nine or ten years had been reached. The natural 

 tendency of the young is usually to imitate their 

 elders, and it often proved to be our undoing in 

 regard to freedom. It was always an early ambi- 

 tion amongst us to be able to milk cows; to chop 

 with an axe, and to perch on the top of carts load- 

 ing either hay or corn ; to hoe turnips, and to mow 

 with a scythe. So it generally turned out that we 

 learned to do useful things without suspecting that 

 they would be used against us when we wanted to 

 get away on adventures of our own. But in spite 

 of it all we found a good deal of time to spend in 

 country-boyish ways. 



On Saturdays we generally had something quite 

 exciting on, and if any of us had a particularly big 

 job to do at home before starting we generally 

 succeeded in getting some outside help to expedite 

 it. Two of my particular chums, sons of the 

 Parish Clerk, sometimes had a grave to dig before 

 they could get off, and I used to help them. If 

 we did not come on to rock soft, red sandstone 

 the day was soon ours. Two of the others were 

 sons of the Miller, and I have frequently been one 

 of a company of at least a dozen lads speeding up 

 the work to be done there. The mill was our wet 

 day playground. The old Miller knew well 

 enough when we wanted to be off, and was 



