the hammer with the other instruments in his band. The blacksmith
looked, smiled and let his hammer fall in consonance with the beat of
the boy's hand, and for some moments there was glorious harmony between
anvil and mouth organ and the band invisible. At the store door across
the street the band paused long enough simply to give and receive an
answering salute from the storekeeper, who smiled upon his boy as he
marched past. At the crossroads the band paused, marking time. There was
evidently a momentary uncertainty in the leader's mind as to direction.
The road to the right led straight, direct, but treeless, dusty,
uninviting, to the school. It held no lure for the leader and his
knightly following. Further on a path led in a curve under shady trees
and away from the street. It made the way to school longer, but the lure
of the curving, shady path was irresistible. Still stepping bravely to
the old abolitionist hymn, the procession moved along, swung into the
path under the trees and suddenly came to a halt. With a magnificent
flourish the band concluded its triumphant hymn and with the conductor
and brigadier the whole brigade stood rigidly at attention. The cause
of this sudden halt was to be seen at the foot of a maple tree in the
person of a fat lump of good natured boy flesh supine upon the ground.

"Hello, Joe; coming to school?"

"Ugh," grunted Joe, from the repose of limitless calm.

"Come on, then, quick, march." Once more the band struck up its hymn.

"Hol' on, Larry, it's plenty tam again," said Joe. The band came to a
stop. "I don' lak dat school me," he continued, still immersed in calm.

Joe's struggles with an English education were indeed tragically
pathetic. His attempts with aspirates were a continual humiliation to
himself and a joy to the whole school. No wonder he "no lak dat school."
Besides, Joe was a creature of the open fields. His French Canadian
father, Joe Gagneau, "Ol' Joe," was a survival of a bygone age, the
glorious golden age of the river and the bush, of the shanty and the
raft, of the axe and the gun, the age of Canadian romance, of daring
deed, of wild adventure.

"An' it ees half-hour too queek," persisted Joe. "Come on hup to de
dam." A little worn path invited their feet from the curving road, and
following their feet, they found themselves upon a steep embankment
which dammed the waters into a pond that formed the driving power for
the grist mill standing near. At the fa