enmities contracted which are frequently "taken out" on the spot,
after a rough fashion boys have of settling as they go along; cases
of long credit, either in words or trade, are not frequent with boys;
boot on jack-knives must be paid on the nail; and it is considered
much more honorable to out with a personal grievance at once, even if
the explanation is made with the fists, than to pretend fair, and
then take a sneaking revenge on some concealed opportunity. The
country-boy at the district school is introduced into a wider world
than he knew at home, in many ways. Some big boy brings to school a
copy of the Arabian Nights, a dog-eared copy, with cover, title-page,
and the last leaves missing, which is passed around, and slyly read
under the desk, and perhaps comes to the little boy whose parents
disapprove of novel-reading, and have no work of fiction in the house
except a pious fraud called "Six Months in a Convent," and the latest
comic almanac. The boy's eyes dilate as he steals some of the
treasures out of the wondrous pages, and he longs to lose himself in
the land of enchantment open before him. He tells at home that he
has seen the most wonderful book that ever was, and a big boy has
promised to lend it to him. "Is it a true book, John?" asks the
grandmother; "because, if it is n't true, it is the worst thing that a
boy can read." (This happened years ago.) John cannot answer as to
the truth of the book, and so does not bring it home; but he borrows
it, nevertheless, and conceals it in the barn and, lying in the
hay-mow, is lost in its enchantments many an odd hour when he is
supposed to be doing chores. There were no chores in the Arabian
Nights; the boy there had but to rub the ring and summon a genius, who
would feed the calves and pick up chips and bring in wood in a minute.
It was through this emblazoned portal that the boy walked into the
world of books, which he soon found was larger than his own, and
filled with people he longed to know.