Likewise, there was the case of Hugh Idle and Mr. Toil. Perhaps
you recall that moving story? Hugh tries to dodge work; wherever
he goes he finds Mr. Toil in one guise or another but always with
the same harsh voice and the same frowning eyes, bossing some job
in a manner which would cost him his boss-ship right off the reel
in these times when union labor is so touchy. And what is the
moral to be drawn from this narrative? I know that all my life I
have been trying to get away from work, feeling that I was intended
for leisure, though never finding time somehow to take it up
seriously. But what was the use of trying to discourage me from
this agreeable idea back yonder in the formulative period of my
earlier years?

In Harper's Fourth Reader, edition of 1888, I found an article
entitled The Difference Between the Plants and Animals. It takes
up several pages and includes some of the fanciest language the
senior Mr. Harper could disinter from the Unabridged. In my own
case--and I think I was no more observant than the average urchin
of my age--I can scarcely remember a time when I could not readily
determine certain basic distinctions between such plants and such
animals as a child is likely to encounter in the temperate parts
of North America.

While emerging from infancy some of my contemporaries may have
fallen into the error of the little boy who came into the house
with a haunted look in his eye and asked his mother if mulberries
had six legs apiece and ran round in the dust of the road, and
when she told him that such was not the case with mulberries he
said: "Then, mother, I feel that I have made a mistake."