“Yes,” said Jim, who, as usual, had eaten more even than the others and hadn’t before had energy enough to speak, “the town is all right in the fall and spring, but when the summer comes, me for the long hike and the camp in the woods.”
“It sure does us a lot of good,” said Bert. “I know that when I go back to the city after a summer like this I feel so strong that I could lift a ton.”
“God made the country but man made the town,” chimed in Dick who was great on quotations. “I think it does everybody good to get away somewhere where they can come in contact with the woods and the brooks and the squirrels and the birds. Who was it we used to read about—that fellow in the old Grecian stories—I think his name was Antaeus, who got into a fight with one of the old heroes and every time he was knocked down, refreshed by contact with mother earth, got up ten times stronger than before. I guess that is the way we feel after a summer spent in the woods.”
While they were speaking, Mr. Hollis had joined the group. The boys quickly moved aside to make room for him. Although he was so much older than they, his genial spirit and unfailing friendliness kept him in touch with every one of the boys. At heart he was still a boy and always would be one. He was a stickler for discipline, but not in the slightest degree a martinet. With him it was always the “iron hand in the velvet glove,” and he was so just, so considerate, he understood boy nature so thoroughly and in the case of each was able so accurately to put himself in his place, that the boys regarded him as a father or rather an older brother, instead of a commander.
“I heard what you said, Tom,” he said, smiling, “about not having a thing to do but be happy. Are you quite sure you have nothing to do but that?”
Tom stared a moment, “why yes,” he said slowly, “to make somebody else happy.”
“That’s the thing,” said Mr. Hollis. “You hit the nail right on the head that time, Tom. There is no higher aim in life than to make some one else happy.”
A murmur of assent arose from the boys.
“Now,” said Mr. Hollis, “we ought to do some one a good turn every day. It doesn’t matter especially what that good turn is. It may be a thing so slight as almost to escape notice. It is just in some way or other to add to the sweetness of human life. It may be to give somebody a lift in the automobile—it may be a word of appreciation to kindle a smile on some tired face; it may be guiding a blind man across the street, or giving your seat to a woman in the street car, or even so slight a thing as to kick a banana peel off the sidewalk. The essence of the whole thing is self-forgetfulness. To lend a hand, to give a lift, to make life brighter and easier for someone even in the smallest degree.
“But what I have in mind just now is a sort of wholesale lift. When I was in town the other day I passed the orphan asylum. You know the one I mean. That building just off the Court House Square with a stone wall around it and a pretty lawn in front.”