ind everything in the hurly-burly
of preparation for sheep-shearing. So, after a hearty kissing by the
womenfolk, aunts and cousins, Will, with a cake hot from the baking
thrust into his hand, goes out to the steading to look around. At
Snitterfield there are poultry, and calves, too, in the byre, and
little pigs in the pen back of the barn. Then comes breakfast in the
kitchen with the farm-hands with their clattering hobnailed shoes and
tarry hands, after which follows the business of sheep-washing, which
Will views from the shady bank of the pool, and in his small heart he is
quite torn because of the plaintive bleatings of the frightened sheep.
But he swallows it as a man should. There is a pedler haunting the
sheep-shearing festivals of the neighborhood. The women have sent for
him to bring his pack to Snitterfield, and Dad bids Will choose a pair
of scented gloves for Mother--and be quick; they must be off for
Stratford before the noon.

Dad seems short and curt. Grandfather, his broad, florid face upturned
to Dad astride Robin, shakes his hoary head. "Doan' you do it, son
John," says Grandfather; "'tis a-building on sand is any man who thinks
to prosper on a mortgage. Henry and I'll advance you a bit. After which,
cut down your living in Henley Street, son John, an' draw in the
purse-strings."

VIII

But baby years pass. When Will Shakespeare is six, he hears that he is
to go to school. But not to nod over a hornbook at the petty school--not
John Shakespeare's son! Little Will Shakespeare is entered at King's New
College, which is a grammar-school.

But, dear me! Dear me! It was a dreary place and irksome. At first small
Will sat among his kind awed. When Schoolmaster breathed Will breathed,
but when Schoolmaster glanced frowningly up from under overhanging brows
like penthouse roofs, then the heart of Will Shakespeare quaked within
him.

But that was while he was six. At seven, when the elements of Latin
grammar confronted him, Will had already found grammar-school an
excellent place to plead aching tooth or heavy head to stay away from.
At eight, a dreary traveling for him to cover did his "_Sententiae
Pueriles_" prove, and idle paths more pleasing.

At nine, he had learned to know many things not listed at
grammar-school. For instance, he knew one Bardolph of the brazen, fiery
nose, the tapster at the tavern. It was Bardolph who drew him out from
under the knee and belaboring fists of one Thomas