The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1886-11-06
w H IR! w H R!
BY SYDNEY DAYRE.

fast, hurry up and get your wood p1lec
before school,
Jack had made away with very hearty
breakfast, but no starving boy could have
carried a longer face out to that pile Of
wood than he carried. The summer
morning was long and gave him plenty
of time, and the summer sun and the
summer breeze we're bright enough and
fresh enough to have put life and quick.
ness into the limbs of most boys.
But the sun smiled its cheeriest, and
the wind whistled its merriest without
seeming to put much of their spirit into
Jack.
"Wood, wood, wood!" he muttered tc
himself in doleful tone. !" wonder
why all boys have to pile wood. They
all do. I wish trees had never grown
and that axes had never been made
Father piled wood when he was boy
Grandfather did it-he told me so. And
that was fifty years ago, any way. Fifty
years ago-oh, dear me-"
Jack groaned as if fifty years OF wood
piling had been endured by himself.
Every stick seemed to grow heavier as
he slowly lifted one after the other.
"It's dreadfully heavy" he said when
his mother came out to tell him it was
time to go to school.
sits the willing mind that's wanting,
my boy" she said. "That makes all
duties light"
Jack took his books and walked slowly
along the carriage drive toward the road.
1t was shady and pleasant, and he flung
himself on the grass under tree. He
heard the children passing to school on
the other side of the hedge.
al don't care if 1 am late," he said.
"Tm tired out. Nobody ever seems to
think boy needs any rest"
Rippety, rippety, rip, rip, rip, rip-rip-
rip; whir, whir-r-r-r-r-r,' went little
wheel which was fastened away above
mis- head on tall gate post. 1t was at
tached to vane, and it always looked
the wind straight in the face, seeming to
laugh a saucy, merry challenge to it; go
that people could always tell by it exact
ly which way the wind was.
On quiet days it took leisurely little
twirls, appearing to have plenty OF time
to consider the beauties OF the landscape.
But when the wind was lively and shift
ing it bobbed and dipped and jerked
about most energetically. The two little
clappers on the wheel kept up rip, rip
and a whir which led all the children
who passed, and the grown folks, too, to
look up with laugh or a smile.
Jack lay at full length and stretched
his arms and yawned. He did not feel
the wind, but it must have been blowing
briskly higher up, for the sound of the
wheel came to him in little spurts, and he
looked lazily up at it. The noise of the
children's voices was dying away, and
the school bell in the distance had a
more PARKWAY sound than usual, but the
rip-rip and the whir-whir were as distinct
as ever.
"I should think you'd be tired to
DEATH" Jack said, or perhaps thought,
he could scarcely have told which.
e" There you've been tearing round and
sputtering and webbing and rafting
like all possessed. Don't your back ever
ache and your head get dizzy? Mine
would, know"
"Oh, that's because you're boy and
not weathercock," was the answer.
If there seemed to Jack anything sur
prising in hearing a wind wheel talk, he
must have felt too lazy to try to express
it, for he went on:
"I should think you'd feel like taking
a rest"
"That, too, is because you are boy
said the wheel. giving dip as if to take
a look at the boy who seemed so fond OF
a rest. But" he went on, az do get
rests. Sometimes there is no wind, you
know"
"But you have to whisk off again the
moment he takes it into his head to give
puff"
"Yes, of course That's what I'm for
"But do you like to do it?"
"Well, to tell you the truth, l never
took time to think whether do or not"
"That's because you're wheel and not
a boy" said Jack, discontentedly. Ii
you were boy and had to pile wood
you'd stop often enough to think you
didn't like it at all"
"Perhaps So" said the wheel. A little
hirt of wind just then took him, and he
spun around SO merrily that Jack fell
sure he must be quite out OF breath.
Il wouldn't stand that if were you,
he said, when the wheel became little
quieter. "That wind seems to be an i'm
pudent fellow"
"Oh, no; he doesn't mean any harm,
said the wheel good naturally. "Pn
here just to take note of his pranks, you
see. People want to keep track Of what
he's doing, and I'm to show them. If
attend to my own business it's no matter
10 me what he does. When everybody
does just what he has TO do, l suppose
things go all right, don't they?"
al s'pose So" said Jack, looking
thoughtfully at the wheel as it agar