Jackanapes had had the start of the Postman by nearly ten minutes. The world—the round green world with an oak tree on it—was just becoming very interesting to him. He had tried, vigorously but ineffectually, to mount a passing pig the last time he was taken out walking; but then he was encumbered with a nurse. Now he was his own master, and might, by courage and energy, become the master of that delightful downy, dumpy, yellow thing that was bobbing along over the green grass in front of him. Forward! Charge! He aimed well, and grabbed it, but only to feel the delicious downiness and dumpiness slipping through his fingers as he fell upon his face. "Quawk!" said the yellow thing, and wabbled off sideways. It was this oblique movement that enabled Jackanapes to come up with it, for it was bound for the Pond, and therefore obliged to come back into line. He failed again from top-heaviness, and his prey escaped sideways as before, and, as before, lost ground in getting back to the direct road to the Pond.
And at the Pond the Postman found them both,—one yellow thing rocking safely on the ripples that lie beyond duckweed, and the other washing his draggled frock with tears because he too had tried to sit upon the Pond and it wouldn't hold him.
CHAPTER III
If studious, copie fair what time hath blurred,
Redeem truth from his jawes: if souldier,
Chase brave employments with a naked sword
Throughout the world. Fool not; for all may have,
If they dare try, a glorious life, or grave.
In brief, acquit thee bravely; play the man.
Look not on pleasures as they come, but go.
Defer not the least vertue: life's poore span
Make not an ell, by trifling in thy woe.
If thou do ill, the joy fades, not the pains.
If well: the pain doth fade, the joy remains.
—George Herbert
Young Mrs. Johnson, who was a mother of many, hardly knew which to pity more,—Miss Jessamine for having her little ways and her antimacassars rumpled by a young Jackanapes, or the boy himself for being brought up by an old maid.
Oddly enough, she would probably have pitied neither, had Jackanapes been a girl. (One is so apt to think that what works smoothest, works to the highest ends, having no patience for the results of friction.) That father in God who bade the young men to be pure and the maidens brave, greatly disturbed a member of his congregation, who thought that the great preacher had made a slip of the tongue.
"That the girls should have purity, and the boys courage, is what you would say, good father?"