I would rather be a barefooted boy with cheeks of tan and heart of joy than to be a millionaire and president of a National bank. The financial panic that falls like a thunderbolt, wrecks the bank, crushes the banker, and swamps thousands in an hour. But the bank which holds the treasures of the barefooted boy never breaks. With his satchel and his books he hies away to school in the morning, but his truant feet carry him the other way, to the mill pond "a-fishin'." And there he sits the livelong day under the shade of the tree, with sapling pole and pin hook, and fishes, and fishes, and fishes, and waits for a nibble of the drowsy sucker that sleeps on his oozy bed, oblivious of the baitless hook from which he has long since stolen the worm. There he sits, and fishes, and fishes, and fishes, and like Micawber, waits for something to "turn-up." But nothing turns up until the shadows of evening fall and warn the truant home, where he is welcomed with a dogwood sprout. Then "sump'n" does turn up. He obeys the call of the Sunday school bell, and goes with solemn face, but e'er the "sweet bye and bye" has died away on the summer air, he is in the wood shed playing Sullivan and Corbett with some plucky comrade, with the inevitable casualties of one closed eye, one crippled nose, one pair of torn breeches and one bloody toe. He takes a back seat at church, and in the midst of the sermon steals away and hides in the barn to smoke cigarettes and read the story of "One-eyed Pete, the Hero of the wild and woolly West." There is eternal war between the barefooted boy and the whole civilized world. He shoots the cook with a blow-gun; he cuts the strings of the hammock and lets his dozing grandmother fall to the ground; he loads his grandfather's pipe with powder; he instigates a fight between the cat and dog during family prayers, and explodes with laughter when pussy seeks refuge on the old man's back. He hides in the alley and turns the hose on uncle Ephraim's standing collar as he passes on his way to church, he cracks chestnut burrs with his naked heel; he robs birds' nests, and murders bullfrogs, and plays "knucks" and "base-ball." He puts asafetida in the soup, and conceals lizzards in his father's hat. He overwhelms the family circle with his magnificent literary attainments when he reads from the Bible in what he calls the "pasalms of David"—"praise ye the Lord with the pizeltry and the harp."

His father took him to town one day and said to him: "Now John, I want you to stay here on the corner with the wagon and watch these potatoes while I go round the square and see if I can sell them. Don't open your mouth sir, while I am gone; I'm afraid people will think you're a fool." While the old man was gone the merchant came out and said to John: "What are those potatoes worth, my son?" John looked at him and grinned. "What are those potatoes worth, I say?" asked the merchant. John still looked at him and grinned. The merchant turned on his heel and said: "You're a fool," and went back into his store. When the old man returned John shouted: "Pap, they found it out and I never said a word."

His life is an endless chain of pranks and pleasures. Look how the brawling brook pours down the steep declivities of the mountain gorge! Here it breaks into pearls and silvery foam, there it dashes in rapids, among brown bowlders, and yonder it tumbles from the gray crest of a precipice. Thus, forever laughing, singing, rollicking, romping, till it is checked in its mad rush and spreads into a still, smooth mirror, reflecting the inverted images of rock, and fern, and flower, and tree, and sky. It is the symbol of the life of a barefooted boy. His quips, and cranks, his whims, and jollities, and jocund mischief, are but the effervescences of exuberant young life, the wild music of the mountain stream.

If I were a sculptor, I would chisel from the marble my ideal of the monumental fool. I would make it the figure of a man, with knitted brow and clinched teeth, beating and bruising his barefooted boy, in the cruel endeavor to drive him from the paradise of his childish fun and folly. If your boy will be a boy, let him be a boy still. And remember that he is following the paths which your feet have trodden, and will soon [103]
[104] look back upon its precious memories, as you now do, with the aching heart of a care-worn man.

(Sung to the air of Down on the Farm.)