"Next!" interrupted Gray-beard. "The same verse; read as though you were wide awake and calling to your playmates, not as if you were going to sleep."
The boy addressed straightened himself up and shouted out:
"Come, come, come, the Summer now is here!" going through the verse without a break, then he glanced proudly toward the girls, only to see them giggling behind their books.
"Silence!" cried Gray-beard, striking his desk. "That was well done!"
The door slowly opened, and the farmer entered, hat in hand, and addressed Gray-beard, "I want to transfer a sow with a litter of pigs from one pen to another, and I've come to ask if you could let me have the help of some of the boys?"
When permission had been granted, a number of willing hands went up, and as many faces turned with eager expectancy to the farmer, who looked around, and then said, "Brush, Frank, Lester, and Warren will do."
We followed the farmer to the pen, and at once jumped in, each one seizing a little pig; but, before we could turn, the sow made such an onslaught upon us that we dropped the pigs and scrambled over the fence; but Lester, who was last, left a piece of his trousers in the jaws of the angry beast. After this exciting experience, at which the farmer could hardly stop laughing, we held a consultation with him, and agreed upon a plan which we immediately proceeded to carry out.
We threatened the sow with our hats; she retreated into a corner with her young; then Brush slyly went up, and, reaching his hand through the fence, caught one of the little pigs by the legs and held it fast; it squealed lustily, and the infuriated mother made savage attacks upon the fence. Then Lester, Warren, the farmer, and I sprang into the pen, caught the frightened little pigs, and ran with them to the new pen. Brush released his prisoner, and the cry of the transported little ones brought the mother to the pen, where she was secured.
While the farmer was fastening the gate, we boys walked around the hog-yard; Warren, who was ahead, discovered a weak place in the fence, and beckoned excitedly for us to hasten.
There were times when the pupils became very tired of their books, and longed to take a run over the prairies or through the woods. When this longing came upon them, they sought for ways and means by which to have the school closed, and secure a holiday. I remember once, it was in the fall, the members of the Big Seven loosened the joints of the long stove-pipe during recess. When school opened in the afternoon, and their class was called, they marched to the place of recitation, keeping step and jarring the room so that the sections of the pipe fell rattling to the floor, filling the room with smoke, and covering floor and desks with soot. As it would take some time for the pipe to cool and be put up again, and the room cleaned, the school was dismissed, giving us a half holiday.