This is a chapter on the large wholesomeness of contact with nature; that even the simple, humble tasks out of doors are attended with a freedom and a naturalness that restore one to his real self by putting him into his original primitive environment and by giving him an original primitive task to do.
Then, too, how good a thing it is to have something alive and responsive to work for—if only a goat or a pig! Take occasion to read to the class Lamb’s essay on Roast Pig—even fifth grade pupils will get a lasting picture from it.
Again—and this is the apparent purpose of the chapter—how impossible it is to go into the woods with anything—a hay-rake—and not find the woods interesting!
FOR THE PUPIL
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the unabridged dictionary: What does “unabridged” mean?
hay-rig: a simple farm wagon with a “rigging” put on for carting hay.
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cord wood: wood cut into four-foot lengths to be cut up smaller for burning in the stove. What are the dimensions of a cord of wood?
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through the cold gray of the maple swamp below you, peers the face of Winter: What does one see in a maple swamp at this time of year that looks like the “face of winter.” Think.
he that gathers leaves for his pig spreads a blanket of down over his own winter bed: How is this meant to be taken?
round at the barn: It is a common custom with farmers to make this nightly round in order to see that the stock is safe for the night. Were you ever in a barn at night where the horses were still munching hay, and the cattle rattling their stanchions and horns? Recall the picture in Whittier’s “Snow-Bound.”
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