eing
him; and Kline the candy-man sometimes sold you old hard stuff mixed
with the fresh. But Old Pete here--he just worked honest and
steady--out in the open--at a fixed wage--and he did an honest job and
was proud of it even if it was only sawing wood. He worked faithfully
until it was done, and then he got a good word and a bowl of coffee and
his wages in gold and silver--and went his way rejoicing, leaving
behind him the glory of labor well performed blending with the
refreshing fragrance of new-cut logs that sifted through the cracks of
the old barn.

The Rain

It is early, and Saturday morning--very, very early.

Listen! ... An unmistakable drip, drip, drip ... and the room is dark.

A bound out of bed--a quick step to the window--an anxious peering
through the wet panes .... and the confirmation is complete.

It is raining--and on Saturday, the familiar leaden skies and steady
drip that spell permanency and send the robin to the shelter of some
thick bush, and leave only an occasional undaunted swallow cleaving the
air on swift wing.

In all the world there is no sadness like that which in boyhood sends
you back to bed on Saturday morning with the mournful drip, drip, drip
of a steady rain doling in your ears.

Out in the woodshed there is a can of the largest, fattest angle-worms
ever dug from a rich garden-plot--all so happily, so feverishly, so
exultantly captured last night when Anticipation strengthened the
little muscles that wielded the heavy spade. All safe in their black
soil they wait, coiled round and round each other into a solid
worm-ball in the bottom of the can.

A mile down the river the dam is calling--the tumbled waters are
swirling and eddying and foaming over the deep places where the
black-bass wait--and old Shoemaker Schmidt, patriarch of the river, is
there this very minute, unwinding his pole, for well he knows that if
one cares to brave the weather he will catch the largest and finest and
most bass when the rain is falling on the river.

But small boys who have anxious mothers do not go fishing on rainy
days--so there is no need of haste, and one might as well go back to
bed and sleep unconcernedly just as late as possible. If only a fellow
could get up between showers, or before the rain actually starts, so
that he could truthfully say: "But, mother, really and truly, it wasn't
raining when we started!" it would be all right, and the escape was
warrantable, justified