The best influences which bear upon us are of
this vague sort--powerful upon the heart and conscience, although
undefined to the intellect.
But I find I have been forgetting that those for whom I write are
young--too young to understand this. Let it remain, however, for those
older persons who at an odd moment, while waiting for dinner, or
before going to bed, may take up a little one's book, and turn over a
few of its leaves. Some such readers, in virtue of their hearts being
young and old both at once, discern more in the children's books than
the children themselves.
CHAPTER XXI
The Bees' Nest
It was twelve o'clock on a delicious Saturday in the height of summer.
We poured out of school with the gladness of a holiday in our hearts.
I sauntered home full of the summer sun, and the summer wind, and the
summer scents which filled the air. I do not know how often I sat down
in perfect bliss upon the earthen walls which divided the fields from
the road, and basked in the heat. These walls were covered with grass
and moss. The odour of a certain yellow feathery flower, which grew on
them rather plentifully, used to give me special delight. Great
humble-bees haunted the walls, and were poking about in them
constantly. Butterflies also found them pleasant places, and I
delighted in butterflies, though I seldom succeeded in catching one.
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