Virgin Soil n 



the wind, whose 'boles are being attacked by ac- 

 tual wood-choppers, who make the chips fly and 

 the giants tremble convulsively and go crashing to 

 earth with the boom of cannons. This, after in- 

 numerable repetitions, is followed by the smoking 

 hell of flames that out-rivals the light of the sun, 

 and literally burns a great hole in the night. This 

 precedes the coming of the mighty breaking plow 

 to turn up the virgin soil. It is drawn by four 

 yoke of oxen, following after each other a great 

 centipede walking with many legs. Alas, like the 

 virgin soil turned up by the first furrow, the mind 

 also must be virgin soil in order to have such a 

 picture stamped indelibly upon it. Only the mind 

 of a boy, waxed to receive and steeled to retain, 

 would be likely to catch out-line and minutiae, 

 light and shadow, central figures and back-ground, 

 newness and age, and, robing all in the royal 

 purple of a first experience, hang it in a temple 

 not made with hands; a memory picture of such 

 immortal youth that, in comparison, the baby 

 faces of the Sistine fresco would seem dim and 

 old. 



"Here they come, Here they come!" shouts 

 the small boy, "Better get out of the way if you 

 don't want to get run over;" That is not a pistol, 

 that's the cracking of a whip! "Get up, Buck, 

 Get up, Brin; Get up, Mose; Get up, Pete; Get 

 up, Tom; Get up, Jerry; Get up, Bob; Get up, 



