t a
moral from. All his little playmates who ate green apples came to
Solomon's funeral, and were very sorry for what they had done.

John was a very different boy from Solomon, not half so good, nor
half so dead. He was a farmer's boy, as Solomon was, but he did not
take so much interest in the farm. If John could have had his way,
he would have discovered a cave full of diamonds, and lots of
nail-kegs full of gold-pieces and Spanish dollars, with a pretty
little girl living in the cave, and two beautifully caparisoned
horses, upon which, taking the jewels and money, they would have
ridden off together, he did not know where. John had got thus far in
his studies, which were apparently arithmetic and geography, but were
in reality the Arabian Nights, and other books of high and mighty
adventure. He was a simple country-boy, and did not know much about
the world as it is, but he had one of his own imagination, in which he
lived a good deal. I daresay he found out soon enough what the world
is, and he had a lesson or two when he was quite young, in two
incidents, which I may as well relate.

If you had seen John at this time, you might have thought he was only
a shabbily dressed country lad, and you never would have guessed what
beautiful thoughts he sometimes had as he went stubbing his toes
along the dusty road, nor what a chivalrous little fellow he was.
You would have seen a short boy, barefooted, with trousers at once
too big and too short, held up perhaps by one suspender only, a
checked cotton shirt, and a hat of braided palm-leaf, frayed at the
edges and bulged up in the crown. It is impossible to keep a hat
neat if you use it to catch bumblebees and whisk 'em; to bail the
water from a leaky boat; to catch minnows in; to put over honey-bees'
nests, and to transport pebbles, strawberries, and hens' eggs. John
usually carried a sling in his hand, or a bow, or a limber stick,
sharp at one end, from which he could sling apples a great distance.
If he walked in the road, he walked in the middle of it, shuffling up
the dust; or if he went elsewhere, he was likely to be running on the
top of the fence or the stone wall, and chasing chipmunks.

John knew the best place to dig sweet-flag in all the farm; it was in
a meadow by the river, where the bobolinks sang so gayly. He never
liked to hear the bobolink sing, however, for he said it always
reminded him of the whetting of a scythe, and that reminded him of
spreading