He took it out now into the sunny, windy yard and on into the lane, on the other side of which there was a tiny thread of water that trickled down the slope to the stream which raced along the bottom of the rock garden.  Jim was not allowed to go down to the real stream by himself, so he stayed in the lane and carefully launched his recovered treasure upon the tiny rivulet.  He watched anxiously—­yes, it floated.  He bent forward and poked with a twig to dislodge it from a tiny tangle of weed; then his foot slipped and he splashed his clean socks.  Bother!  He had promised not to be a nuisance.  He soon was wetter still, and began to feel happier.

When the little boat was fairly caught in the current it went bobbing away out of his reach, and he saw it disappear in the pipe under the road.  He pictured it emerging, being hurtled down to the real stream and then hurried upon that right out to sea....  He felt no pang at losing it in his excitement at its adventurous career.  Soon he was busy upon other matters; he was by turns a pirate, an engineer who built a dam, and an airman who jumped off a boulder and had one intoxicating moment in mid-air....  Then for a while he played at being grandfather and lying still with his eyes shut.

But that was dull, and he was glad when he heard his mother’s voice calling him in to dinner.  He shook off the earth with which he had tried to besprinkle himself and scrambled up.  It was dull being dead.  He would never be dead, but he would be anything and everything else—­when he was a man.

THE END