“Take my picture,” cried a stout little girl, and then threw the basket over her head and struck an attitude.
“All right,” was my reply.
“Oh!” she said, “I want my cat in,” and raced off to the house to secure it.
A DESERTED HOME
She was no sooner back and in position than she found a new trouble. She had on a little cap with a very narrow visor, and as the sun had now come out, its bright light made her eyes wink. Suddenly she spoke up and said the little cap made her cry, and wanted to get a hat, if I would let her. When she returned I made haste to snap the camera before any other ideas could occur to her. We were pretty well acquainted by the time I finished, and she wanted to know how much I charged for my picture, and said she guessed she would get one if I came that way again.
The town of Sunderland lay a little beyond. It is a typical valley town, with a long, wide street lined by elms and maples, thickset on either side by the white houses of its people. Everything looked thrifty and well kept. The wind blew gustily, and sometimes would start the leaves which had just begun to strew the ground beneath and send windrows of them scurrying along the road like live armies on a charge.
GETTING A LOAD OF SAWDUST BACK OF THE SAW-MILL
I was in the village in the late afternoon, when school let out. It was interesting to note the way the boys came down the street slamming about, shouting, and tripping each other up. It seemed to me there was one sort of youngster who had need to reform. You find this variety in every village where half a dozen boys can get together. He talks in a loud voice when any witnesses or a stranger is about, is rude to his fellows, jostles them and orders them about, cracks crude jokes, either exceedingly pointless, or else of great age and worn threadbare, at which he himself has to do a good share of the laughing. He is, in short, showing off, and the show is a very poor one. He makes himself both disagreeable and ridiculous to most, and can only win admiration from a few weak-minded companions or overawed small boys. He is apt to grow into something of a bully among those weaker than himself, and to become, when older, a young man with a swagger.