When his gaze followed the floating down from a milkweed pod, or marked the scurry of a chipmunk at a white oak's root, or dwelt upon the fox-grape's swinging curtain, he would have said, if questioned, that life in the woods and in an Indian country taught a man the use of his eyes.

"Love of Nature" was a phrase at which he would have looked blank, and a talisman which he did not know he possessed, and it may be doubted if he could have defined the word "Romance." He whistled as he rode, and presently, the sun rising higher and the clear wind blowing with force, he began to sing,-- "From the Walnut Hills to the Silver Lake, Row, boatmen, row! Danger in the levee, danger in the brake, Row, boatmen, row! Yellow water rising, Indians on the shore!" Lewis Rand, perched upon the platform before the cask, his feet dangling, his head thrown back against the wood, and his eyes upon the floating clouds, pursued inwardly and with a swelling heart the oft-broken, oft-renewed argument with his father.

"I do not want to go to the fields.

I want to go to school.

Every chance I've had, I've learned, and I want to learn more and more.