The author has rendered valuable assistance in cutting certain chapters
and abridging others. Also, with the author's approval, cuts have been
made where the descriptive matter was merely of local interest.
But the story itself is intact.
V.S.H_.
THE BOY
THE ELF
_Sunday, March twentieth_.
Once there was a boy. He was--let us say--something like fourteen years
old; long and loose-jointed and towheaded. He wasn't good for much, that
boy. His chief delight was to eat and sleep; and after that--he liked
best to make mischief.
It was a Sunday morning and the boy's parents were getting ready to go
to church. The boy sat on the edge of the table, in his shirt sleeves,
and thought how lucky it was that both father and mother were going
away, and the coast would be clear for a couple of hours. "Good! Now I
can take down pop's gun and fire off a shot, without anybody's meddling
interference," he said to himself.
But it was almost as if father should have guessed the boy's thoughts,
for just as he was on the threshold--ready to start--he stopped short,
and turned toward the boy. "Since you won't come to church with mother
and me," he said, "the least you can do, is to read the service at home.
Will you promise to do so?" "Yes," said the boy, "that I can do easy
enough." And he thought, of course, that he wouldn't read any more than
he felt like reading.
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