How those prosperous parents who dwell in highly-rented suburban villas, and send out their children for a walk with a couple of nurses, and a ‘bow-wow’ to run beside the perambulator, would be eaten up with anxiety did their well-dressed boys or girls play where this young son of toil finds his amusement!  Under the very hoofs of the carthorses—­he will go out to them when they are loose in the field, three or four in a group, under a tree, when it looks as if the slightest movement on their part must crush him; down to the side of the deep broad brook to swim sticks in it for boats, where a slip on the treacherous mud would plunge him in, and where the chance of rescue—­everybody being half a mile away at work—­would be absolutely nil.  The cows come trampling through the yard; the bull bellows in the meadow; great, grunting sows, savage when they have young, go by, thrusting their noses into and turning up the earth for food; steam ploughing engines pant and rumble about; carts are continually coming and going; and he is all day in the midst of it without guardian of any kind whatsoever.  The fog, and frost, and cutting winter winds make him snivel and cry with the cold, and yet there he is out in it—­in the draughts that blow round the ricks, and through the hedge bare of leaves.  The rain rushes down pitilessly—­he creeps inside the barn or shed, and with a stick splashes the puddles.  The long glaring days of summer see him exposed to the scorching heat in the hay, or the still hotter harvest field.  Through it all he grows stout and strong, and seems happy enough.

He is, perhaps, more fortunate than his sister, who has to take part in the household work from very early age.  But the village school claims them both after awhile; and the greater number of such schools are well filled, taking into consideration the long distances the children have to come and the frequent bad state of the roads and lanes.  Both the employers and the children’s own parents get them to school as much as possible; the former put on a mild compulsion, the latter for the most part are really anxious for the schooling, and have even an exaggerated idea of the value of education.  In some cases it would seem as if the parents actually educated themselves in some degree from their own children, questioning them as to what they have been told.  But, on the other hand, the labourer objects to paying for the teaching, and thinks the few coppers he is charged a terrible extortion.

The lads, as they grow older and leave school, can almost always find immediate employment with their father on the same farm, or on one close by.  Though they do not now go out to work so soon, yet, on the other hand, when they do commence they receive higher weekly wages.  The price paid for boys’ labour now is such that it becomes a very important addition to the aggregate income of the cottager.  When a man has got a couple of boys out, bringing home so much per week, his own money, of course, goes very much farther.