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know," answered Polly doubtfully. "But its good for him," she said, recovering.
"Is it?" I said.
"Isn't it?" said Polly.
"It interferes afterwards," said I.
"If one can't hit the one that struck, one passes the blow along," said Polly, looking away from me, and I thought I heard a sigh. I'll not pretend to say what Polly was thinking of, but I was remembering an episode in my own youth, and when I echoed the sigh it was for myself and Polly's friend and all the generations of us before and after.
Polly turned her eyes from the hills and looked straight at me-a thing she rarely did.
"I'm not certain that it's all my fault," she said.
I couldn't exactly see that; but no doubt we looked at it from different standpoints, Polly and I.
—“Cantony Cope.”
The Fisherboy.
The summer sun had set behind the hills that skirt the little lake, and peeping o'er their summits were giant clouds of glowing violet, formed like fabled gods and dragons who had gathered for a moment's sport in the airy, amber wilderness. Above their heroic heads and in the remotest west was a long, lace-like cloud of glowing gold that seemed floating in the sky of another world than this, and which shed a glory on the waters of the tiny lake.
Not a breath of air stirred the topmost leaves of the giant cotton-wood whose pronged roots jutting from the sandy bank seemed reaching for the weather-stained fisherman's cabin on the shore, as a child might reach for some curious plaything.
In the door-way of the cabin sat the large eyed fisherboy idly strumming a guitar and watching the tumbling violet heroes of the sky. Now a giant of Egyptian profile towered above the turbulent throng and extended his arms in attitudes of royal authority. Then as if by magic he melted and in his place a great bear and a winged sphynx engaged in a combat while all the host looked on. Again and again the enchanted monsters changed their form, and at last along the lower clouds crept a crimson red as of dragon's blood spilled upon the battle-field of the gods.
By this time the old fisherman, who had come up from the lake with the dripping nets upon his shoulder, stood looking at the boy whose wild fancies he never understood. It seemed strange too, that the boy should so often leave his city home and spend weeks in this humble cabin, but had the boy been his own son, the old fisherman could not have loved him more.
"Guy," said the man, "I've been looking everywhere for you to day. Your father has been here again, and has left word for you to be sure and see him before night. There is no chance to ride now but it is only three miles across the fields and you have plenty of time to walk. I am sure he wants you for something important."
"I suppose I must help in the store again," said the boy.
"Are you going?"
"On such a night as this? No. I have been rowing on the river all day and I'm tired. I can rest here much better than I can rest at home."
Guy's desires were more important to him than those of his father, so he dismissed the whole affair from his mind and as the darkness gathered upon the wooded hills, he fell to watching the black bats swing around the smoky red fire that the fisherman kindled on the shore.
The next morning he arose early, and taking his fishing outfit set out for the willow fringed river that was not far from the lake. In the afternoon his father, a dignified man of few words and of unapproachable manners, arrived at the hut inquiring for Guy, and at the request of the old gentleman, the fisherman went to the river in search of the thoughtless boy.
In the meantime the newcomer surveyed the interior of the simple hut with contempt and disgust.
"Worthless boy," he ejaculated. "Though I have offered him a position in my store time and again, he still prefers this miserable, idle