12 Hopkins's Pond. 



sue the boy, his companions persisted in 

 showing their disapproval. Innocently 

 looking for praise, knowing that he had 

 earned it, there was not only no praise 

 forthcoming, but actual antagonism. 



One day while lying upon the ground 

 by the dam, listening to the roar of the 

 water and thinking of the ways of differ- 

 ent animals, like a flash the thought came 

 to the boy that this antagonism on the 

 part of the other fellows was just simply 

 one of the habits of the boy animal. All 

 at once it was just as clear to him as were 

 the habits of the woodchucks and of the 

 partridges, and he remembered that the 

 perspicuousness of their leading traits had 

 been as unexpectedly revealed to him. So 

 firmly did this thought seize the boy that 

 he did not go home to dinner or to sup- 

 per, but lay there in the grass by the dam 

 and formulated an hypothesis which to this 

 day has made him happy and contented, 

 even though successful in life. That hy- 

 pothesis assumed that if one made the 

 habits of antagonists a matter of interest 

 from a natural history standpoint, there 



