e those potatoes worth, I say?" asked the merchant. John still looked
at him and grinned. The merchant turned on his heel and said: "You're a
fool," and went back into his store. When the old man returned John
shouted: "Pap, they found it out and I never said a word."

His life is an endless chain of pranks and pleasures. Look how the
brawling brook pours down the steep declivities of the mountain gorge!
Here it breaks into pearls and silvery foam, there it dashes in rapids,
among brown bowlders, and yonder it tumbles from the gray crest of a
precipice. Thus, forever laughing, singing, rollicking, romping, till
it is checked in its mad rush and spreads into a still, smooth mirror,
reflecting the inverted images of rock, and fern, and flower, and tree,
and sky. It is the symbol of the life of a barefooted boy. His quips,
and cranks, his whims, and jollities, and jocund mischief, are but the
effervescences of exuberant young life, the wild music of the mountain
stream.

If I were a sculptor, I would chisel from the marble my ideal of the
monumental fool. I would make it the figure of a man, with knitted brow
and clinched teeth, beating and bruising his barefooted boy, in the
cruel endeavor to drive him from the paradise of his childish fun and
folly. If your boy _will_ be a boy, let him be a boy still. And remember
that he is following the paths which your feet have trodden, and will
soon look back upon its precious memories, as you now do, with the
aching heart of a care-worn man.

[Illustration: THE WILD MUSIC OF THE MOUNTAINS.]

(Sung to the air of Down on the Farm.)

Oh, I love the dear old farm, and my heart grows young and warm,
When I wander back to spend a single day;
There to hear the robins sing in the trees around the spring,
Where I used to watch the happy children play.
Oh, I hear their voices yet and I never shall forget
How their faces beamed with childish mirth and glee.
But my heart grows old again and I leave the spot in pain,
When I call them and no answer comes to me.

THE PARADISE OF YOUTH.

[Illustration: THE PARADISE OF YOUTH.]

If childhood is the sunrise of life, youth is the heyday of life's ruddy
June. It is the sweet solstice in life's early summer, which puts forth
the fragrant bud and blossom of sin e'er its bitter fruits ripen and
turn to ashes on the lips of age. It is the happy transition period,
when long legs, and loose joints, and verdant awkwar