s what was a white
jacket, but is now the colour of the prevailing soil of the place; a belt;
and a pair of stumping boots, the very picture in miniature of his
father's, heeled and tipped with iron. His naked legs are red with the
cold, but thick and strong; his cheeks are plump and firm, his round blue
eyes bright, his hair almost white, like bleached straw.

An hour or two ago his skin was clean enough, for he was sent out well
washed, but it is now pretty well grimed, for he has been making himself
happy in the dirt, as a boy should do if he be a boy. For one thing it is
clean dirt, nothing but pure mother earth, and not the nasty unctuous
filth of city courts and back lanes. If you speak to him he answers you
sturdily--if you can catch the meaning of his words, doubly difficult from
accent and imperfect knowledge of construction. But he means well, and if
you send him on an errand will run off to find 'measter' as fast as his
short stature will allow. He will potter about the farmyard the whole
morning, perhaps turning up at home for a lunch of a slice of bread well
larded. His little sister, not so old as himself, is there, already
beginning her education in the cares of maternity, looking after the
helpless baby that crawls over the wooden threshold of the door with bare
head, despite the bitter cold. Once during the day he may perhaps steal
round the farmhouse, and peer wistfully from behind the tubs or buckets
into the kitchen, when, if the mistress chances to be about, he is pretty
certain to pick up some trifle in the edible line.

How those prosperous parents who dwell in highly-rented suburban villas,
and send out their children for a walk with a couple of nurses, and a
'bow-wow' to run beside the perambulator, would be eaten up with anxiety
did their well-dressed boys or girls play where this young son of toil
finds his amusement! Under the very hoofs of the carthorses--he will go
out to them when they are loose in the field, three or four in a group,
under a tree, when it looks as if the slightest movement on their part
must crush him; down to the side of the deep broad brook to swim sticks in
it for boats, where a slip on the treacherous mud would plunge him in, and
where the chance of rescue--everybody being half a mile away at
work--would be absolutely _nil_. The cows come trampling through the yard;
the bull bellows in the meadow; great, grunting sows, savage when they
have young, go by, thrusting the