^§c £a^ of te)t &Ci\xb 



or purely sentimental. Hooting at the owls and 

 hearing things in baffling silences may not be sci- 

 entific. Neither is it unscientific. The attitude of 

 the boy beside the starlit lake is not that of Charlie, 

 the man who helps me occasionally on the farm. 



We were clearing up a bit of mucky meadow re- 

 cently when we found a stone just above the surface 

 that was too large for the horse to haul out. We 

 decided to bury it. 



Charlie took the shovel and mined away under the 

 rock until he struck a layer of rather hard sandstone. 

 He picked a while at this, then stopped a while ; picked 

 again, rather feebly, then stopped and began to think 

 about it. It was hard work, — the thinking, I mean, 

 harder than the picking, — but Charlie, however un- 

 scientific, is an honest workman, so he thought it 

 through. 



**Well," he said finally, "'t ain't no use, nohow. 

 You can't keep it down. You bury the darned thing, 

 and it '11 come right up. I suppose it grows. Of 

 course it does. It must. Everything grows." 



Now that is an unscientific attitude. But that is 

 not the mind of the nature-lover, of the boy with the 

 baffling silences along the starlit lake. He is senti- 



66 



