of a stent.  We used to be given a certain piece of corn to hoe, or a certain quantity of corn to husk in so many days.  If we finished the task before the time set, we had the remainder to ourselves.  In my day it used to take very sharp work to gain anything, but we were always anxious to take the chance.  I think we enjoyed the holiday in anticipation quite as much as we did when we had won it.  Unless it was training-day, or Fourth of July, or the circus was coming, it was a little difficult to find anything big enough to fill our anticipations of the fun we would have in the day or the two or three days we had earned.  We did not want to waste the time on any common thing.  Even going fishing in one of the wild mountain brooks was hardly up to the mark, for we could sometimes do that on a rainy day.  Going down to the village store was not very exciting, and was, on the whole, a waste of our precious time.  Unless we could get out our military company, life was apt to be a little blank, even on the holidays for which we had worked so hard.  If you went to see another boy, he was probably at work in the hay-field or the potato-patch, and his father looked at you askance.  You sometimes took hold and helped him, so that he could go and play with you; but it was usually time to go for the cows before the task was done.  The fact is, or used to be, that the amusements of a boy in the country are not many.  Snaring “suckers” out of the deep meadow brook used to be about as good as any that I had.  The North American sucker is not an engaging animal in all respects; his body is comely enough, but his mouth is puckered up like that of a purse.  The mouth is not formed for the gentle angle-worm nor the delusive fly of the fishermen.  It is necessary, therefore, to snare the fish if you want him.  In the sunny days he lies in the deep pools, by some big stone or near the bank, poising himself quite still, or only stirring his fins a little now and then, as an elephant moves his ears.  He will lie so for hours, or rather float, in perfect idleness and apparent bliss.  The boy who also has a holiday, but cannot keep still, comes along and peeps over the bank.  “Golly, ain’t he a big one!” Perhaps he is eighteen inches long, and weighs two or three pounds.  He lies there among his friends, little fish and big ones, quite a school of them, perhaps a district school, that only keeps in warm days in the summer.  The pupils seem to have little to learn, except to balance themselves and to turn gracefully with a flirt of the tail.  Not much is taught but “deportment,” and some of the old suckers are perfect Turveydrops in that.  The boy is armed with a pole and a stout line, and on the end of it a brass wire bent into a hoop, which is a slipnoose, and slides together when anything is caught in it.  The boy approaches the bank and looks over.  There he lies, calm as a whale.  The boy devours him with his eyes.  He is almost too much excited to drop the snare into the water