quite some time himself, and was entitled to a resting spell.

This was a new trait in Step Hen. Time had been when he would hardly
notice a single thing when out in the woods, unless his attention was
especially directed to it by a comrade. But it was so no longer; and the
way his awakening came about, as mentioned in a previous story, is
worthy of being recorded again, as showing what a trifling thing may
start a boy to thinking, and observing the myriad of interesting events
that are constantly occurring around him, no matter where he may happen
to be at the time, in a crowded city, or alone in a vast solitude.

Step Hen had once come upon a humble little tumble-bug, striving to push
a ball four times as big as himself up a forlorn road, at a point where
there was a "thank-you-mum," intended to throw the water aside during a
heavy rain, and save the road from being guttered.

He had grown so deeply interested in seeing the little creature try
again and again to overcome the stupendous difficulties that faced it,
that he lay there for half an hour, watching; clapping his hands when he
thought success had come, and feeling deeply sorry when a slip caused
the ball to roll back again, often upsetting the bug, and passing over
its body.

The astonishing pluck of the humble little bug had aroused the
admiration of the boy; and in the end he had picked up both ball and
bug, and placed them safely above the baffling ascent in the road. And
after that hour Step Hen awoke to the fact that an observing boy need
never lack for something intensely interesting to chain his attention,
no matter where he might be. All he had to do was to keep his eyes open,
and look. Nature had ten thousand deeply interesting and curious things
that appeal to the one who knows how to enjoy them.

And so from that day Step Hen was noticed to be eagerly on the watch for
new sights. He asked many questions that proved his mind had awakened;
and Thad knew that that half hour when the scout had lain alongside the
mountain road down in North Carolina, had possibly been the turning
point in his career; for he would never again be the same old careless,
indifferent Step Hen of the past.

"There comes another canoe down the river!" suddenly cried Bumpus, who
was still squatting in the bow of the leading canoe, industriously
rubbing his right shoulder as though it pained him considerably; a fact
Thad noticed, and which had caused him to promise that he w