g, so unstable was the equilibrium in which he was poised
upon the rail.

"Is not he foolish?" asked Malleville.

Beechnut looked at him a moment, and then said, as he resumed his walk
through the entry,

"Not very;--that is for a boy. I have known boys sometimes to do
foolisher things than that."

"What did they do?" asked Phonny.

"Why once," said Beechnut, "I knew a boy who put his nose into the
crack of the door, and then took hold of the latch and pulled the
door to, and pinched his nose to death. That was a _little_ more
foolish, though not much."

So saying Beechnut passed through the door and disappeared.

Phonny was seized with so violent a convulsion of laughter at the idea
of such absurd folly as Beechnut had described, that he tumbled off
the bannisters, but fortunately he fell _in_, towards the stairs,
and was very little hurt. He came down the stairs to Malleville, and
as Beechnut returned in a few minutes with the whip, they all went out
towards the barn together.

Beechnut had already put the bags of grain into the wagon behind,
and now he assisted Phonny and Malleville to get in. He gave them the
whole of the seat, in order that they might have plenty of room, and
also that they might be high up, where they could see. He had a small
bench which was made to fit in, in front, and which he was accustomed
to use for himself, as a sort of driver's seat, whenever the wagon was
full. He placed this bench in its place in front, and taking his seat
upon it, he drove away.

When the party had thus fairly set out, and Phonny and Malleville had
in some measure finished uttering the multitude of exclamations of
delight with which they usually commenced a ride, they began to wish
that Beechnut would tell them a story. Now Beechnut was a boy of
boundless fertility of imagination, and he was almost always ready to
tell a story. His stories were usually invented on the spot, and were
often extremely wild and extravagant, both in the incidents involved
in them, and in the personages whom he introduced as actors. The
extravagance of these tales was however usually no objection to them
in Phonny's and Malleville's estimation. In fact Beechnut observed
that the more extravagant his stories were, the better pleased his
auditors generally appeared to be in listening to them. He therefore
did not spare invention, or restrict himself by any rules either of
truth or probability in his narratives. Nor did he usually r