"Yes. The white one; strayed away this afternoon from the chicken coop. Have you seen it?"
"No," he said, "not the white one, but the grey one and the tiger are sitting at the dyke-side down at the second gate. I gave the tiger a turnip when I passed it."
"Good!" I cried, "always be kind to animals."
"Yes, sir," he said, and he glanced down to the second gate. I think that he wouldn't have been very much surprised if he had seen a tiger there. Jim has the power of make-believe developed strongly. A few weeks ago he found a dead sparrow in the playground. He came to me and asked for a coffin. I gave him a match-box and he lined the class up in twos and led them with bared heads towards the grave he had dug. The four foremost boys carried the coffin shoulder high.
Jim laid ropes over the grave and the coffin was lowered reverently. A boy was just about to fill in the grave when Jim cried: "Hold on!" Then he took a handful of earth and sprinkled it over the coffin saying: "Dust to dust, and ashes to ashes."
I blew the Last Post over the grave afterwards. Jim was as serious as could be; for the moment he seemed to think that he was burying his brother.
When he had got his milk he came to the byre door and watched me work for a little.
"Please, sir," he asked, "do you like that better than teaching?"
I told him that I didn't.
"I wish Mester Macdonald wud be a cattleman," he said fervently.