's just the point, I guess," broke in Dick Prescott, with
a light laugh. "Dave is feeling so extremely well and happy-----"

"Now, you're shouting," Darrin assented. "But it's no use for
poor Reade to ponder over the glories of nature. All he can think
of is the region bounded by his belt."

"Glories of nature?" repeated Reade. "If that's what you're talking
about, why didn't you announce your subject earlier? Yes, sir;
nature is at her greenest best to-day. Just look off through
that line of trees, and see how the light breeze moves the tops
in that field of young corn, and-----"

"Corn?" flared Dave. "Something to eat, of course! Tom, you're
hopeless when it comes to the finer things of life. You ought
to have been born in a pen, close to a well-filled trough. Corn,
indeed!"

"This country would probably be bankrupt if there were no corn
crop, and you'd be digging hard for a living, instead of being
a lazy schoolboy," retorted Reade, with an indulgent smile. "Let
me see; how many hundred million dollars did Old Dut tell us the
annual corn crop brings in wealth to this country?"

All of the other boys, save Dave, glanced at Tom, but all shook
their heads. Statistics do not mix well in a Grammar School boy's
head.

"Oh, well, it was a lot of money, anyway," Tom pursued his subject.
"I wouldn't mind having all the money that the American corn
crop brings."

"So you could buy the fanciest kinds of food, I suppose?" jeered
Dave Darrin.

"Never mind, Darry; if I had a lot of money I'd buy you the biggest
and softest mattress I could find, so that you'd have nothing
to do but lie off by yourself, look up at the green leaves and
dream your summers away. That lying on your back and looking
up at the sky is what you call reverie, isn't it?"

"Quit your kidding!" ordered Dave.

"Is it reverie?" asked Harry Hazelton, "or just plain laziness
that ails Dave?"

"Laziness, of course," laughed Tom. "Dave, I guess Harry has
more sense in naming things than any of us. Yes; that's it!
And Dick thought it was merely poetic temperament."

"Temperament? What's that?" grinned Dan Dalzell. "Is that what
you get in June by adding up the column of figures in the thermometer?"

To signify his lack of interest in the talk, Darrin rolled over
on his side, turning his gaze away from the other boys. In another
minute Dave's eyes were closed, his lips open and his breath coming
regularly and audibly.

Such was the droning effect