IX

A TALK AND A WALK

Wallace's home was in the city of New York, but he often spent his college vacations at his Aunt Henley's in Franconia. During these vacations he was in his room a good deal of the time reading and studying. This, as it seemed to Frank, was very absurd, since vacations, as he maintained, were meant for play and not for study. It is true that Wallace went out often to take long walks, or to ride on horseback; still, it appeared to Frank that Wallace was almost continually at his studies.

One pleasant summer morning Wallace was at his books as usual in his room. The window was open, and the birds were singing in the trees of the yard. Presently, in came Frank and Margaret. Frank had come to see if he could persuade Wallace to go down to the river and get a boat and go fishing. He leaned on the edge of Wallace's table and began to look at a blank book in which Wallace had been writing. Margaret went and sat down on a little library stepladder which Wallace kept in the room.

"Oh, dear me!" said Frank with a long sigh, "I wish, Cousin Wallace, you were not quite so fond of studying all the time."

Wallace smiled.

"And I suppose you wish that I were a little more fond of it," continued Frank.

"Oh, no," said Wallace, "I am always afraid when I see a small boy too fond of study."

"Why?" asked Frank.

He was quite surprised to hear Wallace express such an opinion.

"Because boys of your age, if they are in good health, are always more fond of play," was Wallace's reply.

"Well, I am sure I like to play best," said Frank. "I rather think that I am in pretty good health."

"Yes," responded Wallace, "and I am very glad of it. Every child, until he is at least ten years old, ought to like to run about and play. That makes him grow strong and rugged. After he is ten or twelve it is time for him to begin to like to study."

"I mean to tell my mother that," said Frank, "so she will let me play all the time."

"I did not say that you ought not to study," said Wallace. "Boys should begin to learn long before they are ten years old, and in order to learn they must study; but they cannot really be expected to like it."

Just then Frank happened to notice that the open pages of the book Wallace had before him contained a description of the process of making sugar in the West Indies. "We made some sugar last spring," said he, "out of the sap from the maple trees."

"How much did you make?" asked Wallace.

"The first day, we ate it all up, trying it while it was boiling," Frank replied. But afterward we made some and carried it home."

"Was it good sugar?" Wallace inquired.

"Yes," said Frank, "only it was candy rather than sugar, and a little bitter, for we burnt it."

Frank said this with a very grave face, as he recalled to mind the disappointment which he experienced at finding his candy was burnt; but Wallace could not help laughing.

"In the West Indies," said Wallace, "they do. not make sugar by tapping trees to get the sap. They make it from the juice of the sugar cane. They grind the cane in mills and press out the juice by means of heavy machinery."

Wallace then showed Frank a drawing of a sugar mill that he had copied from a picture in the book. After looking at the sketch a moment, Frank remarked that he did not think Wallace could draw very well. "Beechnut can make pictures a great deal prettier than this," he said.

"I would like to see some of his drawings," said Wallace. "Have you any of them?"

"No," was Frank's answer; "but I can get him to draw me something, if you wish. I will go now."

"Well, I wish you would," said Wallace. "Then will you go fishing with me?" asked Frank.

Wallace took out his watch, reflected a moment, and said he would go, provided the drawing was a good one.

"But who is to decide that?" Frank questioned.

"I'll decide it," responded Wallace, "or no, Margaret shall decide; only Beechnut shall draw it offhand, and you are not to tell him it is for me."

"All right," said Frank. "He is out in the garden. If you will give me a pencil and paper I'll go and ask him."

So Wallace gave Frank a pencil and a piece of thick white paper, which he put between the leaves of a thin flat book that it might not get rumpled in carrying. The children went to the garden where they found Beechnut raking out the walks. When Frank told him that he came to ask him to draw a picture, he said he would do so if Frank and Margaret would in the meantime go on with the raking. This they agreed to do. Beechnut then took his seat on a stone bench and went to work with the pencil. In about a quarter of an hour he called them and said the picture was ready.

The children at once came to see it. He had drawn an old washerwoman with a basket filled with children instead of clothes, and she was hanging the children out on a line. Under the picture was written,

MRS. PHIDGETT,

and beneath that there was this couplet:

The children looked at the picture very attentively a minute or two and read the writing that was under it, and then, laughing heartily, they ran off with it to Wallace.

Margaret decided that it was a very good picture, and Wallace, after putting it in the table drawer, got up, and he and Frank went down to the river to fish.

About an hour later, as they were returning to the house from their fishing, they met Beechnut and Margaret just starting to walk to the village on an errand. Frank asked them to wait a minute till he could run and ask his mother to let him go too. His mother was willing, and he soon rejoined Beechnut and Margaret and went along in their company.

After a time they came to a place where there was a high and steep sand bank by the side of the road, with a number of swallows' nests in it. Not far away was a house in which a boy named Alfred, but who was commonly called Hal, lived.

When Beechnut and his party came in sight of the sand bank they saw Alfred and another boy at play on it. The boys had cut steps with a case knife in the hardened sand which formed the face of the bank, and by this means they had climbed up to one of the swallow's holes. When they noticed Beechnut coming they climbed down and began to saunter carelessly along the road.

"Hello, Hal!" said Frank, as soon as he got near enough to speak. "What have you been doing there?"

"Stopping up a swallow's hole," replied Hal.

He was standing now at the side of the road. In one hand he held the case knife. With him was another boy whose name was James, though he was usually known as Jimmy.

"What did you stop it up with?" asked Frank.

"With  a bit of sod," Alfred answered.

"Are the swallows in there?" inquired Margaret.

"I don't know," said Alfred, "but they have a nest in there."

"Then Chippeday was right after all," remarked Beechnut.

"What do you mean by that?" Jimmy asked.

"Why," said Beechnut, "one evening just before sundown recently, I passed this spot, and two swallows were playing around here. By and by they stopped their play and lighted on the fence and began to talk about where there would be a good place to make a nest. One's name was Twit and the other's name was Chippeday."

The children gathered nearer to Beechnut as he began his story, and stood listening with earnest attention.

"'Let's make our nest in this bank,' says Twit.

"'No,' says Chippeday, 'see that house over there!'

"'And what of that house?' asks Twit.

"'A boy lives in it,' replies Chippeday.

"'That's nothing,' says Twit. 'We'll make our nest so high in the bank that he can't reach it.'

"'He'll climb up,' says Chippeday.

"'Then we will dig so far into the bank that he can't reach in,' says Twit, 'even if he does climb up.'

"'He'll contrive some way or other to tease us, you may depend,' says Chippeday.

"When the swallows had talked so far they stopped. I had been standing perfectly still for fear I should frighten them away, and I continued to stand motionless, hoping they would talk some more.

"Presently Twit asks, 'Hasn't the boy a house to live in?'

"'Yes,' answers Chippeday.

"'And hasn't he a good bed to sleep in?' asks Twit.

"'Yes,' says Chippeday.

"'And hasn't he a father and mother to take care of him?' says Twit.

"'Yes,' says Chippeday.

"'Well,' says Twit, 'it can't be possible that a boy who has a good house to live in, and a good bed to sleep in, and a father and mother to take care of him, can begrudge a pair of swallows a little hole in a bank with a few straws and feathers in it for a nest. Besides, they only want it three or four weeks, just till they get their young swallows big enough to fly.'

"As Twit finished speaking she sprang into the air, touched Chippeday a light tap on the top of his head with the tip of her wing, and Chippeday flew after her. Away they went first high over the tree tops, and then down to the ground — this way and that, and round and round. Sometimes Twit chased Chippeday and sometimes Chippeday chased Twit, and sometimes they would start flying straight forward together to see which could go the fastest.

"Twit came up to the bank presently and fluttered and perched against a little hollow in it where she thought there was a good place to begin a nest; but when she had made a few scratches, away she went with Chippeday after her. They flew about a while racing and chasing, and then Twit came back and dug a little farther into the bank. In a few minutes, however, away she dashed again, shooting through the air like an arrow. So, finding that they were not going to work very steadily, I went along."

"Is that all?" asked Margaret.

"Yes," Beechnut replied, "I thought at the time that Twit had the best of the argument in respect to a boy's begrudging a pair of swallows their little nest; but it seems that Chippeday was right after all!"

So saying, Beechnut began to walk on, and Margaret and Frank followed him, while Alfred and James remained standing in the road.

"Beechnut," said Margaret, "I wish you would go and let those poor swallows out."

"Perhaps I don't need to," responded Beechnut.

As he walked along he turned occasionally to look at the boys, and presently he stopped entirely. Jimmy had gone to the bank and was working at the swallow's hole. Alfred remained in the road, and they heard him saying to Jimmy, "I wouldn't."

Jimmy seemed to pay no attention to Alfred, but he looked toward Beechnut and shouted, "I have let them out."

"I am glad of it," Beechnut called back.

"You see the difference between Hal and Jimmy," said Beechnut, speaking to Margaret and Frank. "They are both of them always in mischief; but when Jimmy finds that he has taken a wrong course he turns about at once like a man, openly and honorably. But Hal either does not turn at all, or waits until he can get a chance to turn when people are not looking at him."

While Beechnut was making this explanation they had resumed their walk and in due time they reached the village. The errand was soon done, and they went back home as they had come.