his cattle out for half a day to keep the grass
from becoming too rank and sour. I helped him drive the cows, oxen and
heifers to the pasture. How they gamboled, kicked up their heels and
tossed their heads. No more bow and stanchion, no more dry hay and
confinement for them. I shared in their exhilaration, having been myself
a prisoner for the past six months, and as we drove them afield, could
hardly keep from dancing and shouting. "There, my son," said Uncle
Lyman, "let me see if you have forgotten how to put up the bars."

I lifted them into place with a will, and thought, this is the life for
me. Emboldened by his question I opened my mind in a roundabout way as
to helping him all summer on the farm. He saw my drift at once and told
me he could not hire me, nor any other boy; he must have a man if
anybody, and that I must stick to my trade.

"You can stay a few days," he continued, "and then you had better go
back to it," and as if to soften his advice he added, "The first cloudy
day we will try for pickerel, though it is rather too early."

This might have been discouraging and a dreadful check to my plans, but
by some sudden transition wholly inexplicable, I had already half given
them up. My discontent and melancholy had been exhausted in the running
away; and a few hours experience of disenchantment reconciled me to my
lot.

There is no human experience more acutely painful than when one awakens
to the fact that he is a person, an ego, unrelated to people or things,
with no real claim to assert save that of habit or associations. The
sense of isolation and loneliness is at first overpowering, and vainly
does he try to attach himself to former objects and environment. The
awakening may come in mature years, it may come in youth; but at what
time it appears, the old heavens and the old earth crumble and the soul
faces its own destiny and recognizes that it must walk alone.

I was surprised to see how the face of things had altered, when, in the
course of the day, I hunted up the two playmates with whom I had
formerly been most intimate. I met a cold reception. We could not find
our way back to the old ground, the old innocent relation. As for Launa
Probana, I did not so much as inquire for her. Time and change had not
yet made her distinct and dear. After this I enjoyed myself very well
for a few days, excusing my prank with the notion that it was a
vacation. We went fishing, but the pickerel would not come