, as of some sort
of carriage approaching. A moment afterwards, a carryall came in sight.
It drove up to the front gate, and stopped. Rollo's father and mother
and his little brother Nathan got out. His father fastened the horse to
the post, and came in.

When Rollo first heard the noise of the carryall, he was sitting still
upon the steps of the door, thinking. He was thinking of something that
Jonas, his father's hired boy, had told him about the sun's shining in
at the barn door. There was a very large double door to Rollo's father's
barn, and as this door opened towards the south, the sun used to shine
in very warm, upon the barn floor, in the middle of the day.

Rollo and Jonas had been sitting there husking some corn,--for it was in
the fall of the year;--and as it was rather a cool autumnal day, Rollo
said it was lucky that the sun shone in, for it kept them warm.

"Yes," said Jonas; "and what is remarkable, it always shines in farther
in the winter than it does in the summer."

"Does it?" said Rollo.

"Yes," said Jonas.

"And what is the reason?" asked Rollo.

"I don't know," said Jonas, "unless it is because we want it in the barn
more in the winter than we do in the summer."

"Ho!" said Rollo; "I don't believe that is the reason."

"Why not?" said Jonas.

"O, I don't believe the sun moves about in the heavens, to different
places, only just to shine into barn doors."

"Why, it keeps a great many farmers' boys more comfortable," said Jonas.

"Is it so in all barns?" asked Rollo.

"I suppose so," said Jonas.

After some further conversation on the subject, the boys determined to
watch the reflection of the sun's beams upon the barn floor for a good
many days, and to mark the place that it came in to, at noon every day,
with a piece of chalk. It was only a few minutes before the carryall
came up, that they had determined upon this, and had marked the place
for that day; and then Rollo had come out of the barn, and was sitting
upon the door step, thinking of the subject, when his reflections were
interrupted in the manner already described.

So, when Rollo saw his father getting out of the carryall, he ran to
meet him, and called out to him, talking very loud and rapidly,

"Father, Jonas says that the sun shines farther in, upon the barn floor,
in winter than in summer;--does it, do you think?"

But this was not a proper time for Rollo to bring up his philosophical
question. His father had a c