The whole day was full of excitement and of freedom.  We were away from the farm, which to a boy is one of the best parts of farming; we saw other farms and other people at work; I had the pleasure of marching along, and swinging my whip, past boys whom I knew, who were picking up stones.  Every turn of the road, every bend and rapid of the river, the great bowlders by the wayside, the watering-troughs, the giant pine that had been struck by lightning, the mysterious covered bridge over the river where it was, most swift and rocky and foamy, the chance eagle in the blue sky, the sense of going somewhere,—­why, as I recall all these things I feel that even the Prince Imperial, as he used to dash on horseback through the Bois de Boulogne, with fifty mounted hussars clattering at his heels, and crowds of people cheering, could not have been as happy as was I, a boy in short jacket and shorter pantaloons, trudging in the dust that day behind the steers and colts, cracking my black-stock whip.

I wish the journey would never end; but at last, by noon, we reach the pastures and turn in the herd; and after making the tour of the lots to make sure there are no breaks in the fences, we take our luncheon from the wagon and eat it under the trees by the spring.  This is the supreme moment of the day.  This is the way to live; this is like the Swiss Family Robinson, and all the rest of my delightful acquaintances in romance.  Baked beans, rye-and-indian bread (moist, remember), doughnuts and cheese, pie, and root beer.  What richness!  You may live to dine at Delmonico’s, or, if those Frenchmen do not eat each other up, at Philippe’s, in Rue Montorgueil in Paris, where the dear old Thackeray used to eat as good a dinner as anybody; but you will get there neither doughnuts, nor pie, nor root beer, nor anything so good as that luncheon at noon in the old pasture, high among the Massachusetts hills!  Nor will you ever, if you live to be the oldest boy in the world, have any holiday equal to the one I have described.  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.