t that he has got him fast. Out he
comes, up he goes in the air, and the boy runs to look at him. In this
transaction, however, no one can be more surprised than the sucker.

VII. FICTION AND SENTIMENT

The boy farmer does not appreciate school vacations as highly as his
city cousin. When school keeps, he has only to "do chores and go to
school," but between terms there are a thousand things on the farm that
have been left for the boy to do. Picking up stones in the pastures and
piling them in heaps used to be one of them. Some lots appeared to
grow stones, or else the sun every year drew them to the surface, as it
coaxes the round cantelopes out of the soft garden soil; it is certain
that there were fields that always gave the boys this sort of fall work.
And very lively work it was on frosty mornings for the barefooted boys,
who were continually turning up the larger stones in order to stand for
a moment in the warm place that had been covered from the frost. A boy
can stand on one leg as well as a Holland stork; and the boy who found
a warm spot for the sole of his foot was likely to stand in it until
the words, "Come, stir your stumps," broke in discordantly upon his
meditations. For the boy is very much given to meditations. If he had
his way, he would do nothing in a hurry; he likes to stop and think
about things, and enjoy his work as he goes along. He picks up potatoes
as if each one were a lump of gold just turned out of the dirt, and
requiring careful examination.

Although the country-boy feels a little joy when school breaks up (as
he does when anything breaks up, or any change takes place), since he is
released from the discipline and restraint of it, yet the school is his
opening into the world,--his romance. Its opportunities for enjoyment
are numberless. He does not exactly know what he is set at books for;
he takes spelling rather as an exercise for his lungs, standing up and
shouting out the words with entire recklessness of consequences; he
grapples doggedly with arithmetic and geography as something that must
be cleared out of his way before recess, but not at all with the zest
he would dig a woodchuck out of his hole. But recess! Was ever any
enjoyment so keen as that with which a boy rushes out of the schoolhouse
door for the ten minutes of recess? He is like to burst with animal
spirits; he runs like a deer; he can nearly fly; and he throws himself
into play with entire self-forgetfulness,