 
 
 crcd and began edging closer to Eph, until re 
 strained and appalled by the thought that he 
 might actually sit on the unseen spirit by such 
 movement. 
 
 "But do they hurt people, Eph?" he asked 
 anxiously. 
 
 Eph gave vent to another chuckle. 
 
 "Not if ye understan the r ways," he ob 
 served sagely. "If ye let em alone an don t go 
 foolin aroun the r ha ntin -groun they ll never 
 harm ye. But don t ye never trifle with no ha nt, 
 sonny. I knowed a feller t thought twuz smart 
 to hector em an said he wuzn t feared. Onct he 
 throwed a rock at one " 
 
 Here Eph paused. 
 
 "What h-happened?" gasped Johnnie. 
 
 "In one year from that time," replied Eph 
 gruesomely, "that there feller s cow wuz hit by 
 lightnin ; in three year his hoss kicked him an 
 busted a rib ; an in seven year he wuz a corpse !" 
 
 The power of this horrible example was too 
 much for Johnnie. 
 
 "Don t you reckon it s bedtime?" he sug 
 gested tremblingly. 
 
 Thenceforth for many months Johnnie led a 
 59 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 haunted life. Ghosts glowered at him from cel 
 lar and garret. Specters slunk at his heels, 
 phantoms flitted through the barn. Twilight 
 teemed with horrors, and midnight, when he 
 awoke at that hour, made of his bedroom a veri 
 table Brocken. 
 
 It was vain for his parents to expostulate with 
 him. Was one not bound to believe one s own 
 eyes? And how about the testimony of the 
 Hired Hand? 
 
 The story in his reader told in verse and 
 graphically illustrated of the boy named Wal 
 ter, who, being alone on a lonesome highway one 
 dark night, beheld a sight that made his blood 
 run cold, acquired an abnormal interest for 
 Johnnie. Walter, with courage resembling mad 
 ness, marched straight up to the alleged ghost 
 and laughed gleefully to find, "It was a friendly 
 guide-post, his wand ring steps to guide." 
 
 This was all very well, as it turned out, but 
 what if it had been a sure-enough ghost, re 
 flected Johnnie. What if it had reached down 
 with its long, snaky arms and snatched Walter 
 up and run off with him in the dark and no 
 telling what? Or it might have swooped 
 60 
 
 
 
THE HIRED HAND AND "HA NTS" 
 
 straight up in the air with him, for ghosts could 
 do that. Johnnie resolved he would not take 
 any chances with friendly guide-posts which 
 might turn out to be hostile spirits. 
 
 Then there was the similar tale of the lame 
 goose, and the one concerning the pillow in the 
 swing each intended, no doubt, to allay fool 
 ish fears on the part of children, but exercising 
 an opposite and harrowing influence upon John 
 nie. 
 
 It happened about this time, too, that Cousin 
 Henry loaned Johnnie a contraband volume of 
 the Arabian Nights. There the miracles of 
 mighty magic were described in plain black and 
 white, calculated to dispel all doubts. Lying 
 prone in the haymow, or reclining against the 
 straw-stack, Johnnie gloated over the book by 
 the hour. There were passages in the narratives 
 which became so terribly vivid that Johnnie 
 would be compelled to put the book down and 
 run to the house. In dreams of enchantment he 
 wandered through the adjacent woods looking 
 for the entrance to Aladdin s cave. He fancied 
 a dingy brass ring on his finger might be a 
 magic talisman, and rubbed it vigorously, half 
 61 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 expecting and half fearing its genii would ap 
 pear. From its garret-grave he unearthed the 
 hobby-horse of other days, and searched it over 
 for a secret peg, such as the Hindu magician s 
 horse possessed, and the turning of which gave 
 the beast the power of flying. 
 
 But Mrs. Winkle found and confiscated the 
 cherished book one day, and its whilom en 
 chantment was smothered in misgivings as to 
 how he could account for its loss to its jealous 
 owner. 
 
 The day of judgment was not long in com 
 ing. Mrs. Winkle sat up half the night in 
 specting the volume, and wrestled with night 
 mares until morning. Then she took it under 
 her arm and hurried down to Aunt Mary s. 
 
 "Did you know your boy was lending John 
 nie such books as this?" she asked sharply. 
 
 Aunt Mary did not know it. Indeed she had 
 never seen the book before. 
 
 "Well, it s dreadful nonsense," said Mrs. 
 Winkle. "Full of witches and charms and such 
 stuff. Some of it is downright wicked; you 
 ought to read it!" 
 
 Aunt Mary took the book somewhat gin- 
 
THE HIRED HAND AND "HA NTS" 
 
 gcrly. She was sure she didn t know where 
 Henry could have got it, but she would look 
 into it. 
 
 So the book was perused carefully by Aunt 
 Mary, who confessed herself duly horrified by 
 its contents ; and, by way of pointing the moral 
 of its immorality, Henry was severely punished 
 for having brought the sinful thing on the 
 place. 
 
 Henry got even by thrashing Johnnie; but 
 Johnnie, as usual, had to bottle his resentment, 
 eking out only a small portion of it by going 
 around behind the barn and throwing pebbles at 
 the chickens. There were times when Johnnie 
 wished longingly for a younger brother. 
 
 /^ 
 
 p] 
 
 &S A * III 
 
 63 
 

 VIII 
 
 BEING SICK 
 
 To THE average man being sick is a very mel 
 ancholy sort of diversion. He seldom has the 
 leisure time to devote to it, and he is always op 
 pressed with the unpleasant probabilities of 
 speedy dissolution and the dire certainty of doc 
 tors bills to pay. But to the average boy these 
 terrors occur not, and to him being sick stands 
 next in enjoyment to a fishing excursion. A 
 sick man always has lungs, a heart, and a liver 
 to say nothing of a self-assertive stomach 
 and these organs are constantly becoming fatal 
 ly deranged so as to require his strict attention. 
 But the sick boy has none of these organs, ex 
 cept his stomach. Even the sober contempla 
 tion of death does not greatly perturb the philos 
 opher of twelve, for he always looks upon his 
 own demise from the pathetic but impersonal 
 standpoint of the grief-stricken friends or re 
 morseful enemies of the deceased. 
 Hi. 
 
 64 
 
BEING SICK 
 
 The season of cucumbers and unripe fruit al 
 ways marked a period of poor health in John 
 nie s career. The rose-tint of hardy youth 
 suddenly faded from his cheeks, and he grew 
 pallid and "bilious" and full of pain. At such 
 times he was inclined to become preternaturally 
 kind and patient, enduring everything with 
 martyr-like resignation ; and death, having a 
 proverbial fondness for shining marks, was 
 fully expected by himself and feared by his 
 distressed mother. 
 
 As he lay quietly in bed reflecting upon such 
 grave matters, his imagination was wont to grow 
 active and tender, and hot tears often scalded 
 his cheeks as he thought of the terrible void his 
 untimely taking off would make in the world. 
 His disconsolate parents, his heart-broken play 
 mates, the sad and remorseful Cousin Henry 
 who thrashed him only last week ah, if he had 
 only known! all these rose up and gathered 
 around his bed to mourn until his own soft heart 
 was touched and he mingled his tears with theirs. 
 In pity for their distress he freely forgave them 
 for every injury they had heaped upon him, 
 and, in short, conjured up for himself a death- 
 65 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 bed scene as beautiful and heartrending as any 
 ever figured in by Eva or Little Nell. 
 
 "Mother," he moaned feebly he always said 
 "ma" when well "mother, won t you please 
 send for Cousin Henry?" 
 
 An hour later when that worthy appeared he 
 whispered : 
 
 "Henry, I am going to give you my red-and- 
 blue lead-pencil." 
 
 "Bully for you !" cried Henry, snatching up 
 the prize. "Say, I m going to take this apple, 
 too. The doctor says you can t eat it," and 
 Henry rushed off whistling merrily. 
 
 This act of heartlessness somewhat marred 
 the pleasantness of dying; in fact it caused 
 Johnnie to postpone death for the time and to 
 demand the return of the pencil ; but there was 
 many another solace remaining. 
 
 What country boy has not enjoyed the untold 
 comforts of the ague? Certainly there is none 
 who has been immune in the valley of the Wa- 
 bash. The weary, aching bones, which ren 
 dered rest so delicious, the fit of shaking, and the 
 burning fever, so sure to bring sympathy and 
 all sorts of dainty food sweet and tender is the 
 66 
 
BEING SICK 
 
 memory, and the only bitter recollection it 
 awakens is that of quinine. 
 
 Sometimes malaria attacks a boy during a 
 season of holiday but not often. Usually its 
 onset is identical with the beginning of harvest. 
 Johnnie was stricken while helping shock wheat, 
 and the Hired Hand had to lead him to the 
 house. There his mother tucked him into the 
 ever-cool bed in the spare room and set Cousin 
 Elmira to keeping the flies off of him. Then 
 what luxury of earthly bliss could equal his ! 
 He closed his eyes softly, dreamily, in a tran 
 quillity of satisfaction. Through the open win 
 dow came the far off hum of the reaper ; but its 
 drowsy tones, which had seemed to mock him 
 as he toiled a little while ago, were soothing as 
 a lullaby now, and mingled with the song of 
 the wind in the maples, the lazy buzzing of flies, 
 and the clink of dishes in the kitchen. He kept 
 his bed resolutely until toward evening. Then 
 he crept out to look upon the world again. It 
 was all very beautiful and peaceful, with just a 
 tinge of twilight sadness. Poor little invalid! 
 How he longed to run and play again as he used 
 to do but the chores were not yet done. 
 67 
 

 JOHNNIE 
 
 ut perhaps the most satisfactory state of ill 
 ness to Johnnie was that which, while rendering 
 him totally unable to work, did not incapacitate 
 him from the milder forms of amusement, or 
 make such indulgence inconsistent. For this 
 purpose nothing served better than a badly 
 bruised toe, or a boil on the knee. Even a frac 
 tured limb he would have welcomed as not with 
 out compensation. Under such affliction he was 
 justified in returning to his old Noah s ark and 
 paper soldiers, toys which Cousin Henry s scorn 
 had caused him to forsake long ago. A cripple 
 had a right to be babyish. He was also permit 
 ted to whittle in the house, and make all manner 
 of musses. 
 
 Moreover, there were certain rare books, 
 sealed to him in health, to which his indispo 
 sition gave him free access. The wonder 
 ful photograph album, with the pictures of 
 grandpa and grandma, and brave Uncle An 
 drew, who was a sutler in the army, and pa and 
 ma when they were first married and had dia 
 monds and dimples the former at least, sup 
 plied by the accommodating artist what a 
 feast of beauty and marvels it was! The pon- 
 68 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
BEING SICK 
 
 derous family Bible was fully as great an at 
 traction. It was worth a good deal of physical 
 suffering to be permitted to pore over its ancient 
 pages and gaze on the graphic representa 
 tions of Goliath in the act of being slain, of 
 Samson pulling down the temple, of John the 
 Baptist s gory head on a platter, and the 
 myriads of angels with little wings on their 
 backs. And he loved, too, to study the pictures 
 of the twelve apostles or the twelve epistles 
 he could never quite remember which it was. 
 
 When these books grew exhausted there were 
 the three thick volumes of Agricultural Reports, 
 which a generous member of Congress had pre 
 sented to his father. They were replete with 
 familiar illustrations, and strange words that 
 pleased Johnnie while they puzzled him. It was 
 a wonderful thing to discover that the caterpil 
 lar, which he had known all his life, was really 
 the larva of a lepidopterous insect; that corn 
 was maize; and that cattle died of rinderpest. 
 In one of the books was an ornithological table 
 containing the proper names of birds, which was 
 vastly entertaining and very instructive to aspir 
 ing agriculturists. He found that the sparrow 
 69 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 belonged to the fringillidse family; that it was 
 gramnivorous and also insectivorous, therefore a 
 friend to the farmer; that the talpa, or mole, 
 was a genus of quadrupeds, living chiefly under 
 ground and feeding upon insects ; and that silos 
 were good for ensilage. Nowhere else, and un 
 der no other conditions, could Johnnie have ac 
 quired the miscellany of information thus af 
 forded. Truly he felt that his affliction was a 
 blessing in thin disguise. 
 
 In fact, to Johnnie, the only really unpleas 
 ant thing about being sick was the getting well. 
 There came a time when scarcely a shadow of 
 the disease remained, when even the scrupulous 
 old doctor pronounced him strong and well, and 
 the manifold burdens of life had to be assumed 
 again. The chores to which he had become a 
 stranger began to beckon him to the barn, and 
 long neglected errands ran to meet him. Yet 
 there was compensation even for his convales 
 cence. Every denizen of the barnyard, except 
 ing the pigs, seemed glad of his return. Pluto 
 welcomed him with heartiness more than human, 
 and the Hired Hand flattered him with kindness 
 and solicitude. 
 
 70 
 
BEING SICK 
 
 Aunt Mary came over and made him feel es 
 pecially delicate and spirituellc by her anxiety. 
 
 "Why, lawsy me, Johnnie," she exclaimed, 
 "I wouldn t a known you ! You look so peeked 
 and thin. Sister, you must be careful of that 
 boy, or you ll never raise him. Has he got his 
 flannel on? Did you ever give him burdock tea 
 and dandelion? and you surely aren t lettin him 
 go barefooted, are you?" 
 
 Such was the psychical effect of her voluble 
 comments that Johnnie crept off to bed again 
 and came very near having another chill. But 
 a single dose of the prescribed burdock com 
 pound caused him to rally quickly. 
 
 Johnnie s gustatory nerves were developed 
 far in excess of his sympathetic system. 
 
IX 
 
 A SUMMER SUNDAY 
 
 To JOHNNIE Sunday was a day of mingled 
 joy and regret, of general piety and individual 
 wickedness, whose pleasures were subdued, often 
 surreptitious, and whose duties were stiff and 
 irksome, yet, when faithfully performed, 
 brought something of balm to the conscience. 
 
 It was but partially a season of rest. True, 
 regular farm work was strictly foregone, but 
 the chores, the burden of which fell largely on 
 his small shoulders, could not be neglected. 
 He had to rise just as early and trudge just as 
 far across the pasture in search of the cows as 
 on week days. Moreover, the sacredness of the 
 day, as interpreted by his pious parents, for 
 bade his indulgence in levitous whistling and 
 loud calling, such as lightened the labors at 
 other times. Secular songs were iniquitous and 
 not to be thought of; and, in order to refrain 
 from downright sin, on particularly bright Sun- 
 
A SUMMER SUNDAY 
 
 day mornings, he was sometimes compelled to 
 compromise with the spirit of the day and his 
 own exuberance by humming the tune of Yan 
 kee Doodle while mentally inserting the words 
 of the doxology. 
 
 Johnnie was incensed by the unusual abandon 
 with which the birds sang on Sunday, and, while 
 morally shocked at their sinfulness, secretly 
 envied them their liberty. It was not wrong, he 
 thought, to throw stones at them under such a 
 double provocation. But he did not dare go 
 far out of his way in their pursuit, for he could 
 never dismiss from mind a tragic Sabbath- 
 school-paper tale of a little boy who once fol 
 lowed a strange bird into a dark forest with 
 uncanny and distressing results. It was a very 
 peculiar bird, with a good deal of crimson in its 
 plumage, and it led the thoughtless boy on and 
 on until he found himself alone in the darkness 
 with a terrible thunder-storm raging. Then 
 he caught the bird, and horror of horrors ! 
 Across its flaming breast in letters of black was 
 written the word "Sin." The storm and the 
 darkness were frightful enough, but the super 
 natural inscription the bird bore was absolutely 
 73 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 blood-curdling. This story impressed its ob 
 vious lesson upon Johnnie, to beware of strange 
 birds, especially red ones. 
 
 After chores and breakfast were done, hasty 
 preparations were made for Sunday-school. 
 Johnnie s Sunday clothes were brought forth, 
 and his bare and brier-scarred feet bathed and 
 shackled in shoes. Ah! unhappy necessity of 
 encasing this summer s feet in last winter s 
 shoes ; it was like imprisoning a rosebud in a 
 block of ice. When Johnnie donned his Sun 
 day suit he put off the happy good humor in 
 which nature had swathed him, and became as 
 degenerate as Adam after the adoption of fig- 
 leaf apparel. In his old clothes his peccadillos 
 were apt to be of a thoughtless and harmless 
 character, but when he was dressed up he was 
 inclined to deliberate transgression. On the 
 way to Sunday-school he dangled his feet over 
 the end-gate of the spring wagon and made 
 monstrous faces at the boy behind. When the 
 class-room was reached he wriggled and winked 
 and pinched his mates and chewed sassafras 
 root, making believe it was tobacco in short, 
 indulged in manifold forms of original sin. In 
 74 
 
A SUMMER SUNDAY 
 
 this way Johnnie gained the reputation of be 
 ing a very bad boy, when really it was his stiff, 
 ill-fitting clothing that was bad, 
 
 Johnnie always remained for church, be 
 cause he had to, and there the diversive alter 
 native of mischief failed him, and he was com 
 pelled to be content with empty sleep or vain 
 speculation. But even there his elastic imagi 
 nation was an untold comfort, and the curious 
 ideas and vaporous views of things which wan 
 dered through his mind as the minister crept 
 from "firstly" down to "lastly" and "again" 
 and "in conclusion" were wonderful to relate. 
 He wondered why the deacon in the pew in front 
 had no hair; why his head was so highly pol 
 ished ; how it felt to be bald ; if he himself would 
 ever be bald; and why little boys could not be 
 bald without waiting till they grew up. He 
 speculated as to how the preacher would look 
 when he became a corpulent angel with wings; 
 and as to whether angels soared like buzzards, 
 or flopped their wings like chickens, or buzzed 
 like flies. He wished he had his wings on now; 
 and he knew what he would do pretty quick. 
 He would not stay there very long. Would 
 75 
 
 } ^ \O 
 
 }\ 8 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 not it make a stir, though, if he should suddenly 
 mount to the ceiling with a glad flutter and go 
 sailing out through the arched window across 
 the fields! How high he would soar, and to 
 what mighty distances he would take his flight ! 
 With such absurd fancies as these Johnnie 
 passed the tedious hours. Little enough of the 
 minister s learned discourse penetrated his ears, 
 and less found its way to his comprehension. 
 
 When the final prayer was spoken, and the 
 benediction pronounced, Johnnie, in common 
 with many of his elders, and, indeed, some of 
 the elders of the church, breathed a sigh of 
 relief. 
 
 Home and dinner lay before him ; and, al 
 though the Sunday meal was likely to be frugal, 
 its crystal water and cold meat created a re 
 freshing oasis in the religious desert round 
 about him. Even a temporary shifting of the 
 wind from a spiritual to a physical quarter was 
 comforting to Johnnie. 
 
 After dinner Johnnie s shoes slipped off as 
 
 by magic, and then away the truant feet went 
 
 scurrying across the meadow with a speed that 
 
 took his breath. Sunday afternoon, with lazi- 
 
 76 
 
A SUMMER SUNDAY 
 
 ness loitering at his side unrebuked, with the air 
 full of shimmering dreams, and industry fast 
 asleep for the day! Sunday afternoon, with 
 bare feet, with straw hat, with the thinnest and 
 simplest of garments, with youth, with hope, 
 with a world so full of sunshine that its warmth 
 overflowed into the shadiest nooks what rare 
 possibilities for pleasure it possessed! 
 
 Down where the brook kept running night 
 and day was the favorite trysting-place of idle 
 ness and himself. It was out of view from the 
 house, and haunted by no specter from the 
 world of week days or the purgatory of Sun 
 day morning. He and the dragon-flies and 
 water-spiders alone knew the secret of its placid 
 charms. It was such a tiny stream that it often 
 became so nearly lost in the marshes of calamus 
 that he had to stoop to find it, and he could al 
 most stop its current with his heel. Miniature 
 water-wheels were constructed along its course, 
 and fairy boats, which were literal barks, were 
 launched upon its breast. 
 
 For hours Johnnie would recline on the bank, 
 
 *V"* r -. v 
 
 his feet burrowing deep in the soft mud, tossing 
 
 numberless chips into the brook, to gaze after 
 
 77 
 
 
 i,:j 
 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 them and wonder vaguely, dreamily, whither 
 they would drift at last. And even as the 
 brook sang its one song and dreamed its one 
 dream of the sea the boy s idle musings would 
 turn toward distant manhood, and he would 
 wonder and wonder. And the ultimate reach 
 of his boyish imagination or the final destiny of 
 the restless brook no finite mind may determine. 
 Sunday evening drew on, at length, with the 
 same monotonous round of chores again. The 
 cows were to be gathered in and milked, just as 
 if they had never undergone the process before ; 
 and, as the sun went down, seated on a three- 
 legged stool, his head pressed confidingly 
 against old Brindlc s flank, his eyes fixed in 
 thoughtful reverie upon the western sky 
 whether in contemplation of its beauty, or the 
 beauty beyond, or of some quaint conception of 
 internal origin, we know not Johnnie bade 
 farewell to many a Sunday. 
 
 m 8 
 
 
 *^L 
 
PERHAPS the brightest anniversary in John 
 nie s calendar was the week in September which 
 brought the county fair. Throughout the long 
 summer he looked forward to it with ever in 
 creasing gladness. There was never any ques 
 tion as to whether he should be permitted to at 
 tend the fair. It was the one great place of 
 amusement in his world which was eminently 
 proper, where pleasure might be indulged in 
 unstintedly without a qualm. 
 
 The fair ground, a spacious native grove, 
 well set in blue-grass, was situated a mile from 
 the corporate limits of the town. For eleven 
 months out of each year it was a deserted vil 
 lage. Birds nested in its trees, squirrels and 
 chipmunks gamboled in the huge horticultural 
 hall, and spiders worked geometrical problems 
 in amphitheater and bandstand. Its utter 
 emptiness and desolation tended to oppress 
 
 TO . ( , 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 Johnnie when he passed it on occasional pil 
 grimages to the county seat. A painful air of 
 the vanished glory of Vanity Fair seemed to 
 hover about it. 
 
 But annually with the advent of autumn an 
 army of rustics invaded its precincts; and for 
 the space of one week it became a teeming city 
 in miniature. In a general way this sudden 
 transformation was wonderful, while its special 
 features were simply miraculous. 
 
 On the morning of the first day of the fair 
 the Winkle household arose bright and early. 
 Johnnie awoke from ecstatic dreams with a 
 thrill, bounced out of bed and into his clothes 
 with supernatural agility, and had the horses 
 up from the pasture in short order. There was 
 but one matter of solicitude to mar his joy. 
 The weather which takes the place of fate on 
 a farm might prove unfavorable. Perhaps 
 an inauspicious streak of scarlet vapor lay 
 across the face of the sun, or a dim, slaty mass 
 of clouds hung on the western horizon, which 
 might easily bring rain; and Johnnie waited 
 upon the Hired Hand in a fever of anxiety to 
 learn his prediction. 
 
 80 
 
THE COUNTY FAIR 
 
 "You don t think it ll rain to-day, do you, 
 Eph?" he asked with an assumption of confi 
 dence. Then Eph, the astrologer, went forth 
 and scanned the heavens, noted the direction of 
 the wind, and observed the behavior of the stock 
 and various meteorological phenomena. 
 
 "It all de-pends on the way the moon hung 
 last night," he remarked gravely, "which I 
 didn t notice. The signs is mostly favorable" 
 Johnnie s countenance brightened "fer rain, 
 but I ain t shore." 
 
 As the sun mounted higher, however, the 
 clouds disappeared, and at eight o clock the 
 family was safely en route. What a glamour 
 lay over the world that morning! How gaily, 
 how madly the kaleidoscopic landscape circled 
 on countless pivots as the wagon rumbled on ! 
 Backward the fences and trees of the fore 
 ground slipped, smoothly, silently, while those 
 in the distance rushed ever forward, until John 
 nie almost convinced himself that he was really 
 standing still between two mammoth revolving 
 planes of scenery. 
 
 Once they passed a field where a boy of his 
 own size was laboriously cutting weeds, and the 
 81 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 sight made Johnnie ill. He wondered how any 
 mortal could work in that lonely, hot field and 
 the fair going on! That boy s parents were 
 certainly brutes. 
 
 After a while they found themselves in the 
 midst of a long procession of wagons and car 
 riages, and Johnnie could scarcely contain him 
 self because they moved so slowly. A mile 
 ahead the fair ground loomed into sight, and 
 yet it seemed they would never reach it. The 
 distant hum of the crowds, like the buzz of 
 swarming bees, broke on their ears, and present 
 ly the beatific strains of the brass band. 
 
 At last they were there. Johnnie could 
 hardly realize it, but it was true. The tickets 
 were handed over, the gates were entered, and 
 the suppressed hum of happy humanity burst 
 into a mighty chorus. Johnnie stood up in the 
 wagon and tried to take it all in. Rows of can 
 vas tents, big and little, flaming pictures, candy 
 stands, striking-machines, shooting-galleries, 
 museums, minstrels, magicians, and people 
 people everywhere ! 
 
 "Now, Johnnie, you stay right here in this 
 
THE COUNTY FAIR 
 
 wagon till pa puts the horses away," Mrs. Win 
 kle admonished him, turning round. 
 
 But Johnnie heard her not. His attention 
 was fixed upon a beautiful flaxen-haired girl, 
 who was entwining a monstrous snake about her 
 neck. Slipping down he ran in her direction to 
 get a nearer view. Immediately he was swal 
 lowed in the multitude, becoming one of its 
 molecular elements to vibrate hither and thither, 
 attracted and repelled and swept along in irre 
 sistible currents throughout the day. The 
 spirit of the occasion saturated him ; in every 
 thing on exhibition he found delight. Climb 
 ing into the amphitheater, he looked down in 
 admiration upon horses and cattle such as he 
 saw daily at home. He found wonders in the 
 way of swine in the pigsties, petting the baby- 
 pigs and calling them "cute" just as did his 
 city cousins. For the live stock at the fair was 
 not common live stock; the sheep were aristo 
 crats, the poultry was pure-bred and took pre 
 miums, even the pumpkins on exhibition were 
 unusual, appearances to the contrary notwith 
 standing. Just as work may be lightened by 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 calling it play, a cow may be completely trans 
 figured and glorified by exhibiting her at the 
 fair. 
 
 Yet the more mysterious exhibition going on 
 within the big tent over near the fence was by 
 far the greatest attraction, and every path 
 Johnnie tried finally led him to its door. A 
 large, many-colored banner stretched in front 
 illustrated a few of the numerous wonders to be 
 seen on the inside, and every now and then a 
 mechanically talking man would come out and 
 explain the pictures. The Snake-charmer, the 
 Prestidigitator, the Woman with the Iron Jaw 
 and the Wild Man from Madagascar were all 
 there all to be seen for the paltry sum of ten 
 cents. The price was certainly ridiculously 
 low. At the entrance sat a little boy, no bigger 
 than Johnnie, who turned a hand organ, pro 
 ducing an endless strain of sweet music. As 
 Johnnie stood and stared, his breast heaved with 
 envy of that boy. Doubtless it was his pa who 
 owned the whole show, and he could behold its 
 marvels whenever he liked. Johnnie wished his 
 father would turn showman and let him grind 
 
 84 
 
THE COUNTY FAIR 
 
 the organ. Anyhow he was determined to see 
 the inside of the show before he went home. 
 
 Eph stepped up behind him. 
 
 "See here, sonny," he cried threateningly, 
 "what you mean, standin roun here, an every 
 body waitin dinner on ye, and yore ma putty 
 nigh dis-tracted !" When, a few moments later, 
 Johnnie and Eph came upon the family, 
 grouped about an immense expanse of snowy 
 table-linen on the grass, what a feast of all that 
 is delicious greeted their eyes ! 
 
 Aunt Mary s folks had "joined teams" with 
 the Winkles, and the tender chicken, rich cake, 
 and pies, and jams, and jellies, and luscious 
 fruit they brought from their baskets were as 
 tonishing to look upon. If the fair needed a 
 complement to render its pleasures ideally per 
 fect, it was found in this picnic dinner. The 
 men and boys lolled on the grass and reached 
 luxuriously for bread and chicken, while Mrs. 
 Winkle and Aunt Mary fluttered about like min 
 istering angels, vying with each other in an 
 ticipation of every want. 
 
 "Have some of this gooseberry jelly, John- 
 
 85 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 nie," Aunt Mary would say, while Mrs. Winkle 
 was piling a mountain of pastry under Cousin 
 Henry s nose; or, "Eph, help yourself to the 
 pound-cake though goodness knows it s the 
 poorest I ever baked." 
 
 Then the two good housewives would get to 
 gether and volubly deplore how the butter had 
 not "gathered" properly, how the bread had 
 refused to rise, and how the jam had shown 
 signs of working. In the meantime the men 
 continued to eat heartily and promptly to extol 
 everything they tasted. It was etiquette for 
 the women to deprecate and the men to praise 
 each article of food produced. 
 
 The meal was finished at last, and, in spite 
 of gastric heaviness and conscientious scruples, 
 Johnnie made bold to ask his father for a dime ; 
 and so overflowing was Mr. Winkle s good hu 
 mor that he responded with a whole quarter. 
 
 The show was soon visited, and an extra 
 nickel was invested in a glass of red lemonade, 
 which looked beautiful, and which Johnnie tried 
 to imagine tasted correspondingly. 
 
 Objects of absorbing interest were simply in 
 numerable and inexhaustible at the fair. Here 
 86 
 
THE COUNTY FAIR 
 
 was a man handling writhing coils of hot taffy 
 as fearlessly as the girl handled snakes ; there 
 was a wealth of golden jewelry being given 
 away in prize-boxes ; beyond stood a huckster 
 selling handkerchiefs, pencils, and note paper, 
 an armful for a dime. 
 
 Toward evening Johnnie purchased a sack 
 of peanuts and, leaning wearily against a tree, 
 spent a satisfying half-hour just watching the 
 surging masses of people. To one whose en 
 tire life has been spent amid the pastoral quiet 
 of the country, there is a peculiar and exciting 
 pleasure in seeing crowds. The great bustling 
 world of men and women was to Johnnie largely 
 a land of dreams. As his mind had developed 
 he had come to brood more and more upon its 
 vastness, but he found the reality of it all hard 
 to grasp. He dreamed of the sea and saw it 
 mirrored in the mill-pond. Brooks answered 
 for rivers, and the merest hills for mountains. 
 But at the fair only could he get an adequate 
 glimpse of the world s inhabitants collectively, 
 as they were. Above and beyond all this, as he 
 gazed and pondered, he was conscious of a thrill 
 of the intoxicating charm of life and motion, 
 87 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 and felt for the first time the tugging of that 
 strange, magnetic power of human gravity, 
 which yearly draws so many farmer boys to 
 town. These potent influences held him trans 
 fixed, gaping at the multitude until it was al 
 most dark; and when Eph found him at last, 
 he followed that worthy monitor to the wagon 
 absently, and rode home in a deep dream. And 
 the burden of his nebulous meditations, crystal 
 lized into words, would have run thus: "When 
 I become a man I shall never be content to vege 
 tate on the little farm, like a weed in a fence- 
 corner, I will become a man of the world!" 
 
 88 
 

 S .* WJjij^ftyfc-f- 
 
 } 3ti&j$&x+\ja&tt. 
 
 XI 
 
 IN WINTER 
 
 To OLD age, the wings of time seem ruthlessly 
 swift. Every changing season brings fresh re 
 grets, and the passing of summer, the waning 
 of the sun and the fading of leaves is fraught 
 with a sadness akin to despair. It is in the au 
 tumn that men grow old and feeble, and death, 
 having thrown off all disguise, stalks boldly 
 abroad in the land. Only in childhood time 
 plods and the procession of the seasons moves 
 too slowly. 
 
 Summer slipped away from Johnnie, unre- 
 gretted. Ere it was half over he had begun to 
 long for the delights of autumn. By him Sep 
 tember was greeted as gaily as April, and win 
 ter was welcomed with gladness. 
 
 He awoke one morning and straightway knew 
 
 by instinct that snow had fallen during the 
 
 night. A feeling was in the air of his well 
 
 ventilated bedroom which betokened snow, and 
 
 89 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 dressing in haste he ran out to revel in it. On 
 the eastern sky was a gleam of crimson, like the 
 glow in his own cheeks, and everywhere, on 
 fence and shed-roof, over the fields, up and 
 down the hills, even to the verge of the distant, 
 shadow-cloistered forest, lay the glittering 
 waste of snow, pure, untrodden. Yet, to be ac 
 curate, there were a few faint tracks upon it 
 already, and Johnnie s eyes were quick to ob 
 serve them. Along the garden fence ran a 
 curious little trail, consisting of tiny dots on 
 each side of a tortuous but continuous line, all 
 disappearing suddenly under a rail; and he 
 knew a field-mouse had been there. Not far 
 away were a few dainty triangular imprints 
 where a snowbird had alighted. Out in the 
 barnlot was found a labyrinth of furrows, cross 
 ing and recrossing one another in all sorts of 
 fantastic figures, where the cows had ambled 
 about. One of these Johnnie proceeded to fol 
 low briskly here and there until it brought him 
 up to old Brindle, shivering with snow-incrusted 
 back, by the fence, where he had pretended not 
 to see her before. The horses, the pigs and the 
 sheep had all left separate and characteristic 
 90 
 
IN WINTER 
 
 trails in the snow, and each was familiar to 
 Johnnie. It was over in the orchard, though, 
 that he discovered the most alluring tracks. 
 They consisted of two oblong impressions side 
 by side, with a single larger one between and 
 slightly behind them, as though made by some 
 strange, three-legged creature. These groups 
 of imprints were five or six feet apart, and ex 
 tended in a semi-circle across the orchard lot. 
 Johnnie studied them with the sagacious air of 
 a born huntsman; and not only was he able to 
 determine that they had been made by a rabbit, 
 but also in which direction and with what speed 
 it had been traveling. He had learned how a 
 rabbit in running puts its fore feet down close 
 together, so that they make but one mark. 
 
 As soon as breakfast was over he armed him 
 self and took the trail. In his haste, he forgot 
 his mittens, but his steaming breath had abun 
 dant power to warm his hands. 
 
 The weapon he carried was not dangerous. 
 It was just a rusty old ax. Across the meadow, 
 down the hollow, into the silent heart of the 
 woods he trudged, unmindful of time or dis 
 tance. Sometimes the tracks led him among 
 
 91 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 brambles and dense underbrush, and now and 
 then the wind shook a crackling shower of icicles 
 down upon him, but he pushed on undaunted. 
 Once as he waded through a drift, the snow 
 sifted into the gaping tops of his boots; but, 
 seating himself on a frigid stump, he de 
 liberately pulled them off and emptied them. 
 The frost nipped at his ears in vain. He was 
 proof against cold. Boys have been sent on 
 errands and have been found frozen to death; 
 they have started off to school and met with the 
 same fate; but no boy was ever known to suffer 
 in the least from the cold when hunting rabbits ! 
 After a long but exciting tramp Johnnie 
 came to a point where the trail doubled on 
 itself, and this was a sign that the game was 
 not far away. Sure enough, the tracks pres 
 ently terminated abruptly in a hollow log, and 
 the rabbit was successfully treed. Then began 
 a series of scientific manceuvers looking to its 
 capture. A rabbit at the end of an oaken tun 
 nel, ten feet in length and six inches in diame 
 ter, is seemingly fortified against a boy. But 
 Johnnie was artful. Selecting a long hazel 
 pole, he carefully sharpened two prongs upon 
 92 
 
IN WINTER 
 
 the smaller end. With this instrument the ani 
 mal was readily located. And now a very cruel 
 process was resorted to one painful to de 
 scribe. Yet from Johnnie s standpoint "twist 
 ing" a rabbit was as much a matter of course 
 as is opening an oyster to a longshoreman. 
 The forked stick was entangled in the rabbit s 
 fur and given a rotary motion. Then a swift 
 and forceful withdrawal caused a plaintive 
 squeal, and brought forth a little fur, with some 
 cuticle clinging to it. This operation was re 
 peated again ; but bunny persistently refused to 
 be dislodged, and it became evident that other 
 measures would be required. So Johnnie ex 
 ecuted a final coup d etat. Plugging up the 
 open end of the log, he grasped the ax and be 
 gan chopping a hole directly over bunny s po 
 sition. It was a laborious undertaking, but after 
 a half-hour s work, the denuded and dying rab 
 bit was secured. True, from a culinary point of 
 view it was worthless, for the dirt and hair ad 
 hering to its skinless flesh could never be suc 
 cessfully removed ; but this circumstance did not 
 detract from Johnnie s exultation. Slinging it 
 over his shoulder by way of magnifying its 
 
 QQ 
 
 M 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 weight and lending dignity to the affair, he 
 proceeded manfully on the homeward march. 
 
 The way home was very long much longer, 
 apparently, than the tortuous trail which had 
 led him hither, and more hilly. The ax also 
 seemed to gain materially in weight, and was ex 
 tremely burdensome. When, after reaching 
 home, his mother sent him out to chop some stove 
 wood he could hardly wield the implement at all. 
 It took him half an hour to cut six small sticks, 
 and at the end of that time he was almost frozen. 
 He was convinced that such exposure to wintry 
 weather was injurious, and was not surprised to 
 discover that his throat was sore next morning. 
 
 Tracking rabbits was but one of many de 
 lights which winter rendered possible. Coast 
 ing, skating, and the building of snow men re 
 ceived due attention from Johnnie; but the ab 
 sence of proper playmates made such sports a 
 trifle monotonous at times. Snow-balling his 
 two unfailing companions, Pluto and Eph, was 
 not satisfactory. The latter responded too 
 vigorously, the former not at all. 
 
 In winter there was a notable unpleasantness 
 connected with doing the chores. Johnny could 
 94 
 
IN WINTER 
 
 never understand how the cows managed to sur 
 vive the winter. Certainly their chafed udders 
 were the coldest, clammiest things with which 
 he ever came in contact. He could not milk in 
 mittens, and as he coaxed forth the life-giving 
 fluid with blue, bare fingers he often wondered 
 why it did not appear as ice-cream. 
 
 Another decidedly rough task was that of 
 hauling in fodder. This had to be done daily 
 in cold weather, for the cattle s stomachs were 
 insatiable. A shock of fodder, which has stood 
 in the wind and rain all fall, and has been 
 crowned and crystallized by winter s snow and 
 ice, resembles adamant. To pull it apart and 
 load it upon a sled in arctic weather is a tedious 
 and trying operation. A succession of kicks 
 from heavy boot-heels loosens the "butts"; then 
 a long and a strong pull serves to separate a few 
 stalks; and these, when laid on the sled, though 
 never so carefully, are likely to be scattered far 
 and wide by the next gust of wind. 
 
 But the winter evenings were long and cheer 
 ful, and an afternoon spent in the bitter cold 
 rendered the tropical warmth of the fireplace 
 all the more comforting. The fireplace was the 
 95 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 sacred altar of the Winkle household, whose ves 
 tal fires were never permitted to languish. 
 After supper Mrs. Winkle always took tongs 
 and shovel and prepared a ruddy bed among 
 the coals for the new backlog, which Eph bore 
 in puffing and rolled into place with plaintive 
 groans. Then Mr. Winkle brought the fore- 
 stick, and some dry clapboards for kindling; 
 and after a few minutes of sullen smoldering 
 the flames leaped merrily aloft with the refrain 
 of a soaring lark. 
 
 Then it was that Johnnie, ensconced in his 
 own chair, with Pluto at his side, dreamed the 
 sweetest dreams and formed the fondest ties of 
 all his boyhood. The conversation of the fam 
 ily group was apt to be broken and desultory. 
 Sometimes Eph would regale them with extend 
 ed extracts from his remarkable biography, and 
 Johnnie would listen in wonder while his father 
 dozed. Occasionally Mr. Winkle would become 
 retrospective and relate anecdotes of his own 
 youth when the pasture field was a woodland 
 swarming with wolves; until Mrs. Winkle grew 
 tenderly reminiscent, and the two would go back 
 over the years hand in hand, with fond allusions 
 96 
 
IN WINTER 
 
 which Johnnie but dimly understood. But 
 oftener they all sat in peaceful silence, accentu 
 ated by the stea<dy tick of the clock, the creak 
 ing of his mother s rocking-chair, and the clink 
 of her busy knitting needles, and these were the 
 times which Johnnie recalled long afterward 
 as the happiest of all. Few, perhaps, are the 
 educational advantages of the rustic-born; but 
 every farmer boy learns early, and none ever 
 forgets, the truest, most hallowed meaning of 
 the word home. 
 
XII 
 
 CHRISTMAS 
 
 THROUGHOUT the greater part of the year 
 Johnnie took little note of the almanac. In a 
 vague way he knew that there were certain rules 
 between its green covers which controlled the 
 movements of the sun and moon, and he had 
 often seen Eph sagely consulting its pages when 
 forecasting the weather. Moreover he was 
 somewhat familiar with the distressful symboli 
 cal picture of the mutilated man, surrounded by 
 twins, scorpions and goats, which embellished 
 the first page ; but beyond this he seldom pene 
 trated. 
 
 As winter drew on, however, the book an 
 nually acquired a new interest for him, and 
 from Thanksgiving Day to Christmas he was 
 given to studying its calendar continually. In 
 fact, the first exhaustive use he ever made of his 
 limited knowledge of mathematics was in mak 
 ing repeated calculations as to just how many 
 98 
 
CHRISTMAS 
 
 days remained until Christmas, the number of 
 which he would carefully chalk down on the 
 casing of the mantel over the fireplace, as if he 
 were in danger of forgetting it. Johnnie was a 
 true and faithful believer in Christmas, and 
 reveled in its joyous anticipations. For many 
 weeks he dreamed of its wonders night and day. 
 He had already grown too old to believe the 
 legend of Santa Claus any more, and his scrupu 
 lous parents had taken pains to undeceive him 
 as to that time-honored myth. But really he 
 would have been very loath to believe them. 
 Upon this point, it is so much easier to retain 
 confidence in the idol-builder than in the icono 
 clast, had not his own sharp eyes taught him the 
 stern truth of their assertion. 
 
 One memorable Christmas Eve he had acci 
 dentally awakened at the critical hour, and had 
 discovered, with less than half an eye, that it 
 was his mother who was heaping things into his 
 gaping stockings. And so he no longer be 
 lieved in good old St. Nicholas, and yet, down 
 in his boyish heart, he could not quite become 
 disillusioned. It is so difficult to unlearn the 
 delightful delusions of childhood that it can 
 99 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 only be completely accomplished with the help 
 of dull, disenchanting years. 
 
 In the light of day Johnnie was practically 
 sure that no Santa Claus existed, but at night, 
 after he had said his prayer and crept into bed, 
 his fancy grew active, and he was inclined to re 
 consider the matter. Perhaps after all the old 
 
 , 9 r 
 
 tale was true ; perhaps his parents had only been 
 making believe that it was false. When he was 
 such a little boy that he wore dresses, he remem 
 bered, his mother would take him on her lap and 
 tell him the story of the children s saint. Then 
 she would relate that other wondrous tale of 
 the Christ-child born in a manger. This story 
 still held true, and why not the other? Across 
 his dreams came the tinkle of sleighbells and 
 the tread of reindeer hoofs once more, and over 
 his sleeping face hovered the childish smile of 
 infinite trust and faith. 
 
 Christmas Eve, when at last it really came, 
 was a time of glorious hopes and possibilities. 
 The chores were done with a will that night. 
 The horses and cattle received double their ac 
 customed feed, and the wood-box behind the 
 kitchen stove was piled mountain high with 
 100 
 
CHRISTMAS 
 
 1 
 
 wood. It was a time of general good cheer; 
 moreover Santa Claus, or some of his minions, 
 might be lurking near, and it was policy to let 
 one s virtues shine. After supper a round of 
 merriment was indulged in by the entire house 
 hold, ending in a royal game of blind man s 
 buff. Then came the happy ceremony of hang 
 ing up the stockings, and after that, the tedious, 
 almost impossible endeavor to get to sleep. 
 
 "Now go right to sleep, and Christmas will 
 be here before you can wink," Mrs. Winkle 
 would say encouragingly. So Johnnie would 
 close his eyes and begin to snore as soon as he 
 touched the bed. But Morpheus was not to be 
 won by shamming. Presently the eyes popped 
 open, and the snores ended in wakeful sighs. 
 Then every known expedient was tried by turns. 
 Johnnie endeavored to imagine that it was not 
 Christmas Eve at all, but the day after Christ 
 mas, or the night of the Fourth of July, and 
 that there was nothing whatever to look forward 
 to; but all to no avail. He sang to himself, 
 told himself stories, pounded on the bedstead, 
 and turned over and over and over until the 
 bed-clothes tumbled to the floor. Finally, in 
 101 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 the midst of a profound attempt to think of still 
 another alternative, he fell asleep. 
 
 At three in the morning he awoke with a 
 start, and immediately dressed and stole down 
 stairs. The night had already stretched into 
 arctic length, and he could endure the suspense 
 no longer. The fire was low in the fireplace, 
 and the room seemed a very den of uncanny 
 shadows. But through the gloom his distorted 
 stockings were faintly discernible, beckoning 
 him with irresistible allurings. He crept up to 
 them. Yes, they were filled to overflowing, and 
 upon a chair near by was a wonderful surplus 
 of mysterious packages. 
 
 Christmas morning dawned at last with its 
 unforgetable feasts and fun. No work was to 
 be done that day. Gaiety and good cheer were 
 the prevailing order. Even ordinary methods 
 of pastime were not to be thought of. Every 
 thing had to be unusual and splendid. Aunt 
 Mary and her family were there for dinner, and 
 Uncle Andrew came out from the city with his 
 pockets full of store candy and fire-crackers. 
 And what a glorious, deafening, sulphurous 
 pandemonium ensued! Dinner was a sumptu- 
 102 
 
CHRISTMAS 
 
 ous meal, but fraught with mockery for John 
 nie, already surfeited with sweetmeats. 
 
 How quickly it all passed ! The sun went 
 down shortly after dinner, and, just as Johnnie 
 felt himself nearing the zenith of earthly bliss, 
 lo, it was bedtime again. What multitudes of 
 childhood s chief delights have been interrupted 
 by that inevitable hour! Bedtime always comes 
 just at the most interesting stage and presto, 
 the game is ended. Even to the poor, gray- 
 headed child of four-score it is ever the same 
 the last late bedtime finds him weary and heavy- 
 eyed perhaps, but wakeful still and eager to 
 play just a little while longer. 
 
 To Johnnie it was all blotted out in a strange, 
 jumbled dream and a deep sleep. And on the 
 morrow the sky was overcast, a dismal, drizzling 
 rain was falling, and Christmas was a whole 
 long year off ! 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 103 
 

 XIII 
 
 THE PLOWMAN S WEARY WAY 
 
 THE flowers on the hillside unfold no more 
 gladly, no more trustfully, under the showers 
 and sunshine of April than does the heart of 
 boyhood. They are emblems of each other 
 youth and spring and there is a kinship be 
 tween them, an ancient kinship which it were 
 necessary to return to the May time of creation 
 to trace. 
 
 Springtime is ever generous and true to the 
 boy. To him she sends her earliest greetings; 
 to him her promises are most lavish, and to him 
 she keeps them, every one. Signs of the ap 
 proach of spring to which men are blind, tokens 
 which the poet perceives not, are revealed to 
 him. 
 
 What is the first unfailing harbinger of 
 
 spring? Not the fickle bluebird that comes 
 
 flashing down the fence, like an elusive bit of 
 
 summer sky, nor the rash, uncertain crocus, 
 
 104 
 
THE PLOWMAN S WEARY WAY 
 
 struggling beneath the snow. Poetic symbols 
 of spring they may be, but they prophesy noth 
 ing. 
 
 But the boy knows the old gray mare is in 
 spired. One crisp morning he gallops her, 
 bareback, up from the pasture and, on dis 
 mounting, finds his trousers leg thickly frosted 
 with her silver hair. 
 
 There is not a bird in sight, the landscape is 
 dull and barren, but he has visible proof that 
 spring is near. 
 
 Do not imagine that nature denies him her 
 more subtile auguries, however. On the con 
 trary, it is to the boy that the sunbeams bear 
 their earliest messages, and the south wind seeks 
 him first of all. The twitter of the pioneer 
 robin is caught by his ear, and he notes the first 
 faint "quank" of the flock of wild geese, pur 
 suing its northward course across the unknown 
 ocean of the upper air. 
 
 When at last spring comes creeping up the 
 valley, the boy goes forth to meet her, and his 
 heart leaps in unison with the glad pulses of 
 universal life. 
 
 He is an artist beyond all bounds of art; a 
 105 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 poet above the trammel of words; and, being 
 such, he is content to gaze upon the landscape 
 without analyzing it, and is satisfied with the 
 perfume of the commonest flower. It is not 
 simply the glimmer of reflected sunshine that 
 delights him, not the mere external beauty of 
 the fields and the balm of the gentle weather. 
 
 These are but harmonious incidents to the 
 boy, for he communes with the vernal spirit of 
 the season, he knows the true inner essence 
 that wondrous beauty of the heart of things, 
 and he becomes an integral part of the land 
 scape, blooming with the flowers, whistling with 
 the birds, and exulting with all nature. And 
 all the while he is as unconscious of this rela- 
 
 ,f 
 
 tionship, as spontaneous and irresponsible, as 
 are the birds. 
 
 He finds a thrush s nest and robs it ruthlessly, 
 while the thrush is away preying upon insect 
 life. He tosses a careless clod at a chattering 
 jay, which, in turn, proceeds to chase a flock of 
 inoffensive sparrows out of the woods. 
 
 Perhaps this very wantonness of boy and bird 
 is the secret of their exultation and enchant 
 ment. 
 
 106 
 
THE PLOWMAN S WEARY WAY 
 
 Yet, while leaf and blossom arc but inci 
 dents of the season to the boy, he is the keenest 
 of observers, and no detail escapes him. He 
 is a naturalist, and a pantheist. The billowy 
 verdure of the meadow impresses him, but no 
 more than the vast minutiae of under-life be 
 neath it. 
 
 Parting the grass, he becomes a gigantic 
 member of the colony of ants, a fellow of the 
 order of the grasshoppers, and a companion to 
 the beetle and the snail. Entering the cloister 
 of the forest, he is straightway a primeval druid. 
 
 He comes close to each phase of sylvan ex 
 istence, climbing deftly to the upper haunts of 
 birds and squirrels, and scraping beneath the 
 leaves to find the hidden abode of grubs and 
 "doodle-bugs." The caterpillar and the slug 
 on the mossy side of tree-trunks and the busy 
 spider, oscillating between two worlds, are fa 
 miliar to him. 
 
 Wherever the boy goes he finds adequate ex 
 pression of the season s gladness. Even the 
 domestic denizens of the barnyard are found as 
 vociferous in their joy as their cousins in the 
 field. All day long the turkey-cock struts and 
 107 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 gobbles in a passion of proud delight, throwing 
 back a bubbling, half-challenging salute to 
 every sound he hears, and, when all else fails, 
 replying to his own ridiculous echo in jeer after 
 jeer. 
 
 More sedate and sentimental, the chickens go 
 ambling here and there with meditative cluck- 
 ings and croonings, and occasional outbursts of 
 wonder at the warmth of the sun and the plump 
 ness of worms. The male of their tribe fre 
 quently lifts his voice in applause, and is in 
 clined to all manner of levity, shocking the 
 nervous hens into hysterics by announcing 
 make-believe hawks, and creating general dis 
 gust by calling them all to a great feast and 
 then laughingly eating every morsel himself. 
 
 The boy sees it all, and recognizes kindred 
 spirits beneath down and feathers, and nature 
 back of all. 
 
 It is only after spring has waxed into sum 
 mer, and youth has waned into manhood, that 
 the boy, having become a reflective being, and 
 having lost that sixth sense of insight, becomes 
 impressed unduly with the outward charm of 
 things. Remembering the bygone happiness of 
 108 
 
THE PLOWMAN S WEARY WAY 
 
 spring and recalling its sweet symbols, he is apt 
 to attribute the one to the other, knowing not, 
 in the ignorance of maturity, that it was po 
 tential joy which brought forth bloom and 
 song, and not they which caused the joy. 
 
 Johnnie had reached the mature age of thir 
 teen when it was decided that instead of attend 
 ing school during the spring, he must make a 
 hand on the farm. It was one of the most joy 
 ful epochs in his life, and, in his memory, stood 
 ever next to that proud day on which he donned 
 his first pair of trousers. 
 
 As soon as the delightful decree had been 
 pronounced, he stole out to the barn and se 
 cretly practised holding the plow-handles, which 
 came almost to his armpits. The implement 
 was jerked about manfully, while he urged his 
 imaginary horses forward, swearing a little un 
 der his breath and expectorating between his 
 teeth after the manner of the Hired Hand. 
 This rehearsal he repeated daily until the sea 
 son opened and plow-time was at hand. 
 
 What a glorious spring it was! Almost as 
 far back as he could remember heretofore he 
 had been compelled to start to school just as 
 109 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 wild flowers and birds nests were beginning to 
 be seductively interesting. But that season he 
 was free. Every morning he was the first one 
 astir about the place, and there was an over 
 flowing, liquid delight in his whistle that made 
 the brown thrush pause and listen. 
 
 The eventful day came at last. Johnnie was 
 to perform a man s work. With dignified 
 tread he followed his plow into the new ground, 
 thick with stumps, where his mettle was to be 
 tested. It was severe and exasperating labor. 
 The horses were stubborn, and the unwieldy 
 plow was forever becoming entangled in the un 
 derground network of roots. At night Johnnie 
 retired footsore and weary, and yet by no means 
 disheartened or even disillusioned. 
 
 There was a wondrous, unforgetable charm 
 for him in these first brief days of plow-time. 
 The subtile odor of opening flowers and fresh 
 foliage mingled with the mellow aroma of up 
 turned sod and the spicy incense of burning 
 stumps and logs. Every cool breeze from the 
 adjacent woods brought a multitude of merry 
 songs and chirpings, while the eye was greeted 
 
 no 
 
/ 
 
 WA* 
 ** ; 
 
THE PLOWMAN S WEARY WAY 
 
 on every hand by those delicate, velvety tints 
 of green, of yellow, red, and blue, which belong 
 only to the springtime. 
 
 In the midst of this bower of beauty walked 
 Johnnie, doing a man s work. Perhaps after 
 all it was the tremendous importance of this 
 task as much as the charm of his surroundings 
 which made him in love with the whole world. 
 
 When the full-blown summer came, however, 
 it found him growing weary and restless, though 
 he would not confess the fact, even to himself. 
 Inwardly, almost unconsciously, he wished he 
 could retire to his comfortable place at school 
 for a while. 
 
 The sun had grown relentlessly hot, and the 
 birds had gone so deep into the forest that their 
 sleepy twittering was but barely audible. All 
 the more dainty, modest flowers had shed their 
 petals and succumbed to a host of coarse weeds, 
 while lurking thorns and brambles lay every 
 where in waiting to vex bare feet. 
 
 In the space of six weeks the corn had climbed 
 up to Johnnie s shoulders, and through the long, 
 lonely afternoons, as he followed the plow back 
 
 111 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 and forth across the field, like a huge monoto 
 nous shuttle, weaving a vast woof of green and 
 black, his courage and industry faltered sadly. 
 
 There was little rest to be found within the 
 confines of the corn-field. As often as he halted 
 his team and mounted the fence for a breathing 
 spell, a swarm of flies and mosquitoes hovered 
 round him, while a choir of tiny gnats sang a 
 shrill falsetto in his ears. 
 
 The rainy day now came to be Johnnie s one 
 great hope and consolation, and he kept an ever 
 watchful eye on the weather. A cloud no 
 bigger than his hand was greeted with satisfac 
 tion, and the rumble of distant thunder was 
 music to him. And when a shower came slant 
 ing across the landscape, with what astonishing 
 alacrity did he unhitch his horses and gallop to 
 the barn. 
 
 There was no comfort in after-life to be 
 compared to that which was his as he lolled in 
 the mow and listened to the clatter of the rain 
 on the clapboard roof above and the restful 
 munching of the horses eating hay below. 
 
 "This here s a reg lar ol sockdolager!" ob 
 served Eph approvingly. 
 
THE PLOWMAN S WEARY WAY 
 
 "It ll make it too wet to plow, won t it?" 
 asked Johnnie. 
 
 "Well, I should reckon," was the gratifying 
 response. "Doubt if we don t git to plow no 
 more this week." 
 
 Johnnie s eyes shone gleefully at this, and 
 he involuntarily brought forth a tangle of fish- 
 lines from his pocket. But just then the rain, 
 after a cruelly reassuring dash, suddenly 
 ceased. Johnnie hastened out. He scratched 
 into the earth with his toes and found dust at 
 the depth of an inch! 
 
 The rainbow in the east was anything but a 
 symbol of hope to him. The western sky was 
 clearing, and with redoubled intensity the hot 
 sun poured its rays upon the humid earth. 
 
 "Hurry back to the field, boys," called Mr. 
 Winkle from the house; "this shower ll start 
 the weeds agin." 
 
 At such a time the corn-field presented all 
 the essentials of a Turkish bath. As Johnnie 
 walked between the rows of corn, every blade 
 of every stalk emptied a stream of warm water 
 down his back, while the moist ground exhaled 
 a palpable and penetrating steam. 
 113 
 

 , 
 
 JOHNNIE 
 
 Sometimes it rained constantly for days to 
 gether. Then was Johnnie thoroughly reju 
 venated once more. He did not dread getting 
 wet, when in pursuit of pleasure. In fact he 
 seemed to revel and luxuriate in the rain, and, 
 with trousers rolled high above his knees, dab 
 bled up and down the creek like a young 
 ichthyosaurus. 
 
 Continued wet spells were rare, however, long 
 and withering droughts being much more fre 
 quent ; and thus the summer days dragged on in 
 tedious repetition, and the seasons came and 
 went. 
 
 But even in the drudgery of plowing corn 
 Johnnie was not entirely deserted by his dreams. 
 Often fair visions wavered in the air about him, 
 and in his ears there seemed to sound far strains 
 of mystic music. Low down on the eastern 
 horizon he noticed a dusky cloud of smoke which 
 marked the site of the distant city. 
 
 As the years went by, this metropolitan spec 
 ter acquired a fascination for Johnnie. Day 
 after day he gazed at it dreamily as it drifted 
 along, and every new fantastic shape it assumed 
 seemed to beckon to him across the fields. An 
 114 
 
THE PLOWMAN S WEARY WAY 
 
 indefinable longing came over him, and, out of 
 the immaterial smoke, his fancy built strange 
 and wonderful air-castles. 
 
 Slowly the simple country life was losing its 
 charm for him. The little world into which he 
 had been born was growing too narrow to live 
 in. He wondered how his father and his neigh 
 bors had borne such a barren existence. And 
 slowly but surely, the half -formed wish be 
 came a fixed resolve. He would some day go to 
 the city. 
 
 115 
 
XIV 
 
 BUDDING 
 
 WHILE Johnnie s material world contracted, 
 his intellectual outlook grew somewhat wider. 
 As the hedge of forest which formed his hor 
 izon drew nearer, the mystery beyond it grew 
 less dense. And yet, as things once strange 
 became familiar, new wonders, undreamed of, 
 came into view. Physically, spiritually, senti 
 mentally Johnny was changing, was develop 
 ing; yet this evolution was imperceptibly slow. 
 
 Each morning the same lad appeared at the 
 Winkle breakfast table that had eaten supper 
 there the night before; but each Christmas a 
 bigger boy hung up his stocking, and every 
 May-day greeted a comparative stranger. 
 
 Among the new and peculiar physical traits 
 that his fourteenth summer brought him was a 
 notable and ungainly lankness. His limbs ap 
 proached the length and ungraceful contour of 
 an anthropoid ape s, and came un jointed. 
 116 
 
BUDDING 
 
 Similarly strange mental characteristics were 
 evinced. He became excessively shy and self- 
 conscious, blushing more readily than of yore. 
 
 In fact Johnnie had reached that incongru 
 ous stage of youth of which the nonsensical 
 term hobbledehoy is our only fitting appella 
 tion. Though still a boy, he was no longer a 
 child; though approaching manhood, he was 
 yet far from manhood s estate. 
 
 There is no way to describe and no way to 
 account for the boy between the ages of twelve 
 and sixteen. He is an anomaly an inconsist 
 ent, illogical, indeterminate, improper fraction, 
 with a variable numerator and an unknown de 
 nominator. No one understands him, and 
 least of all does he understand himself. 
 
 When the girl arrives at womanhood s 
 threshold, she simply does up her hair, length 
 ens her skirts, and trips gracefully in. But 
 the boy is made to linger at manhood s door, 
 awkwardly shifting his feet, for an indefinite 
 period. 
 
 Among the legion of unstable, quixotic quali 
 ties which go to make up the hobbledehoy, there 
 is one nearly constant and always significant. 
 117 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 This is his novel and reverential admiration for 
 womankind. Heretofore Johnnie had formed 
 certain boyish attachments for particular girls, 
 usually greatly his seniors, but, for the sex in 
 general, he had a supreme contempt. 
 
 Girls, as he had observed them, were weak and 
 cowardly and inclined to be goody-goodies and 
 tattle-tales. But now, by some strange miracle, 
 the scales had dropped from his eyes, and, 
 whichever way he turned, he seemed to find new 
 phases of feminine beauty. Maidens with whom 
 he had played and quarreled all his life began 
 to wear halos. Freckled faces shone with lily- 
 whiteness, snub noses assumed graceful outlines, 
 and brown eyes and blue were alike beautiful 
 and bright. 
 
 Perhaps this transformation was not alto 
 gether fancied no doubt the girl-buds of his 
 own age were beginning to unfold a little pre 
 tentious color here and there; but chiefly it was 
 a subjective illusion, and in its effects it was 
 purely, nay, painfully such. 
 
 Johnnie s very meditations grew altered. 
 Plans for the remote future were relinquished in 
 favor of more immediate accomplishments. He 
 118 
 
BUDDING 
 
 became concerned not so much with what he 
 should do when he became a man as what he 
 should do next week. Such trivial, temporal 
 matters as dress commanded his attention, and 
 he took to washing his face and hands volunta 
 rily. On Sunday afternoons he went no more into 
 the depths of the forest, but lolled listlessly at its 
 verge. 
 
 Gradually his day-dreams accustomed them 
 selves largely to the sweet theme of love, and 
 out of odd fragments of experience and fancy 
 an ideal of feminine loveliness was formed in 
 his breast. 
 
 Johnnie was altogether unconscious of this 
 creative process, and scarcely recognized the 
 import of his brooding. But, with the length 
 ening of his legs and arms, with the expand 
 ing of his mentality and the augmentation of 
 his awkwardness, the ideal grew. 
 
 When one day fate if fate may be truly 
 said to interest herself with such affairs 
 brought the dreamy boy into contact with Miss 
 Mabel Meadows, the queenly twelve-year-old 
 daughter of the new neighbor who had pur 
 chased the Shanks place, straightway the sub- 
 119 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 tile, shadowy ideal became a living, palpitating 
 reality. 
 
 It happened in a properly romantic way. 
 Johnnie was roving through the woods knight- 
 errantly in search of adventure and his father s 
 cows, when he was startled to hear a sudden cry 
 of alarm near at hand. Parting the hazel 
 brush, he beheld a very pale, very young lady, 
 apparently paralyzed with fear, and a very 
 small garter-snake in a similar state, staring 
 fixedly at each other. 
 
 Johnnie did not know the girl, and hesitated 
 to announce himself without having had an in 
 troduction; but the snake presently started to 
 wriggle away, and it was against the vows of 
 his order to permit a snake to escape. So he 
 charged gallantly through the brush, and in 
 another moment was holding the squirming rep 
 tile at arm s length by the tail. 
 
 "Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!" shrieked the young lady. 
 
 "What are you fraid of?" asked Johnnie, 
 grinning. "Think it s pizen?" 
 
 "Oh, the horrid thing !" cried she. 
 
 "Just watch me settle its hash," said Johnnie 
 fearlessly; and amid renewed screams on the 
 120 
 
BUDDING 
 
 girl s part, he proceeded to lash the hapless 
 serpent against a tree. 
 
 "Now I guess it won t scare no more girls," 
 he remarked, tossing it to the ground. 
 
 But the girl had begun to sob piteously, and 
 this disturbed Johnnie. He stared at her a few 
 moments and then observed doubtfully : 
 
 "It wasn t a pet snake, was it?" 
 
 "O dear, no," she murmured. "It was wild, 
 and was goin to bite me if if you hadn t 
 come." 
 
 Johnnie could not restrain a smile of derision. 
 
 "Aw, it wouldn t bite a flea," said he. "It 
 ain t that kind. Say, I m goin to turn it on 
 its back, so it ll rain. If you leave a snake on 
 its its stomick it won t rain at all." 
 
 "What kind is it?" asked the girl, coming 
 nearer. 
 
 "Oh, it s a common enough kind," he an 
 swered evasively. He did not like to tell her its 
 rather indelicate name. 
 
 "Yes, but what kind?" she persisted. 
 
 "Aw, what you hold your stockin s up with," 
 he stammered, blushing violently. 
 
 "Oh," said she. Then there was an awkward 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 silence, during which the girl glanced shyly at 
 Johnnie, and Johnnie gazed at the dead snake. 
 
 "What s your name?" she asked presently, 
 toying with her apron. 
 
 "John Winkle," said he sheepishly. "What s 
 yours ?" 
 
 "My name is Mabel Mabel Meadows," she 
 responded. 
 
 Another pause ensued, and the girl carefully 
 adjusted her bonnet. 
 
 Then, "Good by, John," she exclaimed, turn 
 ing upon him with a sudden radiant smile ; and, 
 with fairy-like lightness and grace, she drifted 
 away. 
 
 "Good by, Mabel," answered Johnnie hoarse 
 ly, when he had recovered his voice. But she 
 was gone. 
 
 A soft golden gleam illumined the woods, and 
 a vernal odor, as of fresh-blown violets, per 
 meated the air. A dove in a distant treetop 
 nodded approvingly and gave voice to the ten 
 der sentiments welling up in the heart of all 
 nature in mellifluous coo after coo. And, al 
 though Johnnie seemed oblivious of these cir 
 cumstances now, many a time afterward he re- 
 
BUDDING 
 
 called every detail with distinctness. For 
 months to come he never heard the moaning of 
 a dove, nor killed a snake, without thinking of 
 the day he first met Mabel. 
 
 How long he lingered on this hallowed spot 
 he knew not; but at length he roused from the 
 reverie, and, taking up the snake as a memento 
 of the occasion, started home. He was still so 
 absorbed in thought that the cows were forgot 
 ten, and it was not until he entered the barnyard 
 bearing his reptilian treasure that his wits re 
 turned. 
 
 Henceforth Mabel Meadows was the angel of 
 Johnnie s dreams. He remembered her in his 
 prayers and thought of her whenever tempted 
 to rob a bird s nest or to swear. 
 
 It is an instinct of the hobbledehoy to conceal 
 his ardent passion religiously. He will allow it 
 to eat his heart, will suffer upon the rack, and 
 not reveal it. And the principal cause of this 
 secretiveness is not really the sacred nature of 
 his love, nor a tendency to be selfish, but the 
 haunting fear of being made fun of. 
 
 A boy would rather be lashed with a cat-o - 
 nine-tails than be laughed at. 
 123 
 

 JOHNNIE 
 
 No murderer ever guarded his crime more 
 scrupulously than did Johnnie conceal his love. 
 He mentioned Mabel s name to no one, and did 
 not even permit himself to think of her except 
 when alone. 
 
 One day when Mr. Meadows came to see his 
 father, Johnnie ran and hid for fear his secret 
 might in some way be discovered, afterwards 
 asking Eph who the visitor was, as if he had no 
 idea. 
 
 When school opened that fall Johnnie started 
 in a fever of expectancy. All the way he argued 
 with himself pro and con, as to whether Mabel 
 would be likely to be there, and formulated a 
 careful schedule of what his behavior should be 
 in either case. How his heart thumped as he 
 drew near and beheld her standing alone on the 
 stile! 
 
 But a group of boys sat on the fence not far 
 away, and, banishing all former plans, Johnnie 
 suddenly resolved not to know her. That 
 seemed to be the only outlet of escape from his 
 mates ridicule. 
 
BUDDING 
 
 Assuming an air of easy carelessness, he saun 
 tered on. 
 
 "Howd y, John," whispered the girl as he 
 brushed past her. 
 
 Johnnie s face flushed, and his heart beat so 
 loudly that he had no doubt she heard it, but 
 he offered no sign of recognition. 
 
 This apparently unprovoked slight cut Mabel 
 to the quick. Yet, if she had only known it, 
 Johnnie was wounded much more seriously than 
 she. 
 
 "If she but knew " he whispered to himself 
 week after week. But he could no more tell her 
 than if he had been born dumb. 
 
 125 
 
XV 
 
 THE BANE OF BASHFULNESS 
 
 OF all the phenomena of boyhood, perhaps, 
 the state of being bashful is the most ridiculous 
 and, subjectively, the most rueful. It is the 
 fate of most boys to pass through a more or less 
 prolonged period of bashfulness ; but, like the 
 measles and mumps, it is an affliction which 
 varies greatly in different individuals. It is 
 probable that in extreme cases it has suppressed 
 and ruined what might have been brilliant 
 careers ; that Miltons have been rendered for 
 ever mute and inglorious by its bane. 
 
 Now and then a boy is found whose bashful- 
 ness is so pronounced that his freckles stand out 
 on a facial background of continuous blushes, 
 like flecks of rust on a red apple ; and his eyes, 
 which really have less cause to be downcast than 
 the optics of any of his elders, are constantly 
 averted, so that their color is a matter of con 
 jecture. 
 
THE BANE OF BASHFULNESS 
 
 ~ 
 Such a boy is simply a ruddy, palpitating 
 
 bundle of mortification. He is never at ease, 
 never his natural self, save when alone. He is 
 always making ludicrous blunders, and is always 
 painfully aware of them. The knowledge that 
 he is bashful tortures him ; and this self-con 
 sciousness in turn serves to render his bashful- 
 ness more intense. Wherever he goes he is a self- 
 imposed martyr, refraining from activity for 
 fear of attracting notice, his studied efforts to 
 keep in the background all the while making 
 him conspicuous. 
 
 Johnnie Winkle, who had been at different 
 periods a good boy, a cute boy, a pert boy, a 
 mischievous and sometimes a bad boy, became 
 known far and wide as a bashful boy. He was 
 confessedly afraid of girls. Other boys whom 
 he could outrun, out jump, spell down, and 
 thrash, easily surpassed him in grace and gal 
 lantry. Every recess friends and enemies of his 
 joined the girls in gay games of forfeit and 
 Rowser without embarrassment. Yet he could 
 not even address a coherent remark to a girl. It 
 was a lamentable, woeful weakness to a boy of 
 Johnnie s spirits. He lay awake of nights heap- 
 127 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 ing imprecations upon it, and resolved to do all 
 sorts of dreadful things. 
 
 What especially tortured him was the sorry 
 figure he continued to cut in Mabel Meadows 
 eyes. From the fateful day on which he had 
 deliberately insulted her by refusing to ac 
 knowledge her acquaintance, she had quite prop 
 erly ignored his existence. Moreover, of late she 
 had become great friends with Reddy. Johnnie 
 had licked Reddy and could do it again any 
 day; but in social matters the tables were 
 turned. Reddy, alias Jimmy Jenks, when he 
 reached the age at which he ought to have been 
 bashful, had become more forward and pig 
 gishly presumptuous than ever. 
 
 Altogether the unfortunate state of affairs 
 humiliated Johnnie to the verge of desperation. 
 Jealousy of one whom he had always held in the 
 utmost contempt was added to his pangs. 
 
 In the course of time a party was announced 
 at Mabel s, and Johnnie was invited. With a 
 solemn oath he declared his intention to go. 
 Not only would he attend the party, but he 
 would take active part in the games, and be a 
 man, so help him! It had come to this. He 
 128 
 
THE BANE OF BASHFULNESS 
 
 must either do or die or both. The eventful 
 night was not slow in coming; in fact, it came 
 with a swiftness that was terrifying. But John 
 nie remained firm. Early in the evening he 
 dressed and sallied forth. 
 
 He approached the house stealthily from the 
 rear with scarcely a tremor. He knew he would 
 not go in, for it was hours too early yet. Seat 
 ing himself on the fence he fondly watched the 
 house, which held his beloved, fade away in the 
 dusk. 
 
 At length, lights began to shine at windows, 
 and he heard voices in the yard. Growing pan 
 icky he slipped down and crept back into the 
 woods. There a fierce battle was waged in his 
 breast. Pride kept saying over and over, "I 
 will go in" ; but as soon as he reached the fence 
 again timidity would make a sudden charge and 
 say firmly, "I won t go in." 
 
 After repeated routs, rallies, and flank move 
 ments, however, pride won the day or rather, 
 the night and Johnnie found himself at the 
 party. 
 
 He marched in boldly and flung himself into 
 the thick of the merriment, laughing and chat- 
 129 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 tering until some were made to believe that he 
 was having a good time. But, alas, it was only 
 by sheer force of will that he assumed to be at 
 ease, and the feeling grew upon him that he 
 was talking stupidly, laughing idiotically, and 
 acting the fool. 
 
 The strain was too great, and in the midst of 
 it all Johnnie broke down. The tide of bashful- 
 ness came surging back upon him, sweeping him 
 off his feet. He dropped out of the game, mur 
 mured something about going home, and began 
 peeping about under sofas and chairs in an aim 
 less way until Mabel asked: "Why, what is the 
 matter, John?" 
 
 "Oh, I was just looking round," he replied 
 carelessly. "I wonder where my hat is." 
 
 "It s on the rack in the hall, isn t it?" sug 
 gested Mabel. Then she ran and got it. "Must 
 you really go?" she asked anxiously. 
 
 Johnnie would not hurt her feelings for the 
 world. 
 
 "Oh, no ; I guess I ll wait a while yet," he an 
 swered obligingly. "I just wanted my hat," 
 and he laughed vacantly. 
 
 " Fraid somebody d steal it?" suggested 
 130 
 
THE BANE OF BASHFULNESS 
 
 Rcddy, elbowing by with a smirk; and Johnnie 
 was too shamed even to resent his rival s inso 
 lence. 
 
 For the rest of the evening he stood around 
 engaged in clinging to his hat and blushing. 
 He would have gone home he would rather 
 have gone home than to heaven but one in 
 surmountable obstacle lay in his way. Etiquette, 
 that constant plague of bashful boyhood, re 
 quired that he should thank his hostess for the 
 pleasures of the evening before departing; and 
 this he could not do. 
 
 So he lingered on, like the boy on the burn 
 ing deck, and in much the same state of mind, 
 until "all but him had fled." 
 
 As the others spoke their polite farewells, he 
 had listened intently to each formula, and he de 
 cided that he would say: 
 
 "I assure you, Miss Mabel, I have had a de 
 lightful time." 
 
 Drawing himself up in line at last he began : 
 "I have had an assuring time I mean I m de 
 lightful, Miss Mabel," he stammered, gazing 
 yearningly at the door-knob. 
 
 "Thank you," said Mabel, courteously. 
 131 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 "Oh, not at all, I m sure," rejoined Johnnie 
 affably, grinding his teeth ; then : "Well, I guess 
 I d better be going." 
 
 "Really?" smiled Mabel. 
 
 "I think I d better; it s getting late." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 He had reached the door and, having ex 
 hausted all his powers of conversation, was star 
 ing awkwardly at the floor when he heard Red- 
 dy s well-known voice at a window. 
 
 "Aw, come off!" it exclaimed, derisively; and 
 with murder in his heart Johnnie rushed wildly 
 out. 
 
 This was all very amusing, or harrowing, ac 
 cording to the point of view. To the malicious 
 Reddy it was funny; to Johnnie it was simply 
 calamitous. Not being a natural fool he realized 
 his folly, and indeed magnified it to terrible 
 dimensions. 
 
 All the way home in fancy he could hear Ma 
 bel and Reddy making merry together over his 
 stupidity, till the very welkin rang with their 
 mockful laugh. With every step he muttered 
 an evil, "Dog-gone it ; dog-gone it." There were 
 no stars in the sky, no dew was on the grass 
 
THE BANE OF BASHFULNESS 
 
 the world was an immense mass of darkness 
 whirling through a universe of gloomy, gray 
 mist ; and life was the emptiest of idle dreams. 
 
 Sadly he stole up to his bedchamber his 
 cheerless bedchamber, from which he had gone 
 forth so full of hope, of vaunting pride and 
 fond ambition a few brief hours before. Sadly 
 he tumbled into bed, and with his last waking 
 breath sighed soulfully again, "Dog-gone it." 
 
 Johnnie resolved never to venture upon the 
 social sea again. Never would he expose him 
 self to the taunts of his inferiors and the ridicule 
 of dear Mabel any more. Evidently nature had 
 not fitted him to shine in company. And what 
 was the use of opposing nature s unalterable 
 
 planS? |i*L 
 
 His lot was to be that of the recluse. So be 
 
 it. He would retire meekly to the lonely depths 
 of the forest and become a hermit, living sparse 
 ly and broken-heartedly upon nuts and herbs. 
 Man he would shun, and the face of woman 
 he would never look upon again. The four- 
 footed and feathered folk of the woods should be 
 his only friends. 
 
 He planned how he would build himself a 
 133 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 nest in the top of a giant oak, where the winds 
 would rock him to sleep, while the silent stars 
 watched above him, and the wretched world un 
 wept sank out of sight. 
 
 Day after day he would awaken ere the sun, 
 and, descending from his high abode, gather his 
 scant supply of food with the squirrels, to scam 
 per aloft again before sluggard humanity 
 stirred. 
 
 If, at any time, his serenity should be dis 
 turbed by a human presence, if some girl as 
 Mabel, for instance should chance to stray 
 within the boundaries of his realm, how haught 
 ily he would stare down at her through the fo 
 liage ! And if she should happen to lift her eyes 
 and see him as he swung airily from bough to 
 bough, if a look of anguished longing should 
 overspread her face, if she should break forth 
 in remorseful lamentations and beg him to come 
 back, come back to her well, his voice would 
 tremble, maybe, and his eyes might grow misty ; 
 but he w r ould answer her calmly, tenderly but 
 firmly : "It is too late, Mabel ; alas, too late." 
 
 Johnnie, furthermore, decided as to how he 
 would dispose of Reddy if he ever came across 
 134 
 
THE BANE OF BASHFULNESS 
 
 his path ; and the foreordained treatment of that 
 worthy, while less poetical, was fully as gratify 
 ing as his imaginary interview with Mabel. 
 

 1 i d 4w 
 
 . I xY^v 
 
 THE RALLY 
 
 IT was on a Saturday afternoon late in Oc 
 tober that Johnnie went into the woods in a half- 
 fanciful search for his destined lone retreat. 
 Whether under guidance of his dreaming con 
 sciousness, or directed by the unerring hand of 
 fate, it happened that his steps led him to the 
 very spot where he and Mabel had met some 
 months before. 
 
 He was not slow to recognize his surround 
 ings, and, racked by contending emotions, he 
 threw himself on the ground to meditate. Re 
 clining listlessly on his elbow, he gazed about. 
 Here was where the snake had been; over there 
 was where Mabel had stood. The screen of ha 
 zel through which he had peered still inclosed 
 the cherished nook. The same trees arched 
 above, the same grass formed its carpet. 
 
 And yet nothing was the same after all. Al 
 ready time s most ruthless token, the yellow 
 136 
 
THE RALLY 
 
 blight of autumn, was becoming visible every 
 where. Bleak winds came and went mournfully 
 through the tree-tops, filling the forest with the 
 clatter of descending nuts and the flutter of fall 
 ing leaves, and the grass was harsh and with 
 ered, retaining scarcely more of its former color 
 than the flecks of sodden sky above. 
 
 To Johnnie this universal fading of things 
 seemed most fitting, and his own breast heaved 
 with sighs with every moan of the forest. He 
 was, indeed, the very embodiment of the au 
 tumnal spirit. 
 
 The morbid melancholy of boyhood is a pain 
 ful thing. The height of sentimental spiritual 
 ity, to which lovelorn youth oftentimes ascends, 
 would be sublime, were it not so ridiculous. 
 
 In the midst of his maunderings Johnnie be 
 came aware of a presence, and, starting up in 
 confusion, whom should he behold but the fair 
 Mabel herself, standing with downcast eyes and 
 folded hands before him ! 
 
 "Howd y, John," she said, demurely stepping 
 forward. 
 
 "Howd y," gasped Johnnie, with pallid face 
 and averted eyes. 
 
 137 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 "What you doing? Hunting snakes?" asked 
 Mabel, after waiting a moment for him to say 
 something. 
 
 "No p," responded Johnnie glumly, edging 
 away. Then a thought struck him. 
 
 "Only red-headed ones," he added with terse 
 meaning. 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "You re awful innocent." 
 
 "Honest, I don t understand you." 
 
 "Who was you looking for, then?" accus 
 ingly. 
 
 "Me?" 
 
 "Yes, you." 
 
 "I wasn t looking for anybody particular," 
 with blushes. 
 
 "Whereabouts is Reddy?" and Johnnie faced 
 her sternly. 
 
 "I don t know, and I don t care." 
 
 "Yes, you don t " very sarcastically. 
 
 "That red-headed thing !" with great disdain. 
 
 "You like him, don t you?" this somewhat 
 softly. 
 
 Mabel replied with a decisiveness which made 
 Johnnie s heart bound, "No, I don t!" 
 138 
 
THE RALLY 
 
 During the silence that followed Johnnie 
 picked up a stick and began poking into the 
 ground thoughtfully. 
 
 "I hate him!" exclaimed Mabel vehemently. 
 
 "So do I," responded Johnnie, with feeling. 
 
 "Say," began Mabel after another pause. 
 
 "Say what?" 
 
 "I m not going to have a thing to do with 
 him any more." 
 
 "I wouldn t either," said Johnnie sympathet 
 ically. 
 
 Then Mabel drew shyly nearer, and Johnnie 
 stood his ground, though his brain was reeling. 
 
 "I I like you the best," she whispered, 
 
 glancing up at him. 
 
 A visible thrill passed over Johnnie from 
 head to foot, and he was stricken speechless. He 
 wanted to answer her fittingly, he wanted to 
 caress her, he wanted to turn a glad flip-flop 
 on the grass; but he could only stand there 
 and poke the stick furiously into the ground. 
 
 "This is the same place where we first met," 
 began Mabel again presently. "I have thought 
 of it so often. You can t guess how I happened 
 to come here to-day, John." She paused, 
 139 
 
"I saw you and followed you." 
 
 Ml 
 
 JOHNNIE 
 
 No p," said he. 
 I saw you and f 
 
 Johnnie s brain reeled again. Was this a de 
 ceitful dream ? 
 
 Was he sleeping, and would he presently 
 awake? Was the wind still sobbing, and were 
 the dead leaves falling? No, surely it was sum 
 mer time again. 
 
 "I m glad," he murmured dreamily at length, 
 speaking the truth that was uppermost in his 
 heart. 
 
 Mabel looked up and laughed; then a shade 
 of vexation came into her face. 
 
 "But why do you snub me at school, John?" 
 she asked earnestly. 
 
 "Because Oh, just because," said he in con 
 fusion again. 
 
 "Do you like me?" 
 
 "Yes awful," then, drawing himself to 
 gether with sudden force, "I m fraid of the 
 teacher." 
 
 The conversation became less personal at 
 length, but to Johnnie no less interesting. 
 Nothing she could say lacked interest. 
 
 140 
 
THE RALLY 
 
 Finally the lateness of the afternoon forced 
 them to part. 
 
 "Don t you ever tell about this," warned 
 Johnnie, as he started away ; and again when 
 he had gone a little distance he stopped, and 
 turning round repeated, "Don t you ever tell !" 
 
 And the joyous little bird-voice echoed back 
 sweetly, "I won t, John," and, tenderly, "Good 
 by!" 
 
 When Johnnie reached home that evening he 
 seemed so profoundly happy that his mother 
 cross-examined him closely, fearing he had been 
 into mischief. He became suspiciously embar 
 rassed, too, under her questions; but all she 
 could get out of him was that he had been in the 
 woods. 
 
 The fiercest inquisition of old could never 
 have extorted from Johnnie the secret of his 
 tryst with Mabel. 
 
 Swiftly and happily Johnnie relinquished his 
 dreams of a lodge in the wilderness. There was 
 a new and notable manliness in his bearing and a 
 proud gleam in his eye when he appeared at 
 school Monday morning. 
 
 141 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 The knowledge that Mabel liked him cared 
 for him (he could not quite bring himself to use 
 the word love) had wrought a revolution in 
 his every relationship. Although by no means 
 blind to his blunders and awkwardness, the fact 
 that such a critic as Mabel did not deem him al 
 together stupid reassured him, and self-assur 
 ance was what he most needed. 
 
 At recess a game of Weevily Wheat was be 
 gun under the locusts in the school-yard. With 
 his accustomed freshness Reddy sauntered up 
 to Mabel, and, taking her familiarly by the arm, 
 boldly declared that she should be his partner. 
 But Mabel shook him off haugthily, and a mo 
 ment later was tripping through the mazes of 
 the game (which was really a sort of quadrille, 
 although the children did not know it) as John 
 nie Winkle s chosen mate. 
 
 Reddy went and leaned against a tree and 
 made taunting comments upon them. 
 
 "Ain t he a dandy?" and "See the periwin 
 kle!" and "Keep off her feet, won t you?" he 
 cried spitefully. 
 
 When the set was concluded Johnnie stepped 
 aside and beckoned Roddy to follow. Reddy 
 
THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 THE RALLY 
 
 acquiesced with an easy air, destined soon 
 
 . , 
 vanish. 
 
 The back fence was reached, and Johnnie 
 took his whilom rival by the ear. 
 
 "See here, Reddy," he began impressively, 
 "I ve got a notion to wallup the daylights out of 
 you." 
 
 Reddy squirmed and his florid face grew as 
 pale as it could. 
 
 "You re a dog-goned little pup, an you got 
 to let Mabel alone. D ye understand?" Johnnie 
 went on, placing a fist beneath Reddy s nose. 
 
 "Why, I don t want to bother her," quaked 
 Reddy. "I don t care nothin about her if 
 she ll let me be. She ain t " 
 
 "Shut up!" commanded Johnnie sharply. 
 "Don t you dare say nothin about her." 
 
 "Why, course I won t. Say, John," and 
 Reddy became effusively confidential, "I bet 
 you can t guess what she said about you." And 
 before Johnnie could interrupt him: "She said 
 she thought you was the nicest boy in this 
 school honest, she did, an I can prove it." 
 
 This information had the desired effect of ap 
 peasing the avenger s wrath somewhat; and 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 when the bell rang the unpleasant affair had 
 been amicably settled. 
 
 Thenceforth Johnnie and Mabel became ac 
 knowledged and bona-fide school sweethearts. 
 Their passion was largely of the passive, pen 
 sive sort, evincing itself not so much in language 
 as in smiles, and sighs, and longing, in exalta 
 tion, and melancholia, and loss of appetite. 
 
 In truth, their love was of the kind which cer 
 tain old people, who have never been young, are 
 wont to style "puppy-love," the kind which, to 
 one who perceives the heart of things, is the 
 purest, most divine, and, not seldom, the most 
 enduring form of affection. 
 
 To Johnnie s innocent imagination Mabel was 
 simply a hallowed angel, while in her eyes he as 
 sumed the aspect of a hero, capable of all things 
 noble and good. 
 
 Nor is it likely that their estimates of each 
 other in the abstract ever came nearer the truth ; 
 for, just as they were then, in all their childish 
 innocence and ignorance, their youthful deli 
 cacy and maidenly reserve, were they not hap 
 pier and better and wiser than most of their 
 supercilious elders, or than they themselves 
 might ever be again? 
 
 144 
 

 
 XVII 
 
 A SORROWFUL DENOUEMENT 
 
 ONE of the fresh snows of midwinter had fal 
 len, and Johnnie was searching for the ax pre 
 paratory to going rabbit hunting, when he no 
 ticed his father and Mr. Meadows conversing 
 earnestly together in the orchard lot, back of the 
 barn. 
 
 Mr. Meadows was a highly interesting man 
 to Johnnie, and, although he always felt rather 
 ill at ease in so august a presence, he decided he 
 would like to hear what was being said. 
 
 So, strolling carelessly into their vicinity, he 
 stopped at a peach-tree and began to pick the 
 withered buds to pieces with great pains, under 
 pretense of ascertaining whether they had been 
 winter-killed. 
 
 "Yes, it is a poor time to move," Mr. Mead 
 ows was saying, "but you see it s a chance I can t 
 let slip. I make a clean thousand to start with, 
 and fair prospects for more." 
 145 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 "When do you go?" asked Mr. Winkle. 
 
 "Three weeks from Tuesday, if nothing hap 
 pens." 
 
 Then they walked off, and presently Mr. 
 Meadows went home. 
 
 Johnnie crept away. He had heard enough 
 more than enough. All the time he had felt 
 that something was going to happen; and this 
 was it. Mabel was going away. Going away, 
 and he would never see her again. 
 
 What a sad, sodden, snow-bound world it was ! 
 He went and climbed into the haymow, where 
 he could nurse his misery undisturbed. 
 
 "Well, what on airth air ye doin here, 
 sonny?" cried Eph in amazement when he came 
 at noon to feed the horses. "We all thought ye 
 wuz out chasin cotton-tails." 
 
 "No p," said Johnnie dolefully, "I ain t feel 
 ing well, Eph." 
 
 "Well, Lord, why don t ye go to the house 
 then. Ye ll ketch yer death out here," and 
 under a stream of reproof Johnnie slunk out. 
 
 At dinner his lack of appetite confirmed the 
 assertion that he was not well. But he remained 
 at the table throughout the meal and, after re- 
 146 
 
A SORROWFUL DENOUEMENT 
 
 peated attempts, finally succeeded in leading 
 his father to discuss the topic uppermost in his 
 mind and deepest in his heart. 
 
 "Meadowses are going to move away," said 
 Mr. Winkle across the table to his wife; and he 
 proceeded to explain the whys and wherefores 
 of the case, whilst Johnnie unwittingly gulped 
 down great crusts of bread. 
 
 The next day, which was Sunday, was very 
 long and lonesome. As evening drew on John 
 nie became uncontrollably restless and finally 
 stole upstairs and put on his best suit of clothes. 
 
 Ere long he might have been seen speeding 
 across lots, like a shadow in the dusk, toward 
 the Meadows place. He was going to pay Ma 
 bel a call. All the way he wondered at himself 
 and could hardly believe it. He would almost 
 have wagered that he was only shamming and 
 would not actually go up and knock at the door 
 when he got there. But, even while turning the 
 matter over in his mind, he had reached the 
 gate, had stepped boldly on to the porch, and 
 was rapping on the door, with a vicious little rat- 
 terrier snapping at his heels. 
 
 Presently a tall, matronly woman, with huge 
 147 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 spectacles, opened the door and peered out into 
 the night. 
 
 "Good night, ma am," said Johnnie, removing 
 his hat. 
 
 The woman stared at him. 
 
 "Whose boy are you?" she asked at length. 
 
 "I m John Winkle," responded Johnnie in as 
 deep a bass as he could summon. 
 
 "Oh Sam Winkle s boy, eh? Is some one 
 sick?" Johnnie replied in the negative, and 
 was finally invited in. 
 
 Ah, what a little boy he felt himself to be! 
 He had left home with a feeling of manliness, 
 rejoicing in his strength, but now, as he placed 
 himself precariously on the edge of an uphol 
 stered chair, he realized how vainly he had 
 vaunted. 
 
 Wistfully he looked about. Mabel was no 
 where in sight. 
 
 "My little boy, Willie, has gone to bed," ob 
 served Mrs. Meadows apologetically. "I ll see 
 if he is asleep," and she withdrew. 
 
 Her little boy, Willie! A wholly uninterest 
 ing infant, a mere babe of ten what did John 
 nie care for him? 
 
 148 
 
A SORROWFUL DENOUEMENT 
 
 "Willie is fast asleep," said his motherly 
 hostess when she came back, "but here are some 
 of his picture-books. Perhaps you d like to look 
 at them," and she deposited a gaudy collection 
 of juvenile literature in his lap. 
 
 To think he had come to call on a little boy, 
 and then to bring him picture-books this was 
 indeed adding insult to injury. But she was 
 Mabel s mother, and Johnnie dared not reveal 
 his disgust. 
 
 Patiently he turned the pages of the child s 
 books, pausing now and then as though par 
 ticularly pleased with certain passages. 
 
 In the meantime Mrs. Meadows sat near by 
 reading a newspaper and looking up occasion 
 ally to see how her young guest enjoyed him 
 self. 
 
 For a long while Johnnie perused the books 
 industriously in the hope that somehow Mabel 
 would appear soon. But when the clock struck 
 eight, and every variegated volume had been 
 exhausted, he grew despondent. 
 
 He rose to his feet. 
 
 "I ll have to be going," he said dejectedly. 
 As he reached the door he asked abruptly: 
 149 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 "How many children have you got, Mrs. Mead 
 ows?" 
 
 "Just two Willie and Mabel," she an 
 swered pleasantly. "You haven t any little 
 brothers or sisters, have you?" 
 
 "No m." 
 
 "Poor child! I suppose you get lonesome. 
 You ought to come over and play with Willie 
 often. But we re going to move away soon." 
 
 At this juncture an inner door opened, and 
 Mabel appeared, sleepy-eyed and yawning, with 
 a copy of Ivanhoe in her hand. 
 
 "Why, John Winkle," she cried in surprise, 
 "what s the matter?" 
 
 Johnnie tried to inform her that nothing was 
 the matter. 
 
 "I ve just been visiting your ma," he ex 
 plained, smiling helplessly. 
 
 He was already on the porch. He had started 
 home, and could not well turn back now. Cordial 
 good nights were spoken all around, and he took 
 his departure. But he lingered at the gate long 
 enough to hear Mabel asking her mother in vex 
 ation: "Why didn t you tell me he was here?" 
 
 150 
 
A SORROWFUL DENOUEMENT 
 
 She had been upstairs calmly reading all eve 
 ning ! 
 
 Mabel was not at school the next morning, 
 nor the next, nor any morning thereafter. Her 
 father came one day and got her books, saying 
 that, as they were going away in a short time, 
 it was not worth while for Mabel to attend school 
 during the interval. 
 
 With her books went his last ray of sunshine. 
 Dismal, indeed, were the long days after that. 
 Johnnie occupied the time with various vain 
 subterfuges. He wrote endearing letters to her, 
 which he carried about and then finally de 
 stroyed. He found a pencil in her deserted 
 desk, overlooked by her father, and wore it near 
 his heart. He composed little odes and sonnets 
 of which she was the central thought, and in 
 which occurred such rhymes as "fair" and 
 "golden hair," "eyes" and "skies," "love" and 
 "above," rhymes which have been utilized over 
 and over by languishing lovers since poetry and 
 love were first invented. 
 
 He went to the woods in the cheerless weather 
 and seeking out their olden trysting-place 
 
 151 
 

 JOHNNIE 
 
 
 carved her initials and his own on the trunk of 
 an ice-bound tree that faithfully guarded the 
 hallowed spot. 
 
 He loitered sometimes in the vicinity of Ma 
 bel s home, but he did not venture in any more. 
 
 Early one morning, while the dawn was yet 
 dim on the snowy fields, Johnnie was awa 
 kened by the rumble of heavy wagons passing 
 along the road. Instinctively he ran to the 
 window and peeped out. The Meadowses were 
 moving! Four wagons, heaped with household 
 goods, upon the foremost of which rode Mr. 
 Meadows, told the tragic tale. 
 
 With a sinking heart Johnnie watched them 
 pass. No funeral procession had ever impressed 
 him as did this. 
 
 Upon the last wagon, wrapped in comforts 
 and shawls, sat Mabel, his beloved. She gave 
 no sign of recognition she did not even seem 
 to look in Johnnie s direction. Once, indeed, he 
 thought she turned her head slightly, but that 
 was all. 
 
 Slowly the shadows enfolded her form 
 slowly, as divine visions ever fade, she passed 
 from sight; and sadly, as all music dies, the 
 rumble of the heavy wagons ceased. 
 152 
 
XVIII 
 
 A BOOK WORM 
 
 THE boy is a mercurial being. Specialists 
 tell us that the slightest systemic disturbance 
 is apt to throw a child into fever, while a dis 
 order which would produce a mere chill in an 
 adult is sufficient to cause infantile convulsions. 
 
 On the other hand, the child is remarkably 
 responsive to remedial measures, and, the cause 
 being removed, reacts from the gravest illness 
 promptly and completely. Anatomically the 
 boy s bones and sinews possess more fibrous tis 
 sue and less calcium than the man s. And his 
 temperament, like his bones, is much more sup 
 ple and elastic. 
 
 The troubles of childhood, although intense, 
 are fleet, as is childhood itself. A disappoint 
 ment that would crush hope out of a man s life 
 forever, oppresses the boy for about a month. 
 
 Johnnie was profoundly affected by Mabel s 
 departure for the space of several weeks. Dur- 
 153 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 ing this unhappy period he sought consolation 
 in various futile ways. On Saturday mornings, 
 after chores, he would shoulder the musket for 
 he had become old enough to bear arms now 
 and go hunting; but his path always led to one 
 certain sylvan retreat, and he came home down 
 cast and empty-handed. 
 
 Then he would chop stove-wood diligently all 
 the afternoon, striving to drown grief in the 
 dissipation of work, but in vain. 
 
 At school he would play wildly one day, quar 
 rel and fight the next, and mope moodily apart 
 on the day after. 
 
 But one great solace gradually came to chas 
 ten his sorrow. As often happens, it was the 
 very alternative which at first seemed to promise 
 the least. In aimlessness he began to investigate 
 the dust-embalmed books in his father s meager 
 library. 
 
 It was a heterogeneous collection, comprising 
 the History of the Reformation, Flavius Jose- 
 phus, The Family Doctor, and Saints Rest, 
 among its heavier works. In somewhat lighter 
 vein were Oliver Twist, two autograph albums, 
 Waverley, the Language of Flowers, the Agri- 
 
A BOOK WORM 
 
 cultural Reports, and an Atlas of the World. 
 Furthermore, in a corner to themselves, John 
 nie found his own forgotten prize-copy of Par 
 adise Lost and a much traveled Pilgrim s 
 Progress. 
 
 In any other mood Johnnie would have 
 scorned these musty, old-fogy volumes as mere 
 empty rubbish, belonging altogether beyond the 
 pale of his existence. But their very forlorn- 
 ness appealed to him now, and the ancient odor 
 of sanctity which they literally exhaled seemed 
 to soothe and tranquilize his soul. 
 
 They were, indeed, spiritualized books, from 
 which all carnal attributes had faded genera 
 tions before ; and Johnnie felt himself strangely 
 akin to them. 
 
 The impression arose slowly from their out 
 ward appearance. As to their contents, he had 
 read twenty pages of the Reformation before 
 he was even vaguely conscious of their import; 
 and he continued to read more for the sake of 
 turning the yellow leaves and smelling their in 
 spiring odor there in the restful quiet of the 
 parlor than for any interest the history bore. 
 
 In like manner he loitered through Flavius 
 155 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 Josephus and the Family Doctor. But when 
 he had perused the first chapter of Oliver Twist 
 his lethargy vanished. Like an Egyptologist 
 who, delving day after day amid the very at 
 tenuation of mummified death, comes suddenly 
 face to face with some quaintly familiar phase 
 of life, so Johnnie discovered the grotesquely 
 vivid characters of Dickens. He read the book 
 through twice before he could put it aside. 
 
 Thereafter Johnnie became a discriminating 
 reader. He lingered somewhat over the many- 
 tinted but time-stained leaves of the autograph 
 albums, dainty forget-me-nots of his parents 
 youths, with their mellow verses in almost invis 
 ible chirography praying remembrance and 
 signed by hands long folded across throbless 
 breasts, he lingered over these, with wonder 
 at the strain of pathos which they revealed, so 
 like that of his own life, and which he had not 
 believed existed in the good old times. But much 
 more burning was his interest in Scott s glowing 
 romance, so replete with stirring life and love 
 and all the bright ideals, toward which a boy s 
 heart yearns. 
 
 To Johnnie, Waverley was intensely realistic, 
 156 
 
A BOOK WORM 
 
 for he had not yet descended in spirit to the low 
 level of ordinary existence, where the expected 
 happens, and the rain falls monotonously on the 
 just and on the unjust. 
 
 Waverley was grand, and ere he had finished 
 it his entire mental attitude and the atmosphere 
 about him had changed again. Depression had 
 been displaced by a lofty buoyant longing for 
 great adventure. His imaginary world had be 
 come a vast battle-ground of mighty heroes, 
 with countless lovely maidens looking on and 
 crowning the victors with laurel wreaths. 
 
 His heart swelled to be up and doing; and 
 his dreams grew more extravagant than they 
 had ever been before. 
 
 Nor were his aspirations satisfied with make- 
 believes as they had been in the past. He tried 
 to pretend that old Fan was a prancing palfrey, 
 as she ambled across the pasture with him, that 
 his clothes were glittering armor, and his hat a 
 helmet; but fancy was not equal to it. He 
 charged upon the cows as adversaries with a mul 
 lein-stalk lance; but they only eyed him re 
 proachfully and switched their tails. 
 
 Discouraged by the perverseness of things, 
 157 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 Johnnie returned to the library again. Saints 
 Rest aroused little enthusiasm ; and he was some 
 what wary of Pilgrim s Progress. 
 
 But when he stripped the latter of its alle 
 gorical elements and learned to omit the disser 
 tations between Christian and his garrulous com 
 panions, he found it very good reading. 
 
 The Slough of Despond was to him a miry 
 marsh, like that in his father s meadow ; Doubt 
 ing Castle was a huge, jail-like edifice; and the 
 Valley of the Shadow of Death was a deep, 
 gloomy gorge. Great Heart was a real, flesh- 
 and-blood man, whose lineaments fancy graphic 
 ally traced; and the giant Despair was a coun 
 terpart of Goliath. The fiery battle with Apoll- 
 yon was a vivid and war-like engagement, sur 
 passing any Scott had depicted. 
 
 Johnnie was at just the right age to get the 
 meat out of Pilgrim s Progress. 
 
 But, at length, the family library was ex 
 hausted. Every volume had been reviewed, 
 even to the atlas. With an unquenchable thirst 
 for more fiction, Johnnie consulted Cousin 
 Henry. Cousin Henry, he knew, was an invet 
 erate reader of stories. 
 
 158 
 
A BOOK WORM 
 
 "Yes," said Henry kindly, "I ll lend you 
 something to read" ; and going to the barn he 
 brought forth a bundle of thumb-marked papers 
 from a secret niche. 
 
 "But don t you show them to your folks," 
 Henry admonished, as he handed them over. 
 "Keep them hid somewhere." 
 
 With a somewhat guilty feeling Johnnie bore 
 the papers home and, stealing into his father s 
 barn, stored them away in the loft. Here, he 
 thought, was food that would be filling at any 
 rate. 
 
 Sunday afternoon he began their secret peru 
 sal. They were story papers with a vengeance. 
 The Human Sleuth! was the scare-head title of 
 the first tale Johnnie s eyes fell upon; and he 
 was soon following the famous detective with 
 bated breath through adventures before which 
 those of Christian paled. 
 
 It was the kind of literature which at some 
 time falls into the hands of every youth, and 
 turns the heads of so many ; the bloody, microbe- 
 infested kind, produced by anemic, narrow- 
 chested individuals, coughing themselves to 
 death in city garrets. 
 
 159 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 For several weeks Johnnie breathed this in 
 fected air, cuddled up in the haymow, in close 
 seclusion. 
 
 But one day Eph. ascended to his retreat un 
 awares and, with his usual sensible instinct, took 
 in the situation at a glance. 
 
 "Hold on there, sonny," he said, going di 
 rectly to the point. "Ye d better be out playin 
 cyards, er stealin hogs, er plottin to kill yore 
 gran mammy than readin that there truck; it ll 
 land ye in jail, shore. I ve been there I mean 
 I ve been where you air; an I come purty clost 
 to the jail, too." 
 
 With admonitions and precepts too tedious 
 to relate, Eph plied Johnnie for an hour. 
 
 Next day the story papers were returned to 
 their owner. Eph congratulated himself on the 
 good deed he had done, in thus persuading 
 Johnnie to abandon the pernicious stuff; but, in 
 truth, the fierce Human Sleuth had already 
 grown repugnant. The boy who has tasted 
 Dickens and Scott not to mention the History 
 of the Reformation is apt soon to tire of so 
 insipid a mental diet. 
 
 160 
 

 THE BOY INVENTOR 
 
 DURING that intensely adolescent stage, be 
 tween twelve and sixteen, the boy is a many- 
 sided individual. In pursuing the tangled 
 thread of sentiment through this mazy period, it 
 must not be assumed that Johnnie was given al 
 together to idle dreams of love. It would be 
 vain to attempt to touch upon all the phases he 
 exhibited. Their number was legion, their man 
 ifestations countless. 
 
 One of the most persistent characteristics was 
 a faculty for inventing. This amounted almost 
 to genius; indeed his parents were inclined to 
 consider it positively phenomenal. 
 
 At the tender age of nine he had torn a clock 
 to pieces and put it together again so that it 
 would run with amazing speed. His mother s 
 sewing-machine was thoroughly overhauled by 
 him when he was ten; and at the age of twelve 
 he attempted to make a steam thresher out of an 
 161 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 old washing-machine. All one summer he la 
 bored at odd times trying to transform a tin can 
 into a locomotive. 
 
 He whittled a whirligig out of a shingle, 
 whose mechanism made a wooden bird bob up 
 and down ; and the toy wagons, sets oi dog har 
 ness, chicken coops, and martin boxes he con 
 structed were innumerable. 
 
 Some of Johnnie s devices were carefully 
 planned in advance; but often he depended 
 wholly on inspiration, simply taking saw and 
 hammer and going to work, letting the plans 
 develop as he proceeded. Frequently he had 
 no idea what his invention would prove to be 
 until it was finished. 
 
 Once he arranged a sort of tread-mill in the 
 bottom of a box, and discovered afterwards, by 
 accident, that it was excellent for "breaking up 
 setting hens," keeping them in such constant 
 motion that they soon lost all tendency to "set." 
 
 But his talents were evinced more plainly in 
 the conception of novel contrivances than in 
 their execution. In inventive matters Johnnie 
 hitched his wagon boldly to a star. No sort of 
 mechanical marvel seemed to lie beyond the 
 162 
 
THE BOY INVENTOR 
 
 bounds of his imagination. Flying machines, 
 horseless carriages, perpetual motion all were 
 within the grasp of his mind. 
 
 There are lazy, easy-going people of ability 
 who can accomplish things of which they never 
 dream, and there are energetic people who 
 dream of things they can never accomplish. 
 Both classes are apt to be looked upon as ge 
 niuses in their way, but it is only the latter that 
 deserves the name. Genius conceives great 
 things ; it is only plodding Patience that carries 
 them out. 
 
 Johnnie was not content with the mere plan 
 ning of details. When he had conceived the 
 general idea of an airship, his fancy immedi 
 ately mounted it and soared away on its tireless 
 wings. Lying on his back out in the orchard, he 
 would look into the sky until he could almost see 
 himself, a tiny speck, drifting gently hither and 
 thither among the clouds. 
 
 Yet he did not overlook the importance of 
 less pretentious contrivances, and many were 
 the homely little conveniences he planned. An 
 automatic ax for chopping stove-wood, to be 
 operated by turning a crank, was one of them. 
 163 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 This was to be connected with a patent wood- 
 carrier in the form of an endless belt, leading 
 from the wood-yard into the kitchen. 
 
 Another was a mechanical milker. It was to 
 be constructed after the manner of a force 
 pump, with a rubber hose extending from stable 
 to cellar. All that would be necessary in order 
 to perform the irksome operation of milking 
 would be to attach one end of the tube to the 
 cow and work the pump-handle. This idea was 
 improved upon from time to time until it be 
 came a wonder of ingenuity. The cows might 
 be trained so that they would take their places 
 at the proper time, and a spring might be ar 
 ranged to clasp the tube to the udders automat 
 ically. The power for operating the pump 
 might readily be supplied by a windmill. 
 
 Moreover, Johnnie devised a horse-feeder and 
 self-acting groom, which was to be a great la 
 bor-saver. To do this part of the chores one 
 would only have to pull a string when the right 
 quantity of hay and oats would fall into the 
 manger with a click, while huge curry-combs, 
 protruding from each side of the stall and im- 
 
 164 
 
THE BOY INVENTOR 
 
 pelled by clockwork, would begin to smooth the 
 horse s mane and tail with lightning strokes. 
 
 Closely akin to Johnnie s inventive talent was 
 an inborn fondness for experiments. These, like 
 his mechanical constructions, were often carried 
 on in utter aimlessness. He seemed to have a 
 passion for dissevering and re-assembling things. 
 
 In infancy this tendency had been rudimen- 
 tarily apparent in the destruction of rag dolls, 
 and the putting together of dust and water in 
 the form of mud pies. As he grew older it as 
 sumed more definite and even dangerous forms. 
 
 One phenomenon which he never tired of in 
 vestigating was the explosive nature of gun 
 powder, and he had several narrow escapes while 
 studying this. Earth, air, fire, and water were 
 all subjects of great interest, and his experi 
 ments with them varied in danger according to 
 their possibilities. 
 
 By repeated trials he found just the degree 
 of thinness at which ice would break beneath 
 his weight and let him into the creek. He de 
 monstrated by actual experiment how near to the 
 edge of the bank he could walk without falling, 
 
 165 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 and discovered the exact point at which he fell. 
 He tested the comparative strength and resist 
 ance of various branches of an apple-tree in re 
 lation to his weight, and learned which ones 
 broke with him. 
 
 He found from how great a height he could 
 jump without hurting himself, how high he 
 could climb in a sapling before he lost his bal 
 ance, and just how a boy felt with his breath 
 knocked out. 
 
 Johnnie acquired a great deal of experience 
 incidental to his investigation of things. For 
 instance, while studying the labyrinthine struc 
 ture of a hornet s nest he conceived the bitter 
 pang of the insect s sting, and while observing 
 the curious claws of a crawfish he felt their 
 sharpness. 
 
 Such incidents are a part of every boy s nat 
 ural education, and the city-bred youth who 
 misses them misses some of the great underlying 
 principles of life. 
 
 The habit of making things and trying things 
 
 is much more than a mere waste of time or a 
 
 preventive of mischief. The boy who drives a 
 
 nail into a board learns to hit it on the head. 
 
 166 
 
THE BOY INVENTOR 
 
 He becomes agile by climbing trees, and cautious 
 by falling from them. 
 
 Some boy s grandmother once said, "A burnt 
 child dreads the fire"; and never has anything 
 relating to childhood been more sagely spoken. 
 
 From numberless native sources Johnnie drew 
 that wisdom, positive and negative, which goes 
 to make up the sum total of common sense, and 
 the things he learned not to do were as useful 
 and necessary as the things he learned to do. 
 
 167 
 
XX 
 
 WHEN HIS MOTHER DIED 
 
 THE darkest shadow that ever lies across the 
 path of boyhood is threatening Johnnie. That 
 almost inconceivable, yet inexorable calamity 
 which he has dreaded ever since earth s dearest 
 idols ceased to him to be immortal, is drawing 
 near. From his earliest remembrance there have 
 come to him occasional shadowy, pensive mo 
 ments, strange, reflex tides of emotion, when he 
 would pause in his play and sigh in half con 
 scious recognition of a presentiment of this or 
 deal. 
 
 Even to the verge of tears he has sometimes 
 grieved in its anticipation; but he knows now 
 that he has never truly realized it, that his fancy 
 has never been able for an instant to grasp its 
 overwhelming import. 
 
 His mother is going to die. For weeks he has 
 been hoping and praying, fearing and weeping ; 
 but there is no longer any hope left, no longer 
 168 
 
WHEN HIS MOTHER DIED 
 
 any efficacy in prayer nothing but tears re 
 maining to him. It is a plain, pitiless fact, a 
 condition as inevitable, as uncontrollable, as the 
 setting of the sun. 
 
 His own mother that mother who has al 
 ways been a part of his life, who gave him life, 
 and with whom every circumstance of life, as he 
 traces it backward and outward, is inseparably 
 joined, she is going to be swept out of existence. 
 He wonders what the world will be like after 
 after but he can not conceive. It is all black 
 and incomprehensible. 
 
 Day after day she lies patiently in the little 
 bedroom, the memory-filled bedroom, which has 
 always been such a delightful place, which 
 henceforth, will be such a holy place racked 
 with pain, worn with weariness, but never com 
 plaining. 
 
 Oh, she is a saint already, he thinks, as he 
 tiptoes out of the room; there is so little cor 
 ruptible to become incorruptible there, surely 
 the kingdom of heaven, which she is so soon to 
 enter, will make little change in her. Is she not 
 has she not ever been sanctified? 
 
 He steals away to his one boyish place of 
 169 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 refuge, the barn, to meditate. Vainly he tries 
 to picture to himself the glories of that strange, 
 far-off country beyond the skies to which she is 
 going. Those pearly gates and streets of gold, 
 in which he believes so literally, will his mother 
 care so very much for them, he wonders. 
 
 She has never seemed fond of lavish display 
 here. Only one plain gold ring and a cameo 
 brooch but she could not afford much jewelry. 
 And she will be rich and always happy there, 
 perfectly happy forever. 
 
 A perplexing thought arises. She loves him 
 once, when she went away for a fortnight s 
 visit, she cried ; and she cried again when she 
 came home, as she told him how lonely and 
 homesick she had been. She loves him, loves his 
 father, loves home. How, then, can she be per 
 fectly happy up there, so far away? Only by 
 forgetting, he reasons, and surely, she can never 
 quite do that. 
 
 Some one is calling him. Oh, perhaps she is 
 dying now, and he rushes wildly to the house. 
 But it is only the minister, not the angel of 
 death, who has come ; and he is going to pray 
 with them. 
 
 170 
 
WHEN HIS MOTHER DIED 
 
 Johnnie goes in with downcast eyes. There is 
 a funereal air everywhere. Each face is averted 
 and tearful, except the minister s and hers. The 
 preacher s pious countenance is tranquil, and 
 there is a radiant, restful glory in the mother s 
 waxen features, such as he has never seen be 
 fore, and she smiles like a bride. 
 
 She beckons Johnnie to her, and, as the min 
 ister kneels beside them, her feeble arms clasp 
 him close against her bosom. Many a time in 
 his tempestuous little life he has cried; but he 
 has never wept such a convulsive, heart-broken 
 flood of anguish before, and never will again. 
 Every pathetic word of the prayer sinks 
 straight into his soul and makes him shudder 
 with grief, with dread, with rebelliousness. 
 
 But she is calm, and the gentle stroke of her 
 hand upon his hair soothes him at length and 
 imparts a touch of that sublime peace of hers, 
 "which passeth understanding" ; and he goes out 
 more nearly reconciled than ever before. 
 
 Death always comes suddenly, no matter how 
 
 long expected, or how breathlessly awaited. 
 
 Johnnie s mother passed away, at last, with a 
 
 swiftness that was paralyzing. But Providence 
 
 171 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 has set a limitation to human sorrow, and John 
 nie had reached this in anticipation; and now 
 everything took place, as in a familiar, oft-re 
 peated dream. 
 
 Like an unreal rehearsal the funeral cere 
 mony proceeded. He knew just how the minis 
 ter would look and what he would say; how, at 
 the close, strangers would gather about the 
 bier and the merest friends would wipe their 
 eyes and moan. He knew how the white-gloved, 
 black-frocked pall-bearers would creep softly in 
 to carry the casket away; how the sleek hearse 
 horses would prance and shake their heads; and 
 how the carriages would creak, creak, on their 
 slow march to the cemetery. But the desolate 
 home-coming he had not imagined that. 
 
 When they arrived at home Johnnie slipped 
 away to the woods. Well-meaning neighbors 
 had tried to brighten things about the house, as 
 if in the hope of making him forget his loss, and 
 this grated on him. 
 
 But nature was in the same mood as he. A 
 drizzling, all-pervading rain was falling drip 
 ping from leaf to leaf through the autumn fo- 
 
WHEN HIS MOTHER DIED 
 
 liage in sad monotones. There was no living 
 thing in sight, no sound of life to be heard. 
 
 Despair seemed traced on every lineament of 
 the forest, and desolation hovered in the air. He 
 had never seen such weather before, and he won 
 dered if the sun would ever have the heart to 
 shine again. 
 
 At night, after the rest of the household 
 slept, he crept out again. A harsh wind had 
 risen, before which the clouds had vanished, 
 leaving the sky infinite and clear. Unmindful 
 of the chill blast, he sat down on the doorstep 
 and, resting his chin between his hands, fixed his 
 eyes upon the heavens. 
 
 Under such conditions, the stars shed an in 
 describably desolate influence earthward. The 
 very spirit of their stillness and solitude seems 
 to descend, until the whole shadowy universe is 
 filled with a loneliness, incomparably vast and 
 oppressive. 
 
 How coldly, how pitilessly, those stellar eyes 
 stared down at the poor lonely boy, through the 
 immeasurable, bleak, barren spaces of the night. 
 They were all millions of miles away; and yet, 
 
 173 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 he reflected, his mother must now be still be 
 yond them. And only last night she was here, 
 at home. What a terrible, inconceivable sepa 
 ration ! 
 
 And yet, as he brooded, he felt that this 
 could not be. God was in heaven, yet He was 
 everywhere. Perhaps, she was also; and, as he 
 continued to meditate, a sense of her immediate 
 presence came over him a sense which abode in 
 his heart to cheer and, sometimes, to chide him 
 through many years. 
 
 Whatever he should do now whatever he had 
 done, even the little things of which he had been 
 ashamed to tell her, she would know. Her invis 
 ible shade would follow him through life, re 
 joicing in his achievements, sorrowing in his 
 failures, watching over him faithfully all the 
 while. 
 
 Perhaps, this childish conceit of Johnnie s 
 was not orthodox. Perhaps, it was unscriptural 
 and inconsistent; yet it was a blessing to the 
 motherless boy and, perhaps, after all, 
 
 Human hopes and human creeds 
 Find their root in human needs. 
 
 174 
 
XXI 
 
 THE FLEDGLING S FLIGHT 
 
 THE smoky arms of the distant city had never 
 ceased to beckon to Johnnie. Sometimes for 
 months together he had forgotten it, and some 
 times, knowing he could not obey its summons, 
 he had refused to look in its direction; but, 
 whenever he turned his eyes toward the eastern 
 horizon, the vapory signal was always there. 
 
 Neither had his old resolve to go to the city 
 some day and become a part of its life ever died 
 entirely away ; and now, in his eighteenth year, 
 with the loosening of home ties, with the chas 
 tening of his thoughts by sorrow, and the 
 slower, steadier beating of his heart, this inten 
 tion had become firmer and more active. 
 
 It was not altogether that mystic centripetal 
 attraction, which every city exerts upon every 
 boy, that drew him ; nor was he influenced mere 
 ly by a weariness of rural quiet and a roving de 
 sire for change. These were considerations, to 
 175 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 be sure, but beyond them was a growing convic 
 tion that the city offered better advantages and 
 greater returns for labor than the country. 
 
 Well-fed students of economics are in the 
 habit of decrying the townward tendency of 
 country boys. Urban editors of agricultural 
 journals are constantly advising them to stay 
 on the farm, pointing to the illustrious men of 
 our history who started as farmers. But John 
 nie and his father and Eph, discussing the mat 
 ter in their simplicity around the homely hearth, 
 arrived at another decision. And their observa 
 tions evinced a certain quaint logic. 
 
 They looked at the subject with the narrow 
 view of the individual struggling for selfish 
 ends. In many generations of the Winkle fam 
 ily the farmer s boasted independence had been 
 taught by father to son, until it had come to be 
 regarded as a sacred tenet, to question which 
 were profane. 
 
 Yet, as the matter of Johnnie s future career 
 was discussed night after night, one or another 
 of them brought forward facts which seemed 
 to weaken the time-honored phrase s force. 
 
 The fertility of the old farm was slowly be- 
 176 
 
THE FLEDGLING S FLIGHT 
 
 ing carried to the city year by year, while a 
 lugubrious mortgage hovered above it like a 
 vulture on tireless wings. 
 
 The farmer, while never out of work, went 
 oftentimes unpaid. He was dependent, first, 
 upon the weather for a crop; upon the uncer 
 tain law of supply and demand, together with 
 "them tricky board o trade fellers" for his 
 price; and upon the Lord for health and 
 strength. 
 
 The city fellow as far as they could see 
 set the price at which farm produce was sold, 
 and the price at which groceries and clothing 
 were bought. And, after all, it was pointed out 
 that few farmer boys who had become presi 
 dents had attained greatness in their rustic 
 guise. Most of them had abandoned agricul 
 ture long before fame found them. 
 
 With these and similar arguments, puerile 
 and fallacious no doubt, but weighty to their 
 minds, the Winkles, in convention assembled, 
 proceeded; and the conclusion of it all was that 
 Johnnie should go to the city. 
 
 Perhaps, if the other side of the subject 
 could have been comprehended by them, if they 
 177 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 could have realized the narrowness of the city s 
 streets and the murkiness of its atmosphere, 
 contrasting these with the freedom and purity 
 of their pastoral environment, they might have 
 decided otherwise ; but they were as ignorant of 
 the disadvantages of the metropolis as are its 
 philosophers of the faults of the country. 
 
 The final decision of the matter was of great 
 moment to Johnnie, and his prospective journey 
 out into the world filled his every dream. Once 
 more his relationship toward all familiar exter 
 nal things seemed completely changed. In his 
 exaltation and self-importance, the giants of 
 other days dwindled, and many domestic idols 
 seemed to crumble into dust. 
 
 Native fields and woodlands took on a plainer 
 aspect. The graceful undulations of the land 
 scape grew angular and flat, the old house ap 
 peared weather-beaten and squatty, and even 
 Eph faithful Eph, the infallible oracle of his 
 childhood became a man who used very bad 
 language and wore shabby clothes. 
 
 Yet, as the day of his departure drew near, 
 Johnnie began to realize that it was only his 
 mind that had exalted itself above these homely 
 178 
 
THE FLEDGLING S FLIGHT 
 
 associations, and that his heart was secretly 
 clinging the closer now to its old friends. 
 After all he had taken root in this lowly soil, 
 and the most cherished ambition to be trans 
 planted could not overcome regret at leaving. 
 
 During the last days of his stay at home, 
 Johnnie struggled with conflicting emotions. 
 He went among the horses and cows, calling 
 them fondly by name and feeding them extra 
 nubbins of corn. He slipped over the hill to 
 where the brook, his cheerful little playmate, 
 that got no older, nor more sedate with years, 
 was idling its time away, and, sitting beside it, 
 tossed chips into it and wondered if it would still 
 run on the same when he was gone. It seemed 
 impossible to imagine it down there in the quiet 
 glen alone, singing those lullabies of old, and 
 threading its way in and out among the calamus 
 stalks, and himself so far away. 
 
 Into the temple of the woods he took his way, 
 and, in the calm of sylvan solitude, prayerfully 
 recounted the joys and hopes, the regrets and 
 fears of his simple life, as a monk numbers his 
 beads. 
 
 When youth is constrained to look backward, 
 179 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 the vanishing point of its perspective appears 
 as distant as that of age. Its years are fewer, 
 but they seem very long. 
 
 At last the eventful morning came. Johnnie 
 rose early and went out to help with the chores, 
 just as he had done when only an ordinary 
 farmer boy. He had resolved to adopt no lofty 
 airs toward Eph and the stock on this last 
 morning, even if he was almost a city gentle 
 man. He would pass among them carelessly, 
 familiarly, as of yore, with no allusion in word 
 or manner to his approaching promotion. 
 
 He had decided to do this partly out of re 
 gard for their sensitive feelings, more, perhaps, 
 out of regard for his own. 
 
 But Eph had forestalled him, and the milk 
 was already cooling on the shelves in the pantry. 
 
 "I lowed I d as well git my hand in," Eph 
 explained dryly, when questioned. 
 
 Somewhat resentful of this bald and unsenti 
 mental bluntness, Johnnie betook himself to the 
 haymow to indulge in one more hour of solemn 
 meditation. Uppermost in his thoughts now 
 was a strain of pity largely uncalled for and 
 wasted for his father and Eph and all the 
 180 
 
THE FLEDGLING S FLIGHT 
 
 friends and relatives he was leaving behind. 
 How terribly they would miss him how yearn 
 ingly they would think of him, and how eagerly 
 they would await his distant return. 
 
 It would be a weary time to them though 
 short and satisfactory to himself before he 
 came home again. Five years! He would not 
 think of returning to visit them under that time, 
 and possibly not for ten. 
 
 Tears suffused his eyes as he thought of his 
 poor old father and Eph, sitting alone before 
 the fire in the desolate winter evenings. 
 
 Perhaps these morbid musings were extrava 
 gant and egotistical to a degree. But they were 
 sorrowfully real; and what boy is not a gentle 
 egotist? 
 
 At ten o clock the wagon was driven up to 
 the house, and Johnnie s tin-bound trunk was 
 silently loaded in. Then Aunt Mary, who 
 had come "to pack him off," brought out two 
 boxes of lunch, a bag of apples, a bundle, and 
 a faded umbrella, all of which she grouped 
 about the trunk; and then came Johnnie him 
 self, in linen shirt and new clothes full of store 
 creases. 
 
 181 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 As he came down the walk Pluto sprang from 
 behind a clump of bushes, and, barking a merry 
 challenge, jumped upon his boyish master, with 
 a view to provoking a frolic. Poor Pluto was 
 ignorant of the pathos of the occasion. John 
 nie s lips trembled as he looked down into the 
 dog s laughing eyes. Parting from that ever 
 faithful friend was not the lightest of his fare 
 wells. 
 
 "Well, sonny, be good to yourself," called 
 Eph carelessly, as the wagon started. Aunt 
 Mary smiled a cheery good by and then threw 
 her apron over her face, while Mr. Winkle, on 
 the seat at Johnnie s side, clucked to the horses 
 so vigorously that they almost broke into a run. 
 
 And Johnnie Winkle, the little boy of endless 
 dreams and schemes, had flown from the downy 
 home nest, never to abide in it again. 
 
 182 
 
IN A GREAT CITY 
 
 THE train, after groping its way with many 
 stops and starts among endless groups of cot 
 tages, of flaming factories and dingy vacant 
 lots, ran straight into a huge, dark building at 
 last, and came to a standstill. The brakeman 
 called the name of the great city familiarly 
 on what intimate terms with it he seemed to be ! 
 and Johnnie, with his burden of baggage, 
 crept out of the stuffy car into the seething, 
 smoky pandemonium of the Grand Union Sta 
 tion. 
 
 In a trance he passed through the iron gate 
 with the crowd, and, after drifting about in 
 various eddies, presently found himself in an 
 anteroom, where an obliging young man took 
 charge of his bundles. 
 
 He had been admonished to take a cab di 
 rectly to Uncle Andrew s, but it occurred to him 
 that he might as well see the city independently 
 first. 
 
 183 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 For a time the vast magnificence of the 
 metropolis appalled him; but, within an hour, 
 the reaction came, and he proudly felt himself 
 to be an integral part of the busy, alert life 
 about him. Almost unconsciously he abandoned 
 the shambling, leisurely gait of rusticity, and 
 began to step forward with the erect, nervous 
 manner of the urban. 
 
 Thus he traversed street after street with no 
 care for time, and no particular idea as to 
 whither he was going, save that he was journey 
 ing from the old past into the novel and hope 
 ful future. His immediate plans were indefi 
 nite, but he had a firm faith in ultimate success 
 of some sort. 
 
 As the day wore on he began to deliberate. 
 He could not make up his mind just what vo 
 cation to adopt here in the promising city. 
 This vexing question had been left unsettled 
 when he came away, with the understanding 
 that he should consult wise Uncle Andrew, and 
 then write home before accepting any position. 
 
 Johnnie had brought with him wondrous let 
 ters of recommendation and certificates of char- 
 
 184 
 
IN A GREAT CITY 
 
 acter, signed by the pastor and Squire Jetters, 
 which, he doubted not, had magic power to un 
 lock any gilded door ; but it perplexed him to de 
 cide just where to apply. 
 
 It would be very awkward and unfortunate, 
 he thought, after he had won his way to the 
 presidency of some great railway system, for 
 instance, to find that its duties were irksome 
 and uncongenial. 
 
 Toward evening he returned to the station 
 for his baggage, and was much incensed when 
 the accommodating young man, who had vol 
 unteered to care for it, demanded pay. Here, 
 he thought, he had fallen into the clutches of 
 one of "them there pesky sharpers," that Eph 
 had cautioned him against. This experience 
 caused him to ask several cab drivers their price 
 and bargain with them shrewdly before engag 
 ing one to drive him to Uncle Andrew s. 
 
 After a fortnight s weary search for an open 
 ing, Johnnie accepted the position of clerk in 
 Uncle Andrew s grocery store. It was not an 
 ideal situation not just what he had expected 
 to obtain but it was better than nothing. 
 
 185 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 Uncle Andrew seemed to be the only business 
 man in all the great city upon whom the gilt- 
 edge recommendations made any impression. 
 
 Johnnie became a very good clerk in time, 
 learning to concern himself not so much with 
 whether the position exactly suited him as with 
 whether he suited the position. 
 
 As the seasons went by a double metamor 
 phosis worked upon him. Nature was silently 
 engaged in transforming the youth into the 
 young man, while art busied herself more osten 
 tatiously in making a city man out of the callow 
 country boy. 
 
 Both nature and art succeeded in a degree. 
 He grew taller and the downy rudiments of a 
 mustache appeared on his lip; his voice regis 
 tered lower, and his hands and feet attained 
 their due proportions. Likewise he became 
 dressy and adopted an habitually suave smile. 
 In contact with customers he developed into a 
 Chesterfield of courtesy. 
 
 Nor did art stop at this. She led him into 
 theaters and concert halls; put cigarettes into 
 his mouth, and parted his hair in the middle; 
 even impelled him to mutilate the good old fam- 
 186 
 
IN A GREAT CITY 
 
 ily name, and subscribe himself "John Wynkle" 
 when writing home. 
 
 In short, art inveigled Johnnie into all sorts 
 of dangerous places and all manner of ridicu 
 lous habits, and, but for nature s persistent 
 care, might have ruined him beyond redemp 
 tion. 
 
 But toward the second spring he tired of this 
 artificial life. The fever of fast living cooled 
 somewhat, and, as his mind grew clear, his 
 thoughts returned to his erstwhile, forgotten 
 country home. He retired earlier each evening, 
 and rose at daybreak every morning to take 
 long, solitary walks in the park. 
 
 It was April, according to the calendar, but 
 the season s tokens that greeted his eyes were 
 few and feeble. Where were all the thrushes 
 and meadow-larks and whippoor wills, he won 
 dered, and the wild flowers and the tree-toads 
 and frogs? How he longed to hear a genuine 
 frog concert again, such as used to pervade the 
 April twilight at home. 
 
 Whenever he closed his eyes, little pictures 
 seemed to pass before him visions of old fa 
 miliar scenes down on the farm. Sometimes 
 187 
 

 
 9 
 
 JOHNNIE 
 
 there would appear a certain cozy corner of the 
 orchard. Every leaf of every tree seemed to 
 stand out boldly against the blue of the sky, 
 and the minutest details the bees that hummed 
 in and out amid the foliage, the tiny ants and 
 bugs that crept through the dew-wet grass all 
 were revealed to him with life-like distinctness. 
 
 The apple-trees budded and blossomed, scent 
 ing the air with an almost palpable perfume; 
 little green apples came out and hung above 
 him, and cherries grew crimson just beyond his 
 reach. Blooms that could not be gathered, 
 fruit that could not be plucked ! 
 
 Now and then he would fancy himself in the 
 heart of the old forest again, the cool, quiet, 
 dimly-green depths, where life was as calm, as 
 vague and unvexed as at the bottom of the sea. 
 The winds that threw the tree-tops into verdant 
 billows never disturbed the dark under-world 
 beneath, and the light of the warmest sun be 
 came emerald-tinted and liquid-cool ere it 
 reached the ground. 
 
 Shadowy, dreamy sweet was the recollection 
 of these rustic retreats to Johnnie now, and 
 their peace and tranquillity, which he had once 
 188 
 
IN A GREAT CITY 
 
 deprecated, seemed the most blessed thing in 
 all the world. Even thoughts of the corn-field 
 were not altogether unpleasant. Compared to 
 the drudgery of selling groceries the labor of 
 farming seemed an absolute diversion. 
 
 The simple truth was that Johnnie had grown 
 helplessly, miserably homesick. 
 
 Uncle Andrew soon observed the air of ab 
 straction with which Johnnie dragged through 
 his duties, and was not slow to guess its cause. 
 Like Johnnie he had come to the city many 
 years before, and had suffered the distressing 
 pangs which afflict every such prodigal more 
 or less, and he knew their sovereign remedy. 
 
 Homesickness, of all diseases, is preeminently 
 quickest cured by suitable change of scenery. 
 
 One evening as Johnnie stood in the door, 
 gazing vacantly down the street, Uncle Andrew 
 spoke. 
 
 "John," he asked, "don t you think this close 
 confinement is injuring your health a little?" 
 
 Johnnie immediately improvised a deep, 
 sonorous cough, and answered huskily : 
 
 "Well, since you mention it, uncle, I fear it 
 is." 
 
 189 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 "And don t you believe a few weeks outing 
 would help you?" 
 
 "I m sure, at least, I rather think it would," 
 Johnnie replied, trying to restrain his eager 
 ness. 
 
 "I ve a notion to send you up north a while," 
 Uncle Andrew proceeded. Johnnie s spirits 
 fell. 
 
 "Or out west." There was a pause. 
 
 "Or I might let you go out to your father s, 
 if you think that would answer," he concluded 
 with deliberation. 
 
 Johnnie thought it would. There was a 
 spring on his father s place whose waters were 
 distinctly medicinal. The air was remarkably 
 pure, and there was a great deal of sunshine 
 out that way, too. He was sure he would re 
 gain his health there. 
 
 Early the next morning Johnnie wended his 
 way to the station. It lacked two hours until 
 train time, but he hurried breathlessly all the 
 way. He was simply in a hurrying mood. 
 
 190 
 
XXIII 
 
 A MISFIT 
 
 HENCEFORTH he must be known as John. It 
 would be improper, disrespectful, almost abu 
 sive to speak of the fine young gentleman from 
 the city as Johnnie, who appeared at the Win 
 kle place one day nearly two years after John 
 nie went away. 
 
 Mr. Winkle and Eph were fanning them 
 selves on the front porch while the leisurely 
 new housekeeper prepared dinner, when they 
 noticed a well-dressed stranger approaching. 
 In one hand he carried a slender cane, in the 
 other a valise. 
 
 "Books er lightnin rods," observed Eph, "er, 
 mebbe, jew lry." Pluto, who had been lying 
 lazily in the shade, suddenly jumped to his feet, 
 sniffed the air, and bounded off to meet the new 
 comer. 
 
 "Better git! That there dawg lives on ped 
 dlers!" shouted Eph, while Mr. Winkle tried 
 191 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 to call Pluto back. But Pluto, instead of at 
 tacking the stranger, welcomed him by such 
 mad waggings of the tail as he had not indulged 
 in for months. 
 
 Then Eph, whose instinct was only inferior 
 to the dog s in acuteness, gave a sudden whoop, 
 and tossed his hat into the air. Mr. Winkle 
 started to his feet in helpless bewilderment. 
 "Well, dura my cats !" cried Eph, "if that ain t 
 sonny." 
 
 A moment later there was a general hearty 
 handshaking, followed by an awkward pause. 
 Then ensued a forced and desultory exchange 
 of those commonplace questions supposed to 
 put people at their ease. It was comical and it 
 was pathetic to hear father and son ask: 
 "How s your health?" and, "How s your Uncle 
 Andy?" and, "Are Aunt Mary s folks well?" 
 and then go on to comment on the weather. 
 
 It must be remembered that John s sojourn 
 in the city had almost completely covered the 
 wonderful chrysalis period. He had crept 
 away to the city a caterpillar and had flown 
 back a butterfly. 
 
 To his father, who had thought of him all 
 192 
 
Of THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
A MISFIT 
 
 the while as Johnnie, it was no light shock to 
 have him return unexpectedly as John. 
 
 Dinner served to dissipate this painful com 
 pany air somewhat, and during the afternoon 
 father and son grew quickly acquainted once 
 more; yet a new respect for each other, not al 
 together unpleasant, persisted. 
 
 Next morning at dawn John was up. He 
 put on his old clothes again, although they 
 seemed much shrunken, and discarded shoes en 
 tirely. He went joyfully out to the barn to 
 renew old friendships. But the stock greeted 
 him coldly. Stooping at old Brindle s side, he 
 bored his head into her flank and proceeded to 
 milk her; he had barely begun when she kicked 
 him over heartlessly. The horses shied at him ; 
 and the chickens fled at his approach. 
 
 One after another he visited all the old spots 
 of which he had dreamed so fondly. Everything 
 was just the same; nothing had changed. He 
 affirmed this over and over to himself. Yet 
 nothing seemed to affect him as he had expected 
 it to do as it used to do. He looked across 
 the purple meadow, up into the trees, and lis 
 tened to the thrush s familiar song listened 
 193 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 and lingered in vain for his heart to wake and 
 respond as of yore. But the old glamour was 
 gone. 
 
 At last he gave up, and went slowly back to 
 the house in disappointment. 
 
 John Winkle let us say Johnnie just once 
 more Johnnie Winkle had become a man; and 
 only in vaguest dreams would the pristine glad 
 ness of the springtime ever thrill his heart 
 again. 
 
 Paradise lay behind him. Yet one supreme 
 compensation still remained. Like the first boy 
 who became a man, he was destined to depart 
 from the Garden of Eden not alone, but hand 
 in hand with a woman. 
 
 "Say, son," remarked Eph confidentially that 
 evening even he had dropped the diminutive 
 form, and no longer said "sonny" "say, son, 
 recollect the time ye paid a visit to ol Missus 
 Meadows?" 
 
 John had forgotten. 
 
 "But how did you know about it, Eph?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "Law, I allus know d lots more n I let on," 
 said Eph. "Ye didn t know I follered ye all 
 194 
 
A MISFIT 
 
 the way thar an back, but I did I did so. 
 An I know d it wuzn t the ol lady ye went to 
 see." 
 
 John smiled. He would have been exas 
 perated if he had known this at the time; but 
 now it only amused him. 
 
 "Well, what d ye think?" Eph continued, 
 "that there same young lady her name wuz 
 Mary Bell, wuzn t it? Well, sir; she s visitin 
 down to Tuckers now." 
 
 John smiled superiorly again. 
 
 "Well, what of it?" he inquired. 
 
 "Oh, nothin ; nothin at all, only she asked 
 me if you recollected her. I just thought I d 
 ought to mention it." 
 
 This information, so quaintly imparted, had 
 little apparent effect upon John. But it was 
 on his mind when he fell asleep that night. 
 Visions of Mabel the angelic little Mabel of 
 old mingled with his dreams and woke him in 
 the morning. 
 
 When he went into the woods that day a 
 shadow of the child sweetheart seemed to cling 
 at his side. He tried not to notice it; strug 
 gled to throw it off, and attempted to lose it by 
 195 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 strolling through unfamiliar parts of the forest. 
 But it would not be abandoned, and at last it 
 led him irresistibly to the very nook where he 
 and the girl had loitered together so long ago. 
 
 He examined the spot curiously, half scorn 
 fully, but not without a shade of regret. They 
 were mere foolish children together he and 
 Mabel yet they were happy children, and he 
 wished he could enjoy some things now as he 
 did then. 
 
 He recalled how he had once carved their 
 initials upon a certain tree near by, and, seek 
 ing it out, found the letters still there. 
 
 At first they seemed to laugh at him as they 
 met his eyes, and yet, as he continued to look, 
 seemed to weep and grow faint and blurred. 
 
 As he returned to the house the shadow still 
 clung at his side ; clung more firmly, more fond 
 ly than ever, and he no longer strove to shake it 
 off. 
 
 There was a friendly meeting between John 
 and Mabel a few days later. Each thought 
 the other had changed greatly; and each se 
 cretly decided that the change was for the bet 
 ter. John was surprised to learn that Mabel 
 196 
 
A MISFIT 
 
 had been a resident of a city suburb for years, 
 and that during his stay in the city he had been 
 separated from her by only a few miles. 
 
 This knowledge rather vexed him when he 
 thought of all the pleasant hours they might 
 have spent together throughout the recent win 
 ters ; but when he thought of the times to come, 
 after they should both return to the city, he 
 did not mind. For he intended to go back 
 soon again. The country had become as great 
 a misfit for him as his old clothes. 
 
 In truth, having once been forsaken by him, 
 it had now finally disowned him forever. 
 
 When once more the afternoon train labored 
 into the Grand Union Station with John as one 
 of its passengers, he showed little evidence of 
 excitement or awe. He had not gazed out of 
 the window much during the journey. His 
 time had been, and was still, thoroughly occu 
 pied with looking after his traveling companion. 
 He escorted her through the crowd, and at the 
 door of the station handed her into a cab with 
 the assurance that he would call on her very 
 soon. 
 
 Some knowing people, whose gaze was at- 
 197 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 tracted by them, thought they were brother and 
 sister; and other more knowing people thought 
 they were not. 
 
 198 
 

 
 
 XXIV 
 
 THE MIRACLE OF MARRIAGE 
 
 IT was four years later, and John had ceased 
 to be Johnnie so long ago and had become such 
 a busy man that he seldom recalled the other 
 life down on the old farm. He was a partner 
 in the grocery business now, and a full-fledged 
 and important citizen. He had cast his first 
 vote, and paid taxes, and joined a club. More 
 over he had been spoken of as a possible candi 
 date for the city council, thereby having been 
 cajoled into subscribing liberally to the cam 
 paign fund. And what further evidence of 
 manhood and respected citizenship could be re 
 quired ? 
 
 Yet a new dignity was soon to be assumed 
 by him one before which all others sank into 
 insignificance. He was about to be married. 
 That was why, although a good citizen and a 
 safe and sound young man, he was known to be 
 at present visionary, flighty, and totally irre- 
 199 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 sponsible; that was why, as he sat at his desk, 
 he chewed the end of his penholder into splin 
 ters, spilled ink everywhere, and tore up sheet 
 after sheet of paper in an attempt to write a 
 suitable and intelligible letter to his father. 
 
 The strange accidents that befell John at this 
 period the mistakes he made and the ridiculous 
 antics he cut were innumerable. Indeed, the 
 mental status of a young man in this predica 
 ment can never be successfully exploited. That 
 it borders upon parancea, dementia, and melan 
 cholia at times can not be doubted. 
 
 Hysteria if men could have hysteria 
 might be an approximate diagnosis. Such 
 persons do a great many unaccountable things, 
 and develop peculiar traits. Perhaps the deed 
 itself is often unaccountable. But the dreams 
 devolving upon it they are divine! And if 
 these young men exhibit odd and contradictory 
 phases of mind, possibly it is because the mind 
 is for the time in complete abeyance to the heart, 
 because mentality has given way to sentiment. 
 Even in these days men are wont to resign them 
 selves to dreams of love, just as if such delu- 
 
 200 
 
THE MIRACLE OF MARRIAGE 
 
 sions had not been tried by countless cynics and 
 found vaporous and evanescent. 
 
 But John Winkle s love was different from 
 the kind heretofore known upon earth. It was 
 deeper and higher and stronger and more eter 
 nal. He knew it, and Mabel knew it; what 
 matter if the cynics did not? 
 
 Their courtship had been personally con 
 ducted throughout. They had not met in a 
 ball-room ; had not made love behind screens of 
 hot-house plants to the sound of waltz music 
 while chaperons hovered near with fiercely ruf 
 fled feathers, like brooding hens. 
 
 Night after night Mrs. Meadows had sur 
 rendered her modest parlor to them and kept 
 herself discreetly out of sight. She could trust 
 John Winkle, she told her neighbors; if she 
 could not she would not have permitted her 
 daughter to see him at all. 
 
 Certainly John and Mabel had become thor 
 oughly acquainted, and perhaps their love was 
 different from the passion of some of their aris 
 tocratic neighbors. 
 
 Every twilight, now, John passed in Mabel s 
 
 201 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 presence. Almost every morning he ran to tell 
 her something or to ask her something he had 
 forgotten the night before. Often they spent 
 hours together at the window in silence, watch 
 ing the dusk turn to darkness watching the 
 stars as they took their unalterable positions in 
 the sky ; and life and love took on new and mys 
 terious meanings as they watched. 
 
 Sometimes they conversed upon the most un- 
 romantic subjects. Perhaps Mabel would ask 
 her lover solicitously whether he was fond of 
 waffles, or if he liked pancakes. Nor was this 
 a procedure to be laughed at, for of such trifles 
 is the kingdom of domestic bliss. 
 
 The wedding day came at last, and with it, 
 bright and early, the three best friends of little 
 Johnnie Winkle of old, his father, Aunt 
 Mary, and Eph. They came with the scent of 
 rustic roses upon them, with the manners and 
 dress of rural life, unchanged by fashion, al 
 tered but little by time. Into the grocery they 
 filed with hearty laugh and handshake, each 
 bearing a mysterious parcel, for which Aunt 
 Mary accounted by shrilly whispering, "Wed 
 ding presents !" 
 
 202 
 
THE MIRACLE OF MARRIAGE 
 
 At any other time John might have been 
 embarrassed by their unexpected appearance, 
 but now he was only pleased and a trifle scared. 
 
 All took dinner with him at Uncle Andrew s. 
 Aunt Mary contributed sundry eatables, fresh 
 from the farm, for the occasion, which she had 
 remembered as favorites of Johnnie s. 
 
 And what an array of bygone incidents of 
 John s early life was called up and reviewed 
 over the plates! 
 
 Each visitor had brought along some par 
 ticular anecdote concerning Johnnie. First his 
 father told of Johnnie s early passion for 
 "projecks," recounting several of his disastrous 
 experiments. 
 
 Then Aunt Mary leaned back in her chair 
 and gave an entertaining account of how John 
 nie had once played circus performer for the 
 delectation of the minister. 
 
 "We were all settin there," she said ; "an the 
 preacher arguin with his ma about goin to 
 shows, which she was upholdin , an had the 
 best of it, too, when, lo an behold, here came 
 Johnnie an you ought to have seen him! 
 Without a stitch on to mention," here she put 
 203 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 her handkerchief to her face and shook with sup 
 pressed laughter. "Goodness, he was a sight ! 
 an there he was a-turnin somersets an there 
 we all were, an his poor ma scandalized speech 
 less!" 
 
 Next Eph, who had been non-committal and 
 rather ill at ease heretofore, began to giggle, 
 and, holding his knife aloft to command atten 
 tion, introduced his choicest tale. He related 
 how he had known all along that "sonny wuz 
 tuck with the Meadows girl" ; how he had fol 
 lowed the boy on his first visit to Meadows ; 
 and had peeped in at the window "unbeknownst, 
 an seen the ol lady entertainin him stid o 
 Mary Bell." 
 
 Then they all laughed heartily again, John 
 heartiest of all. 
 
 The wedding ceremony passed, as do they 
 all. The assemblage in the Meadows parlor 
 chatted and laughed gaily, until some one whis 
 pered, "Here they come!" Then there was a 
 flutter, a hush, a gentle prayer, a few brief 
 words, a blessing sobs here and there, and a 
 painful silence. 
 
 The minister broke the spell soon with jolly 
 204 
 
THE MIRACLE OF MARRIAGE 
 
 congratulations, and then Mrs. Meadows and 
 Aunt Mary, wiping their eyes and laughing, 
 pressed forward. 
 
 The good old country custom of kissing the 
 bride was inaugurated, and Eph was one of the 
 first to take advantage of it. The room buzzed 
 with the conventional comments: "How lovely 
 she looked !" and, "Did you notice how he trem 
 bled, poor fellow!" 
 
 A lavish dinner (which Aunt Mary insisted 
 on calling supper) was served, in the course of 
 which somebody addressed the bride as Mrs. 
 Winkle, and she pretended not to hear; and 
 everybody laughed at the incident just as if it 
 had not occurred at all the weddings they had 
 ever attended. 
 
 Neither bride nor groom partook heartily of 
 the dinner. The ethereal atmosphere surround 
 ing them rendered the veriest angel food coarse 
 and common. Moreover, John in particular 
 was still badly frightened. He had gone 
 through it all in a hypnotic state of terror, 
 quaking with a strange unfounded fear. 
 
 It was only after they had departed amid a 
 shower of good bys and rice, and were safely 
 205 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 started on their tour, that his senses returned, 
 and he began to realize what he had done. And 
 then the pride and tenderness and self-impor 
 tance and general buoyancy which took posses 
 sion of him it was simply intoxicating. 
 
 As the train rumbled on, exhausted by the 
 excitement of it all, the girl at his side his 
 wife! closed her eyes and leaned her head 
 coyly against his shoulder; and, looking down 
 into her sweet, confiding face, the only regret 
 of John s was that his mother could not have 
 lived to see his wife. 
 
 
 206 
 
XXV 
 
 THE NEW BOY 
 
 THERE had been babies before, there would 
 be babies hereafter, but never such a baby as 
 this one. His precocity was established with 
 his first unterrified and highly intelligent glance 
 at the ceiling; his beauty was admitted by all 
 from the beginning; his amazing lustiness and 
 strength were demonstrated by the way he cried 
 and squirmed. There could be no question 
 about it he was an extraordinary infant. 
 
 A great many burning questions did arise 
 about him, however. In the first place, it was 
 a matter of earnest debate as to whom he most 
 resembled. 
 
 Every baby, as soon as born, resembles some 
 body. Sometimes it is its father, sometimes a 
 great grandparent or an uncle or a second 
 cousin, but resemble some one it must. Each 
 acquaintance who called, expressed an opinion 
 upon this vital point because it was expected. 
 207 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 There are certain well-known though unwrit 
 ten laws governing such cases. In viewing a 
 baby for the first time it is one s duty to begin 
 by speaking of its sweetness, then to mention 
 its plumpness, and then to commit one s self as 
 to what or whom it looks like. 
 
 Ignorant or careless bachelors have made un 
 forgiving enemies of former friends by neglect 
 ing to observe these rules. 
 
 Grandma Meadows thought the baby was the 
 very image of its papa. Uncle Andrew held 
 to the opinion that it was the picture of Mabel ; 
 while Eph, when he made a pilgrimage from the 
 country, expressly to see it, said it looked "right 
 smart" like his sister when an infant. 
 
 Another momentous question related to the 
 exact color of the baby s eyes. Every morn 
 ing the parents made renewed ocular examina 
 tions, and each time discovered a different hue* 
 Then they were greatly perplexed as to whether 
 it would have curls, and what its complexion 
 would be. 
 
 They dressed the infant in a weight of flan 
 nels that would have exhausted a really sentient 
 being, and John brought it everything pur- 
 208 
 
THE NEW BOY 
 
 chasable rattles, rings, and dolls, which he 
 would wave in its face wildly by the hour, trying 
 to teach it to notice things. 
 
 In fact, the home life of Mr. and Mrs. John 
 Winkle was given entirely to developing the 
 wonderful child. A daintily bound album was 
 purchased in which to record minutely every 
 step of its onward progress. 
 
 This unique book had blank pages for the 
 photographs and signatures of parents and 
 nurse; a space in which to register the baby s 
 weight, color, and condition; numerous places 
 for its pictures at different ages ; a blank page 
 for it to walk across in taking its first step ; 
 and a memorandum in which to record its first 
 laugh, its first attack of colic, first tooth, and 
 first spasm. 
 
 When not engaged in playing with the baby, 
 John and Mabel were usually studying this rec 
 ord or talking about it. Nor was the little 
 tyrant content with monopolizing its parents 
 attention, but must needs entertain every casual 
 guest that called. 
 
 "Did you hear about that awful fire last 
 
 209 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 night?" Uncle Andrew would ask, coming in 
 breathlessly. 
 
 "No," John would answer with a half-hearted 
 attempt to appear interested. "Where was 
 look! Did you see that smile? Tootsy woot- 
 sy, there, now! Oh, you didn t look quick 
 enough. Let s try him again." And he would 
 contort his features madly and gouge the in 
 fant prodigy in the stomach, with the fond 
 hope of eliciting another rare and wonderful 
 "goo-goo." 
 
 And the fire and all the unimportant, tire 
 some world outside were forgotten, were re 
 nounced, and tossed scornfully aside in favor of 
 the one thing worth while in the whole universe 
 the bouncing, new boy. 
 
 Ever with the tenderest solicitude the anxious 
 parents watched over the little cherub, waking 
 or sleeping. How the mother s heart palpi 
 tated if it happened to sneeze. How the father 
 faltered if it chanced to cough. How unhappy 
 were they both when it cried! 
 
 Its slightest indisposition filled them with 
 wild alarm. Once the doctor was called in the 
 
THE NEW BOY 
 
 middle of the night because the baby did not 
 breathe right. 
 
 It was, indeed, the most precious possession 
 that earthly life may know, the brightest jewel 
 ever given into human keeping; and so was 
 John once, and Mabel, and humble Eph; and 
 so are all. 
 
 One important matter, intimately connected 
 with the new boy, remained a subject of dispute 
 for months. This was his name. He had 
 come into the world incognito, and there seemed 
 to be no name anywhere that suited him. The 
 back of the dictionary was searched through, 
 the Bible was exhausted, and the long roll of 
 relatives, living and dead, was called to no 
 avail. 
 
 Grandma insisted on an unusual name, papa 
 wanted something common, and the mother 
 longed to call him something musical and sweet. 
 A combination of all these qualities could not 
 be found. 
 
 But as the baby grew more and more into the 
 semblance of a real, live boy, the matter at last 
 settled itself. It became evident that there was 
 
 211 
 
JOHNNIE 
 
 one name and only one that would sit prop 
 erly upon a boy with such merry blue eyes, such 
 a saucily puckered mouth, and a countenance so 
 quaintly quizzical, so mischievous, so innocent 
 and bland. Looking upon this complexity of 
 features, they could only call him JOHNNIE. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 NOV0 1947 
 
 y 
 
 LD 2l-100m-12, 46(A2012sl6)4120 
 
Y.B 64049 
 
 VE. 
 
 
 192813