"If you would come and stop a while some time, he'd take you off fishing," she told Jack; "he's a great hand to go off for trout." And Jack promised to remember the invitation the next summer.
It seemed an uncommon adventure at the time, and our friends enjoyed it on the whole, only they were sorry afterward they had not walked all the way to North Conway, and poor Jack never has ceased to mourn because nobody can ever know how much his big trout weighed.
THE END.
A LITTLE FLOWER MISSIONARY.
[MOWING.]
Into the fields both young and old
With gay hearts went:
The pleasant fields, all green and gold,
All flowers and scent.
And first among them old man Mack,
With his two grandsons, Harry and Jack—
Two eager boys whose feet kept time
In restless fashion to this rhyme:
Sharpen the scythe and bend the back,
Swing the arm for an even track;
Through daisy blooms and nodding grass
Straight and clean must the mower pass.
There are tasks that boys must learn, not found
In any book—
Tasks on the harvest and haying ground,
By wood and brook.
When I was young but few could bring
Into the field a cleaner swing;
But you must take my place to-day,
Cut the grass, and scatter the hay.
So sharpen the scythe and bend the back,
Swing the arm for an even track;
Through daisy blooms and nodding grass
Straight and clean must the mower pass.
Straight and clean is the only way—
You'll find that out—
In other things than cutting hay,
I make no doubt.
So be sure through the nodding grass
Straight and clean with your scythe to pass;
It is far better than any play
To mow the grass and to toss the hay.
So sharpen the scythe and bend the back,
Swing the arm for an even track;
Through daisy blooms and nodding grass
Straight and clean must the mower pass.
