ROLLO AT PLAY IN THE WOODS.



THE SETTING OUT.

One pleasant morning in the autumn, when Rollo was about five years old,
he was sitting on the platform, behind his father's house, playing. He
had a hammer and nails, and some small pieces of board. He was trying to
make a box. He hammered and hammered, and presently he dropped his work
down and said, fretfully,

"O dear me!"

"What is the matter, Rollo?" said Jonas,--for it happened that Jonas was
going by just then, with a wheelbarrow.

"I wish these little boards would not split so. I cannot make my box."

"You drive the nails wrong; you put the wedge sides _with_ the grain."

"The wedge sides!" said Rollo; "what are the wedge sides,--and the
grain? I do not know what you mean."

But Jonas went on, trundling his wheelbarrow; though he looked round and
told Rollo that he could not stop to explain it to him then.