into prison; it was the common will of a free
people, just as the law was the common conscience.

I dare not say that he learned all this easily, or all at once, or
even willingly. None of us learns our great lessons easily. We have to
live them, breathe them, work them out with sweat and tears. That we
do learn them, even inadequately, makes the glory and the wonder of
man.

And so John Flint went to school to the government of the United
States, and carried its little text-books about with him and taught
them to others in even more need that he; and heckled hopeless boys
into Corn Clubs; and coaxed sullen mothers and dissatisfied girls into
Poultry and Tomato Clubs; and was full of homely advice upon such
living subjects as the spraying of fruit trees, and how to save them
from blight and scale-insects, and how to get rid of flies, and
cut-worms, and to fight the cattle-tick, which is our curse; and the
preservation of birds, concerning which he was rabid. His liking for
birds began with Miss Sally Ruth's pigeons and the friendly birds in
our garden. And as he learned to know them his love for them grew. I
have seen him daily visit a wren's nest without once alarming the
little black-eyed mother. I have heard him give the red-bird's call,
and heard that loveliest of all birds answer him. And I have seen the
impudent jays, within reach of his hand, swear at him unabashed and
unafraid, because he fed a vireo first.

I like to think of his intimate friendship with the wholesome country
children--not the least of his blessings. He was their chief visitor
from the outside world. He knew wonderful secrets about things one
hadn't noticed before, and he could make miracles with his quick
strong fingers. He'd sit down, his stick and knapsack beside him, his
glamorous dog at his feet, and while you and your sisters and brothers
and friends and neighbors hung about him like a cluster of tow-headed
bees, he'd turn a few sticks and bits of cloth and twine and a tack or
two, and an old roller-skate wheel he took out of his pocket, into an
air-ship! He could go down by your little creek and make you a
water-wheel, or a windmill. He could make you marvelous little men,
funny little women, absurd animals, out of corks or peanuts. He knew,
too, just exactly the sort of knife your boy-heart ached for--and at
parting you found that very knife slipped into your enraptured palm.
You might save the pennies you earned by picking berries a