Oh, boys of long ago!
Oh, queer old rhymes and drawings!
If Doby could have rolled over giggling on the log and tried to sing Riley's song of the "Raggedy Man and 'Lisabuth Ann," or if the little Kentuckian could have stuck up his hair in pretended fright, made his eyes round and scary, and begun to recite,
An' gobble'uns 'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out—
how easily they might have understood such poetry and what fun they might have had!
Or if they could have seen the art of Adams, or Stark, or Steele, or Bundy, whose canvases hold sycamores with mottled bark glistening in the sunshine, broad leaves rustling in the breeze, white roots wading in the creek, the very buttons a-dance with joy, they would have wanted, as every boy does nowadays, to straightway try to climb them!
"Spelling—well—spelling has to be exactly right or it won't do at all," announced Doby, returning to a safe subject.
At this the little boy brightened. He could understand spelling.
As the men returned and the group began to separate, the little boy said to Doby, "I hav'n't any candle to bring to help light the cabin for the spelling-match to-night."
"Come anyway," urged Doby. "Ma and pa and I are going. We hav'n't any candles to take. Plenty of other people will bring them."