This tree stump is an armchair, this board a velvet sofa. Not more
truly is "this thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog."

Across the road, at easy running distance from the schoolhouse at
noontime or recess, crawled the little river, with its inevitable
"hole," which each mother's son was warned to avoid in swimming, lest
he be seized with cramp there where the pool was bottomless. What eerie
wonders lurked within the mirror of those shallow brown waters! Long
black hairs cleaved and clung in their limpid flowing. To this day, I
know not whether they were horse-hairs, far from home, or swaying
willow roots; the boys said they were "truly" hairs of the kind
destined to become snakes in their last estate; and the girls,
listening, shivered with all Mother Eve's premonitory thrill along the
backbone. Wish-bugs, too, were here, skimming and darting. The
peculiarity of a wish-bug is that he will bestow upon you your heart's
desire, if only you hold him in the hand and wish. But the impossible
premise defeats the conclusion. You never do hold him long enough,
simply because you can't catch him in the first place. Yet the
fascinating possibility is like a taste for drink, or the glamour of
cards. Does the committee-man drive past to Sudleigh market, suggesting
the prospect of a leisurely return that afternoon, and consequent
dropping in to hear the geography class? Then do the laziest and most
optimistic boys betake them hastily from their dinner-pails to the
river, and spend their precious nooning in quest of the potent bug,
through whose spell the unwelcome visit may be averted. The time so
squandered in riotous gaming might have, fixed the afternoon's "North
Poles and Equators" triumphantly in mind, to the everlasting defiance
of all alien questioning; but no! for human delight lies ever in the
unattainable. The committee-man comes like Nemesis, _aequo pede_, the
lesson is unlearned, and the stern-fibred little teacher orders out the