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 centipede, 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 the same way. This he
sometimes tries to do; and people who have seen him "turning
cart-wheels" along the side of the road have supposed that he was
amusing himself, and idling his time; he was only trying to invent a
new mode of locomotion, so that he could economize his legs and do his
errands with greater dispatch. He practices standing on his head, in
order to accustom himself to any position. Leapfrog is one of his
methods of getting over the ground quickly. He would willingly go an
errand any distance if he could leap-frog it with a few other boys.
He has a natural genius for combining pleasure with business. This is
the reason why, when he is sent to the spring for a pitcher of water,
and the family are waiting at the dinner-table, he is absent so long;
for he stops to poke the frog that sits on the stone, or, if there is
a penstock, to put his hand over the spout and squirt the water a
little while. He is the one who spreads the grass when the men have
cut it; he mows it away in the barn; he rides the horse to cultivate
the corn, up and down the hot, weary rows; he picks up the potatoes
when they are dug; he drives the cows night and morning; he brings
wood and water and splits kindling; he gets up the horse and puts out
the horse; whether he is in the house or out of it, there is always
something for him to do. Just before school in winter he shovels
paths; in summer he turns the grindstone. He knows where there are
lots of winter-greens and sweet flag-root, but instead of going for
them, he is to stay in-doors and pare apples and stone raisins and