gives a tremendous jerk, and feels by the dead-weight that he has got
him fast. Out he comes, up he goes in the air, and the boy runs to
look at him. In this transaction, however, no one can be more
surprised than the sucker.



VII

FICTION AND SENTIMENT

The boy farmer does not appreciate school vacations as highly as his
city cousin. When school keeps, he has only to "do chores and go to
school," but between terms there are a thousand things on the farm
that have been left for the boy to do. Picking up stones in the
pastures and piling them in heaps used to be one of them. Some lots
appeared to grow stones, or else the sun every year drew them to the
surface, as it coaxes the round cantelopes out of the soft garden
soil; it is certain that there were fields that always gave the boys
this sort of fall work. And very lively work it was on frosty
mornings for the barefooted boys, who were continually turning up the
larger stones in order to stand for a moment in the warm place that
had been covered from the frost. A boy can stand on one leg as well
as a Holland stork; and the boy who found a warm spot for the sole of
his foot was likely to stand in it until the words, "Come, stir your
stumps," broke in discordantly upon his meditations. For the boy is
very much given to meditations. If he had his way, he would do
nothing in a hurry; he likes to stop and think about things, and
enjoy his work as he goes along. He picks up potatoes as if each one
were a lump of gold just turned out of the dirt, and requiring