ing
to complain of; the boys had the best time in the world there, and in a
manner they knew it. But there were certain things that they felt no boy
ought to stand, and these things were sometimes put upon them at school,
but usually at home. In fact, nearly all the things that a fellow
intended to run off for were done to him by those who ought to have been
the kindest to him. Some boys' mothers had the habit of making them stop
and do something for them just when they were going away with the
fellows. Others would not let them go in swimming as often as they
wanted, and, if they saw them with their shirts on wrong side out, would
not believe that they could get turned in climbing a fence. Others made
them split kindling and carry in wood, and even saw wood. None of these
things, in a simple form, was enough to make a boy run off, but they
prepared his mind for it, and when complicated with whipping they were
just cause for it. Weeding the garden, though, was a thing that almost,
in itself, was enough to make a fellow run off.

Not many of the boys really had to saw wood, though a good many of the
fellows' fathers had saws and bucks in their wood-sheds. There were
public sawyers who did most of the wood-sawing; and they came up with
their bucks on their shoulders, and asked for the job almost as soon as
the wood was unloaded before your door. The most popular one with the
boys was a poor half-wit known among them as Morn; and he was a favorite
with them because he had fits, and because, when he had a fit, he would
seem to fly all over the woodpile. The boys would leave anything to see
Morn in a fit, and he always had a large crowd round him as soon as the
cry went out that he was beginning to have one. They watched the hapless
creature with grave, unpitying, yet not unfriendly interest, too
ignorant of the dark ills of life to know how deeply tragic was the
spectacle that entertained them, and how awfully present in Morn's
contortions was the mystery of God's ways with his children, some of
whom he gives to happiness and some to misery. When Morn began to pick
himself weakly up, with eyes of pathetic bewilderment, they helped him
find his cap, and tried to engage him in conversation, for the pleasure
of seeing him twist his mouth when he said, of a famous town drunkard
whom he admired, "He's a strong man; he eats liquor." It was probably
poor Morn's ambition to eat liquor himself, and the boys who followed
that drunkar