tling with four-syllabled words while
he worked.

"Why do you study your lesson out here?" she asked, sitting down on a
convenient stump, and refreshing herself with another bunch of white
currants. "Couldn't you learn it better indoors?"

"Dunno!" replied the boy. "Ain't got no time ter stay indoors."

"You might learn it in the evening!" suggested Hilda.

"I can't keep awake evenin's," said the boy, simply. "Hev to be up at
four o'clock to let the cows out, an' I git sleepy, come night. An' I
like it here too," he added. "I can l'arn 'em easier, weedin'; take ten
weeds to a word."

"Ten weeds to a word?" repeated Hilda. "I don't understand you."

"Why," said the boy, looking up at her with wide-open blue eyes, "I take
a good stiff word (I like 'em stiff, like that an--an_ti_cipate feller),
and I says it over and over while I pull up ten weeds,--big weeds, o'
course, pusley and sich. I don't count chickweed. By the time the weeds
is up, I know the word, I've larned fifteen this spell!" and he glanced
proudly at his tattered spelling-book as he tugged away at a mammoth
root of pusley, which stretched its ugly, sprawling length of fleshy
arms on every side.

Hilda watched him for some moments, many new thoughts revolving in her
head. How many country boys were there who taught themselves in this
way? How many, among the clever girls at Mademoiselle Haut-ton's
school, had this sort of ambition to learn, of pride in learning? Had
she, the best scholar in her class, had it? She had always known her
lessons, because they were easy for her to learn, because she had a
quick eye and ear, and a good memory. She could not help learning,
Mademoiselle said. But this,--this was something different!

"What is your name?" she asked, with a new interest.

"Bubble Chirk," replied the freckled boy, with one eye on his book, and
the other measuring a tall spire of pigweed, towards which he stretched
his hand.

"WHAT!" cried Hilda, in amazement.

"Bubble Chirk!" said the boy. "Kin' o' curus name, ain't it? The hull of
it's Zerubbabel Chirk; but most folks ain't got time to say all that. It
trips you up, too, sort o'. Bubble's what they call me; 'nless it's
Bub."

The contrast between the boy's earnest and rather pathetic face, and
his absurdly volatile name, was almost too much for Hilda's gravity. But
she checked the laugh which rose to her lips, and asked: "Don't you go
to school at all, Bubble? It is a pity that you shoul