keeping time to the majestic rhythm of the elements. To me such an
experience is what my neighbor John calls "growing weather," and at
such a time the bigness of the affair causes me to forget for the
time that there are such things as double datives.

One time I spent the greater part of a forenoon watching logs go over
a dam. It seems a simple thing to tell, and hardly worth the
telling, but it was a great morning in actual experience. In time
those huge logs became things of life, and when they arose from their
mighty plunge into the watery deeps they seemed to shake themselves
free and laugh in their freedom. And there were battles, too. They
struggled and fought and rode over one another, and their mighty
collisions produced a very thunder of sound. I tried to read the
book which I had with me, but could not. In the presence of such a
scene one cannot read a book unless it is one of Victor Hugo's. That
copy-book looms up again as I think of those logs, and I wonder
whether knowledge is power, and whether experience is the best
teacher. But, dear me! Here I've been frittering away all this good
time, and these papers not graded yet!




CHAPTER XXII

STORY-TELLING

My boys like to have me tell them stories, and, if the stories are
true ones, they like them all the better. So I sometimes become
reminiscent when they gather about me and let them lead me along as