But I always regretted that I did not take along a
fishline, just to "throw in" the brook we passed. I know there were
trout there.
IV
NO FARMING WITHOUT A BOY
Say what you will about the general usefulness of boys, it is my
impression that a farm without a boy would very soon come to grief.
What the boy does is the life of the farm. He is the factotum,
always in demand, always expected to do the thousand indispensable
things that nobody else will do. Upon him fall all the odds and
ends, the most difficult things. After everybody else is through, he
has to finish up. His work is like a woman's,--perpetual waiting on
others. Everybody knows how much easier it is to eat a good dinner
than it is to wash the dishes afterwards. Consider what a boy on a
farm is required to do; things that must be done, or life would
actually stop.
It is understood, in the first place, that he is to do all the
errands, to go to the store, to the post office, and to carry all
sorts of messages. If he had as many legs as a centipede, they would
tire before night.
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