CHAPTER FIFTH 



CO RJ^ -STALK FIDDLES 



T T is a merit of our climate that at no time 

 of the year are we, as children, shut out 

 from healthy out-door pleasure. There are 

 shady nooks along our creeks and rivers and 

 delightful old mill-ponds wherein we may 

 bathe in midsummer, and there are acres of 

 glassy ice over which to skate in midwinter. 

 Spring and autumn are too full of fun to par- 

 ticularize, the average day being available for 

 scores of methods whereby to make life a 

 treasure beyond compare, spending it, to the 

 mind of a boy, in that most rational way, 

 having sport. I do not know why we always 

 played marbles at one time of the year and 

 flew our kites at another : this is for the 

 folk-lore clubs to fathom. Suffice it, that 

 there has been for centuries a time for every 

 out-door amusement as fixed as the phases of 

 the moon. So much for the sport common 

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