So I go on accumulating things, and my den is a veritable medley of things.  They don’t make me any happier, and they are a great bother.  There are fifty-seven things right here in my den, and I don’t need more than six or seven of them.  There are twenty-two pictures, large and small, in this room, but I couldn’t have named five of them had I not just counted them.  Why I have them is beyond my comprehension.  I inveigh against the mania of people for drugs and narcotics, but my mania for things only differs in kind from theirs.  I have a little book called “Things of the Mind,” and I like to read it.  Now, if my mind only had as many things in it as my den, I’d be a far more agreeable associate for Brown and my neighbor John.  Or, if I were as careful about getting things for my mind as I am in accumulating useless bric-a-brac, it would be far more to my credit.

If the germs that are lurking in and about these fifty-seven things should suddenly become as large as spiders, I’d certainly be the unhappy possessor of a flourishing menagerie, and I think my progress toward the simple life would be very promptly hastened.

CHAPTER XIII

TARGETS

In my work as a schoolmaster I find it well to keep my mind open and not get to thinking that my way is the only way, or even the best way.  I think I learn more from my boys and girls than they learn from me, and so long as I can keep an open mind I am certain to get some valuable lessons from them.  I got to telling the college chap about a hen that taught me a good lesson, and the first thing I knew I was going to school to this college youth, and he was enlightening me on the subject of animal psychology, and especially upon the trial-and-error theory.  That set me wondering how many trials and errors that hen made before she finally succeeded in surmounting that fence.  At any rate, the hen taught me another lesson besides the lesson of perseverance.

I have a high wire fence enclosing the chicken-yard, and in order to make steady the posts to which the gate is attached, I joined them at the top by nailing a board across.  The hen that taught me the lesson must be both ambitious and athletic, for time after time have I found her outside the chicken-yard.  I searched diligently for the place of exit, but could not find it.  So, in desperation, I determined one morning to discover how that hen gained her freedom if it took all day.  So I found a comfortable seat and waited.  In an hour or so the hen came out into the open and took a survey of the situation.  Then, presently, with skill born of experience, she sidled this way and that, advanced a little and then retreated until she found the exact location she sought, poised herself for a moment, and went sailing right over the board that connected the posts.  Having made this discovery, I removed the board and used wire instead, and thus reduced the hen to the plane of obedience.