ng quite
inspiriting, and I played "Marching Through Georgia" until all the
"happy hills of hay" were to the fervid eye of a boy's imagination full
of tramping soldiers. Oh, I shall never forget the joys of those hours
in the hay-barn, nor the music of that secret tin whistle! I can hear
yet the crooning of the pigeons in the eaves, and the slatey sound of
their wings as they flew across the open spaces in the great barn; I can
smell yet the odour of the hay.

But with years, and the city, and the shame of youth, I put aside and
almost forgot the art of whistling. When I was preparing for the present
pilgrimage, however, it came to me with a sudden thrill of pleasure that
nothing in the wide world now prevented me from getting a whistle and
seeing whether I had forgotten my early cunning. At the very first
good-sized town I came to I was delighted to find at a little candy and
toy shop just the sort of whistle I wanted, at the extravagant price of
ten cents. I bought it and put it in the bottom of my knapsack.

"Am I not old enough now," I said to myself, "to be as youthful as I
choose?"

Isn't it the strangest thing in the world how long it takes us to learn
to accept the joys of simple pleasures?--and some of us never learn at
all. "Boo!" says the neighbourhood, and we are instantly frightened into
doing a thousand unnecessary and unpleasant things, or prevented from
doing a thousand beguiling things.

For the first few days I was on the road I thought often with pleasure
of the whistle lying there in my bag, but it was not until after I left
the Stanleys' that I felt exactly in the mood to try it.

The fact is, my adventures on the Stanley farm had left me in a very
cheerful frame of mind. They convinced me that some of the great things
I had expected of my pilgrimage were realizable possibilities. Why, I
had walked right into the heart of as fine a family as I have seen these
many days.

I remained with them the entire day following the potato-planting. We
were out at five o'clock in the morning, and after helping with
the chores, and eating a prodigious breakfast, we went again to the
potato-field, and part of the time I helped plant a few remaining rows,
and part of the time I drove a team attached to a wing-plow to cover the
planting of the previous day.

In the afternoon a slashing spring rain set in, and Mr. Stanley, who
was a forehanded worker, found a job for all of us in the barn. Ben,
the younger s