HOMES NEAR TO NATURE 



187 



sidered. How well do I remember the 

 joyous days of childhood when most of 

 my hours were spent in the woods, and 

 when the birds, and animals, and 

 fishes, and plants seemed to be the only 

 things in the whole world worthy of 

 any consideration." 



How few persons that write for 

 boys, or about them, do it with them! 

 It is mostly in condescension. "Now, 

 you dear little boy, when I was your 

 age," etc., etc., ad nauseam. 



Not so, however, with Dr. Morris. 

 He is always one of them, and when 

 you read "Sucker Days," you can see 

 him in the stream splashing about 

 among them, and if you were to im- 

 agine the chapter written then and 



boy to be different from the voices of 

 the robins and the wood-thrushes." 



* * * 



Wasn't it a beauty! We picked it 

 up and let it flounce out of our hands 

 a dozen times before it became sub- 

 missive. 



'How will you trade him for 

 mine?" asked Tom Allen. '< )h, but 

 that one of yours ain't anywheres near 

 so big as this one,' said the boy. 'X' 1.' 

 said Tom, 'but them big ones is all 

 innards and no meat. Just heft mine 

 onct. There's twicet as much meat on 

 him." 



-K -1- H* 



"The bov laboriously wrote on a 



DR. ROBERT T. MORRIS'S "HOME NEAR TO NATURE." 

 An old farmhouse practically unchanged since long before the Revolution. 



there with pad and pencil, you would 

 know that both pad and pencil got wet. 



Here are some quotations : 



"Began to poke under rocks in all of 

 the holes, to see if the big sucker was 

 still in that part of the stream. All at 

 once it rushed out in sight, and the 

 shouts of the boy brought the others 

 on a run as fast as they could come. 



'Right under that stone he is, fel- 

 lers, and an old whopper, too, by golly,' 

 said he. T'm going to hold on to him 

 this time, you bet.' Just then came the 

 sound of the school bell across the 

 fields. It is called a musical sound, 

 but somehow or another it seems to a 



piece of paper torn from the soiled fly- 

 leaf of his speller, 'lets Givum too 

 unkelbent,' and stealthily passed the 

 note over to Tom Allen's desk. A 

 quick nod of Tom's head from behind 

 his joggerphy' showed that an enter- 

 prising boy who could defraud his 

 companion because that was one of 

 the laws of trade, was nevertheless 

 unable to resist the impulse to give his 

 plunder to Uncle Bennett." 



:■: # :|: 



"Alas for the trustfulness of youth! 

 The old gray cat had found the fish 

 and had dragged them off to some 

 other hiding 1 place." 



