give way, and then the sea would come roaring in, carrying
death and destruction and windmills and wooden shoes and pineapple
cheeses on its crest. At least, this is the inference one gathers from
reading Mr. McGuffey's account of the affair.

So what does the quick-witted youngster do? He shoves his little arm
in the crevice on the inner side, where already the water is trickling
through, thus blocking the leak. All night long he stands there, one
small, half-frozen Dutch boy holding back the entire North Atlantic.
Not until centuries later, when Judge Alton B. Parker runs for president
against Colonel Roosevelt and is defeated practically by acclamation
is there to be presented so historic and so magnificent an example of a
contest against tremendous odds. In the morning a peasant, going out to
mow the tulip beds, finds the little fellow crouched at the foot of the
dike and inquires what ails him. The lad, raising his weary head--but
wait, I shall quote the exact language of the book:

"I am hindering the sea from running in," was the simple reply
of the child.

Simple? I'll say it is! Positively nothing could be simpler unless it be
the stark simplicity of the mind of an author who figures that when the
Atlantic Ocean starts boring its way through a crack in a sea wall you
can stop it by plugging the hole on the inner side of the sea wall with
a small boy's arm. Ned Buntline may never have enjoyed the vogue among
parents and teachers that Mr. McGuffey enjoyed, but I'll say this
for him--he knew more about the laws of hydraulics than McGuffey ever
dreamed.

And there was Peter Hurdle, the ragged lad who engaged in a long but
tiresome conversation with the philanthropic and inquisitive Mr. Lenox,
during the course of which it developed that Peter didn't want anything.
When it came on to storm he got under a tree. When he was hungry he ate
a raw turnip. Raw turnips, it would appear, grew all the year round in
the fields of the favored land where Peter resided. If the chill winds
of autumn blew in through one of the holes in Peter's trousers they blew
right out again through another hole. And he didn't care to accept the
dime which Mr. Lenox in an excess of generosity offered him, because,
it seemed, he already had a dime. When it came to being plumb contented
there probably never was a soul on this earth that was the equal of
Master Hurdle. He even was satisfied with his name which I would regard
as the ultimat