how cheerfully I did
yell at them.

It was a glorious chance to "holler," and I have never since heard
any public speaker on the stump or at camp-meeting who could make more
noise. I have often thought it fortunate that the amount of noise in a
boy does not increase in proportion to his size; if it did, the world
could not contain it.

The whole day was full of excitement and of freedom. We were away from
the farm, which to a boy is one of the best parts of farming; we saw
other farms and other people at work; I had the pleasure of marching
along, and swinging my whip, past boys whom I knew, who were picking up
stones. Every turn of the road, every bend and rapid of the river, the
great bowlders by the wayside, the watering-troughs, the giant pine that
had been struck by lightning, the mysterious covered bridge over the
river where it was, most swift and rocky and foamy, the chance eagle in
the blue sky, the sense of going somewhere,--why, as I recall all these
things I feel that even the Prince Imperial, as he used to dash on
horseback through the Bois de Boulogne, with fifty mounted hussars
clattering at his heels, and crowds of people cheering, could not have
been as happy as was I, a boy in short jacket and shorter pantaloons,
trudging in the dust that day behind the steers and colts, cracking my
black-stock whip.

I wish the journey would never end; but at last, by noon, we reach the
pastures and turn in the herd; and after making the tour of the lots to
make sure there are no breaks in the fences, we take our luncheon from
the wagon and eat it under the trees by the spring. This is the supreme
moment of the day. This is the way to live; this is like the Swiss
Family Robinson, and all the rest of my delightful acquaintances in
romance. Baked beans, rye-and-indian bread (moist, remember), doughnuts
and cheese, pie, and root beer. What richness! You may live to dine
at Delmonico's, or, if those Frenchmen do not eat each other up, at
Philippe's, in Rue Montorgueil in Paris, where the dear old Thackeray
used to eat as good a dinner as anybody; but you will get there neither
doughnuts, nor pie, nor root beer, nor anything so good as that luncheon
at noon in the old pasture, high among the Massachusetts hills! Nor
will you ever, if you live to be the oldest boy in the world, have any
holiday equal to the one I have described. But I always regretted that I
did not take along a fishline, just to "throw in" the brook we