As soon as we went into the pasture the bull came for me, with his head down, and bellowing as if he was out of his mind. Tom rushed up and waved his red rag, and the bull stopped running after me, and went after Tom, just as the lecturer said he would.
I know I ought to have waved my red rag, so as to rescue Tom, but I was so interested that I forgot all about it, and the bull caught up with Tom. I should think he went twenty feet right up into the air, and as he came down he hit the Queen of Spain, and knocked her about six feet right against Mr. McGinnis, who had come down to the pasture to stop the fight.
The doctor says they'll all get well, though Tom's legs are all broke, and his sister's shoulder is out of joint, and Mr. McGinnis has got to get a new set of teeth. Father didn't do a thing to me—that is, with anything—but he talked to me till I made up my mind that I'd never try to learn anything from a lecturer again, not even if he lectures about Indians and scalping-knives.
[THE OLD MILL.]
Oh, the merry mill-stream it is sparkling and bright
As it runs down the hill-side in shadow and light;
Now it circles in pools, and now throws a cascade,
And laughs out in high glee at the leap it has made.
With its ripples are mingled on many a day
The shouts and the laughter of children at play;
And many a picnic is joyously spread
On its banks, where the green branches wave overhead.
But the jolliest place is the old ruined mill,
With the great wooden water-wheel, solemn and still;
Once it whirled round and round with the rush of the stream,
Till a new mill was built to be driven by steam.
Now the children climb over its big wooden spokes
But the wheel into motion they never can coax;
They may clamber and push, they may tug with a zest,
They can not awake the old giant from rest.
And perhaps, if it only could speak, it would say:
"After all the hard labor I've done in my day,
It is pleasant to know that the children may still
Find their happiest times in the old ruined mill."
