or attempt to analyze it.

"I'm sick of it," said he; just as after the labour of building a fort
in Monrovia, he had with the same remark deserted his companions on the
threshold of its enjoyment.

Bobby thought he exercised a choice when he turned from printing, just
as he chose whether to walk on the right or on the left side of the
street. In reality it would have been impossible for him to re-enter his
interest, his enthusiasm; impossible even for him to have accomplished
the mechanical labour of the trade save at an utterly disproportionate
expense of nervous energy.

Bobby did not know this; of course, Johnny was not capable of such
analysis. The only human being who might have understood and worked in
correction of the tendency, read the affair amiss. Mrs. Orde was only
too glad to get Bobby into the open air again, and saw in his
abandonment of this feverish enthusiasm only cause for rejoicing.

So Bobby threw his friend into despair by declining to go on with a
flourishing business. "Bime by," said he. "I'm sick of it, now." As a
matter of fact he never touched the printing press again. His parents
deplored the useless waste of a large amount of money and drew the usual
conclusion that it is foolish to buy children expensive things. No doubt
from that standpoint the affair was deplorable; yet there is this to be
noted, that Bobby's enthusiasm blew out only after he had thought all
around the subject, back front, bottom and sides. He knew that printing
press theoretically and practically and all it could do. As long as it
withheld the smallest secret Bobby clung to it, his soul at white heat.
But the repetition and again the repetition of what he had learned
thoroughly struck cold his every higher faculty. He shrugged it all from
him, and turned with unabated freshness his inquiring child's eyes to
what new the world had to offer him.

XXI

WINTER

After the collapse of the printing business Bobby and Johnny turned to
Bobby Junior and the little sleigh. They drove often, far into the
country. It was the dead of winter. The country was wide and still and
white. Against the prevailing note of the snow the patches of woods
showed almost black. The landscape looked strangely flattened out, and
bereft of life. Nevertheless that impression was false, for the little
sleigh climbed and dipped over many hills and hollows; and the boys were
continually seeing living things and their indications. Tracks of