d, and if you didn't understand the reading, the pictures would
help you; they show the looks and ways of the people and what they do.
There are the Dutchmen, very fat, and smoking, you know, and one sitting
on a barrel."

"Nay, Miss, I'n no opinion o' Dutchmen. There ben't much good i' knowin'
about _them_."

"But they're our fellow-creatures, Luke; we ought to know about our
fellow-creatures."

"Not much o' fellow-creatures, I think, Miss; all I know--my old master,
as war a knowin' man, used to say, says he, 'If e'er I sow my wheat
wi'out brinin', I'm a Dutchman,' says he; an' that war as much as to say
a Dutchman war a fool, or next door.

"Nay, nay, I aren't goin' to bother mysen about Dutchmen. There's fools
enoo, an' rogues enoo, wi'out lookin' i' books for 'em."

"Oh, well," said Maggie, rather foiled by Luke's unexpectedly decided
views about Dutchmen, "perhaps you would like 'Animated Nature' better;
that's not Dutchmen, you know, but elephants and kangaroos, and the
civet cat, and the sunfish, and a bird sitting on its tail,--I forgot
its name. There are countries full of those creatures, instead of horses
and cows, you know. Shouldn't you like to know about them, Luke?"

"Nay, Miss, I'n got to keep count o' the flour an' corn; I can't do wi'
knowin' so many things beside my work. That's what brings folks to the
gallows,--knowin' everything but what they'n got to get their bread by.
An' they're mostly lies, I think, what's printed i' the books: them
printed sheets are, anyhow, as the men cry i' the streets."

"Why, you're like my brother Tom, Luke," said Maggie, wishing to turn
the conversation agreeably; "Tom's not fond of reading. I love Tom so
dearly, Luke,--better than anybody else in the world. When he grows up I
shall keep his house, and we shall always live together. I can tell him
everything he doesn't know. But I think Tom's clever, for all he doesn't
like books; he makes beautiful whipcord and rabbit pens."

"Ah," said Luke, "but he'll be fine an' vexed, as the rabbits are all
dead."

"Dead!" screamed Maggie, jumping up from her sliding seat on the corn.
"Oh dear, Luke! What! the lop-eared one, and the spotted doe that Tom
spent all his money to buy?"

"As dead as moles," said Luke, fetching his comparison from the
unmistakable corpses nailed to the stable wall.

"Oh, Luke," said Maggie in a piteous tone, "Tom told me to be sure and
remember the rabbits every day; but how could I, when