n three-hundred acres of land. A's share is twice as much
as B's. How much does each own?" Or "A field contains four hundred
square yards. One side is four times as long as the other. What are its
dimensions?"

Miss Brown closed the hated, brown-covered book and turned to write the
arithmetic homework on the blackboard. Instantly John's attention
wandered to objects and sounds far more interesting than the barren,
sultry school room.

A couple of sparrows flew from the roof of the school to the window
ledge nearest him, intent on their noisy quarrel, and he gave a scarcely
perceptible sigh. Birds could enjoy the sunshine unmolested--why not he?
A horse sounded a rapid tattoo of hoof beats over the heated street
macadam below and he longed--as he had longed for the launch that
morning--for a vehicle which would take him along untraveled roads to a
country where schools were not, and small boys fished and played games
the long days through. Next, a three-year-old stubbed her toe against
the street curbing opposite the school and voiced her grief with
unrestrained and therefore enviable freedom. John stirred uneasily and
meditated upon the interminable stretch of four days which must elapse
before Saturday. Then a majestic thunderhead in the blazing September
sky caught his attention and the miracle happened.

He was on his back in the big field of his uncle's Michigan farm, gazing
upward at the white, rapidly shifting clouds. The unimpeded western
breeze made little harmonies of sound as it swept through the tall,
waving grass; strange birds carolled joyously from the orchard by the
road, and near at hand the old, brown Jersey lowed lovingly to her
ungainly calf. From the more distant chicken coop came the cackle of
hens and the boastful crowing of a rooster.

A shift of the thought current, and the fat, easy-going team dragged the
lumbering, slowly moving wagon over the four-mile stretch of sand road
to town, while he sat on the driver's seat to listen to the hired man's
tales of army service in the Philippines, or to watch the ever-shifting
panorama of flower and bird and animal life which he loved so well. Past
the ramshackle farm of the first neighbor to the north, past the little
deserted country school house, past the pressed-steel home of a would-be
agriculturist, which had rusted to an artistic red, and down to the
winding river which flanked the hamlet through banks lined with white
birches and graceful popla