ear.  The boy asks what his father is doing.  “I am listening to hear what he says.”  “And what does he say, father?” “He says that you won’t have him to play with long.”  “Why not?” “I will ask him, why not?” (holding the ball again to his ear).  “What does he say, father?” “He says he is going to run away from you and hide.  He says you will go to play near some building, and he means, when you throw him or knock him, to fly against the windows and break the glass, and then people will take your ball away from you.”  “But I won’t play near any windows.”  “He says, at any rate you will play near some building, and when you knock him he means to fly up to the roof and get behind a chimney, or roll down into the gutter where you can’t get him.”  “But, father, I am not going to play near any building at all.”  “Then you will play in some place where there are holes in the ground, or thickets of bushes near, where he can hide.”  “No, father, I mean to look well over the ground, and not play in any place where there is any danger at all.”  “Well, we shall see; but the little rogue is determined to hide somewhere.”  The boy takes his ball and goes out to play with it, far more effectually cautioned than he could have been by any direct admonition.

The Teacher and the Tough Logs

A teacher who was engaged in a district school in the country, where the arrangement was for the older boys to saw and split the wood for the fire, on coming one day, at the recess, to see how the work was going on, found that the boys had laid one rather hard-looking log aside.  They could not split that log, they said.

“Yes,” said the teacher, looking at the log, “I don’t wonder.  I know that log.  I saw him before.  His name is Old Gnarly.  He says he has no idea of coming open for a parcel of boys, even if they have got beetle and wedges.  It takes a man, he says, to split him.”

The boys stood looking at the log with a very grave expression of countenance as they heard these words.

“Is that what he says?” asked one of them.  “Let’s try him again, Joe.”

“It will do no good,” said the teacher, “for he won’t come open, if he can possibly help it.  And there’s another fellow (pointing).  His name is Slivertwist.  If you get a crack in him, you will find him full of twisted splinters that he holds himself together with.  The only way is to cut them through with a sharp axe.  But he holds on so tight with them that I don’t believe you can get him open.  He says he never gives up to boys.”

So saying, the teacher went away.  It is scarcely necessary to say to any one who knows boys that the teacher was called out not long afterwards to see that Old Gnarly and Old Slivertwist were both split up fine—­the boys standing around the heaps of well-prepared fire-wood which they had afforded, and regarding them with an air of exultation and triumph.

Muscles reinvigorated through the Action of the Mind.