and went to work in right good earnest. Still the stone did not stir;
or if it did it was only just enough to aggravate the man.

What could be the matter? The stone was not a very large one. It did
not look as if it could stand a great deal of prying. What was the
matter?

There happened to be a school-boy passing that way at the time. He was
not much of a farmer, and still less of a mechanic, I should think;
but he thought he saw what the trouble was. It did not seem to be so
much the lever itself, or the farmer, or the stone to be moved, as in
the way the man went to work. The boy ventured to hint this idea to
the farmer:

"Why, my dear sir," he said, "there is no use in your breaking your
neck in that style. You are at the wrong end of the lever. You haven't
_purchase_ enough."

The good-natured farmer (for he _was_ good-natured, and did not get
into a passion because a mere boy, young enough to be his
grand-child, attempted to help him out of his difficulty) the
good-natured farmer stopped a moment, looked at the matter carefully,
and frankly acknowledged that he had gone the wrong way to work.

"I wonder what on earth I was thinking of," said he, in his usual
blunt language. Of course he shifted his crow-bar immediately, so as
to get a good _purchase_. The trouble was all over then. The stone
came up easily enough, of course.

It came into my mind while I was thinking about this farmer's mistake