The organist choked over a cough, and the soprano reached out and
drew David to her side, whispering something in his ear. The
minister, after a dazed silence, bowed his head; while down in
the Holly pew an angry man and a sorely mortified woman vowed
that, before David came to church again, he should have learned
some things.



CHAPTER VIII

THE PUZZLING "DOS" AND "DON'TS"


With the coming of Monday arrived a new life for David--a curious
life full of "don'ts" and "dos." David wondered sometimes why all
the pleasant things were "don'ts" and all the unpleasant ones
"dos." Corn to be hoed, weeds to be pulled, woodboxes to be
filled; with all these it was "do this, do this, do this." But
when it came to lying under the apple trees, exploring the brook
that ran by the field, or even watching the bugs and worms that
one found in the earth--all these were "don'ts."

As to Farmer Holly--Farmer Holly himself awoke to some new
experiences that Monday morning. One of them was the difficulty
in successfully combating the cheerfully expressed opinion that
weeds were so pretty growing that it was a pity to pull them up
and let them all wither and die. Another was the equally great
difficulty of keeping a small boy at useful labor of any sort in
the face of the attractions displayed by a passing cloud, a