from heaven and earth in a richer, finer perfume like an evening oblation, the young dreamer was also rendering back those gifts bestowed by heaven in an incense of purest thought and aspiration.  It was one of those hours that come occasionally in that sublime period of unshattered ideals and unsullied faith, for which Pharaoh and Caesar would have exchanged their thrones, Croesus and Lucullus bartered their wealth, Solomon and Aristotle forgotten their learning.

Every imaginative youth who has been reared in pure surroundings experiences over again in these rare and radiant hours all the bliss that Adam knew in Eden.  To his joyous, eager spirit, the world appears a new creation fresh from the hand of God.  He hears its author walking in the garden at eventide, and murmuring:  “Behold it is very good.”  A single element of disquietude, a solitary, vague unrest disturbs him.  He awaits his Eve with longing, but has no dread of the serpent.

At sight of this young man the most superficial observer would have paused to take a second look; an artist would have instinctively seized his pencil or his brush; a scientist would have paused to inquire what mysterious influences could have produced so finely proportioned a nature; a philosopher to wonder what would become of him in some sudden and powerful temptation.

None of these reflections disturbed the mind of the barefooted boy.  Having suppressed his laughter, he tickled the sunburnt neck again.  Once more the hand rose automatically, and once more the boy was almost strangled with delight.  The dreamer was hard to awaken, but his tormentor had not yet exhausted his resources.  No genuine boy is ever without that fundamental necessity of childhood, a pin, and finding one somewhere about his clothing, he thrust it into the leg of the plowman.  The sudden sting brought the soaring saint from heaven to earth.  In an instant the mystic was a man, and a strong one, too.  He seized the unsanctified young reprobate with one hand and hoisted him at arm’s length above his head.

“Oh, Uncle Dave, I’ll never do it again!  Never!  Never!  Let me down.”

Still holding him aloft as a hunter would hold a falcon, the reincarnated “spirit” laughed long, loud and merrily, the echoes of his laughter ringing up the valley like a peal from a chime of bells.  The child’s fear was needless, for the heart and hands that dealt with him were as gentle as a woman’s.  The youth, resembling some old Norse god as he stood there in the gathering gloom, lowered the child slowly, and printing a kiss on his cheek, said: 

“Thee little pest, thee has no reverence!  Thee should never disturb a child at his play, a bird on his nest nor a man at his prayers.”

“But thee was not praying, Uncle Dave,” the boy replied.  “Thee was only in another of thy tantrums.  The supper has grown cold, the horses are tired and Shep and I have walked a mile to call thee.  Grandmother said thee had a trance.  Tell me what thee has seen in thy visions, Uncle Dave?”