exultantly captured last night when Anticipation strengthened the little
muscles that wielded the heavy spade. All safe in their black soil they
wait, coiled round and round each other into a solid worm-ball in the
bottom of the can.

A mile down the river the dam is calling - the tumbled waters are
swirling and eddying and foaming over the deep places where the
black-bass wait - and old Shoemaker Schmidt, patriarch of the river, is
there this very minute, unwinding his pole, for well he knows that if
one cares to brave the weather he will catch the largest and finest and
most bass when the rain is falling on the river.

But small boys who have anxious mothers do not go fishing on rainy days -
so there is no need of haste, and one might as well go back to bed and
sleep unconcernedly just as late as possible. If only a fellow could get
up between showers, or before the rain actually starts, so that he could
truthfully say: "But, mother, really and truly, it wasn't raining when
we started!" it would be all right, and the escape was warrantable,
justified and safe; but with the rain actually falling, there was
nothing to do but go to sleep again and turn the worms back into the
garden if the rain didn't let up by noon.

-

It is one of the miracles of life that Boyhood can turn grief into joy
and become almost instantly reconciled to the inevitable like a true
philosopher, and change a sorrow into a blessing. The companion miracle
is that Manhood with its years of wisdom forgets how to do this.

And so, when the rainy day becomes hopelessly rainy, and Shoemaker