ROLLO AT PLAY.

Story 1.  Rollo at play in the woods.—­The Setting out.  Bridge-Building.  A Visitor.  Difficulty.  Hearts wrong.  Hearts right again.

Story 2.  The steeple-trap.—­The Way to catch a Squirrel.  The Way to lose a Squirrel.  How to keep a Squirrel.  Fires in the Woods.

Story 3.  The Halo round the moon; or Lucy’s visit.—­A Round Rainbow.  Who knows best, a Little Boy or his Father!  Repentance.

Story 4.  The freshet.—­Maria and the Caravan Small Craft.  The Principles of Order.  Clearing up.

Story 5.  BLUEBERRYING.—­Old Trumpeter.  Deviation.  Little Mosette.  Going up.  The Secret out.

Story 6.  Trouble on the mountain.—­Boasting.  Getting in Trouble.  A Test of Penitence.

ROLLO AT PLAY IN THE WOODS.

THE SETTING OUT.

One pleasant morning in the autumn, when Rollo was about five years old, he was sitting on the platform, behind his father’s house, playing.  He had a hammer and nails, and some small pieces of board.  He was trying to make a box.  He hammered and hammered, and presently he dropped his work down and said, fretfully,

“O dear me!”

“What is the matter, Rollo?” said Jonas,—­for it happened that Jonas was going by just then, with a wheelbarrow.

“I wish these little boards would not split so.  I cannot make my box.”

“You drive the nails wrong; you put the wedge sides with the grain.”

“The wedge sides!” said Rollo; “what are the wedge sides,—­and the grain?  I do not know what you mean.”

But Jonas went on, trundling his wheelbarrow; though he looked round and told Rollo that he could not stop to explain it to him then.

Rollo was discouraged about his box.  He thought he would look and see what Jonas was going to do.  Jonas trundled the wheelbarrow along, until he came opposite the barn-door, and there he put it down.  He went into the barn, and presently came out with an axe.  Then he took the sides of the wheelbarrow off, and placed them up against the barn.  Then he laid the axe down across the wheelbarrow, and went into the barn again.  Pretty soon he brought out an iron crowbar, and laid that down also in the wheelbarrow, with the axe.

Then Rollo called out,

“Jonas, Jonas, where are you going?”

“I am going down into the woods beyond the brook.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I am going to clear up some ground.”

“May I go with you?”

“I should like it—­but that is not for me to say.”

Rollo knew by this that he must ask his mother.  He went in and asked her, and she, in return, asked him if he had read his lesson that morning.  He said he had not; he had forgotten it.