V. A BOY ON A FARM.

Charles Dudley Warner (b. 1829,--) was born at Plainfield, Mass. In 1851
he graduated at Hamilton College, and in 1856 was admitted to the bar at
Philadelphia, but moved to Chicago to practice his profession. There he
remained until 1860, when he became connected with the press at Hartford,
Conn., and has ever since devoted himself to literature. "My Summer in a
Garden," "Saunterings," and "Backlog Studies" are his best known works.
The following extract is from "Being a Boy."

1. Say what you will about the general usefulness of boys, it is my
impression that a farm without a boy would very soon come to grief. What
the boy does is the life of the farm. He is the factotum, always in
demand, always expected to do the thousand indispensable things that
nobody else will do. Upon him fall all the odds and ends, the most
difficult things.

2. After everybody else is through, he has to finish up. His work is like
a woman's,--perpetually waiting on others. Everybody knows how much easier
it is to eat a good dinner than it is to wash the dishes afterwards.
Consider what a boy on a farm is required to do,--things that must be
done, or life would actually stop.

3. It is understood, in the first place, that he is to do all the errands,
to go to the store, to the post office, and to carry all sorts of
messages. If he had as many legs as a centiped, they would tire before
night. His two short limbs seem to him entirely inadequate to the task. He
would like to have as many legs as a wheel has spokes, and rotate about in