ives a merrier life and wears
more of the herb called hearts-ease in his bosom than he that is clad
in silk and velvet.--_From the Observations of "Mr. Great Heart_."

It was dusk in Boyville. The boys at a game of hide-and-seek filled
the air with their calls:

"Bushel of wheat, and a
Bushel of rye--
All t' ain't ready
Holler aye.
All in ten feet of my base is caught: All eyes open."

Or

"One--two--three for me."

Or

"All's out's in free."

Among the trees they scampered; into hay-stacks they wormed; over
barrels and boxes they wiggled; they huddled under the sunflowers and
the horse-weeds. It was a royal game, but as the moon rose it merged
into pull-away. That game flourished for a while and transformed
itself by an almost imperceptible evolution into a series of races
down the dusty road. But when the moon's silver had marked itself upon
the grass, the boys were lying prone on a hay-cock behind the royal
castle. They chattered idly, and the murmur of their talk rose on
the just-felt breeze that greets the rising moon, like the ripple of
waters. But the chatter was only a seeming. For in truth the boys were
absorbing the glory of the moonlight. And the undertones of their
being were sounding in unison with the gentle music of the hour. Their
souls--fresher from God than are the souls of men--were a-quiver with
joy, and their lips babbled to hide their ecstasies. In Boyville it
is a shameful thing to flaunt the secrets of the heart. As the night
deepened, and the shy stars peeped at the bold moon, the boys let
their prattle ebb into silence. Long they lay looking upward--with the
impulse in their souls that prompted the eternal question that Adam
left unanswered, that David cried in passion across his harp, that the
wise men of the world have left locked in mystery--the question of the
Whence, the Why, and the Whither.

As the moon climbed high into the arc of the Heavens, the company upon
the hay-cock dispersed, one by one, till a solitary boy remained.

After he had gazed at the moon awhile a thrill of sheer madness set
him to tumbling, head over heels, upon the fresh hay. Life was full of
gladness for him, and his throat cramped with a delicious longing for
he knew not what. He wondered vaguely if it were not something new
and unimaginably good to eat. It was the nearest he could come to a
defining of the longing. Of course no one can define it