I like to see such pictures as I ply my hoe, for they give me respite from weariness, and give fresh ardor to my hoeing.  If each one of my potatoes shall only assuage the hunger of some little one, and cause the mother’s eyes to distil tears of joy, I shall be in the border-land of happiness, to say the least.  I had fully intended to exercise my inalienable rights and lie in the shade for two hours to-day, but when I caught a glimpse of that little chap in the high chair, and heard his pitiful plea for potatoes, I made for the potato-patch post-haste, as if I were responding to a hurry call.  I suppose there is no more heart-breaking sound in nature than the crying of a hungry child.  I have been whistling all the afternoon along with my hoeing, and now that I think of it, I must be whistling because my potatoes are going to make that baby laugh.

Well, if they do, then I shall elevate the hoeing of potatoes to the rank of a privilege.  Oh, I’ve read my “Tom Sawyer,” and know about his enterprise in getting the fence whitewashed by making the task seem a privilege.  But Tom was indulging in fiction, and hoeing potatoes is no fiction.  Still those whitewash artists had something of the feeling that I experience right now, only there was no baby in their picture as there is in mine, and so I have the baby as an additional privilege.  I wish I knew how to make all the school tasks rank as privileges to my boys and girls.  If I could only do that, they would have gone far toward a liberal education.  If I could only get a baby to crying somewhere out beyond cube root I’m sure they would struggle through the mazes of that subject, somehow, so as to get to the baby to change its crying into laughter.  ’Tis worth trying.

I wonder, after all, whether education is not the process of shifting the emphasis from rights to privileges.  I have a right, when I go into the town, to keep my seat in the car and let the old lady use the strap.  If I insist upon that right I feel myself a boor, lacking the sense and sensibilities of a gentleman.  But when I relinquish my seat I feel that I have exercised my privilege to be considerate and courteous.  I have a right to permit weeds and briers to overrun my fences, and the fences themselves to go to rack, and so offend the sight of my neighbors; but I esteem it a privilege to make the premises clean and beautiful, so as to add so much to the sum total of pleasure.  I have a right to stay on my own side of the road and keep to myself; but it is a great privilege to go up for a half-hour’s exchange of talk with my neighbor John.  He always clears the cobwebs from my eyes and from my soul, and I return to my work refreshed.