But I fancy that lessons bore a very small part in Will Shakspere's education. He certainly never knew much Latin; but he knew all about country things as only a country-bred boy can know about them. He and Gilbert must have run many a time to Ashbies, their mother's farm at Wilmcote, and watched the oxen plowing in the heavy clay fields; and cried, perhaps, as children do now "as the butcher takes away the calf"; and played with the shepherd's "bob-tailed cur"; and gossiped with Christopher Sly, who could tell them all manner of wonderful tales, for had he not been peddler, card-maker, bear-herd, "and now by present profession a tinker"? They must have listened to their father and their uncle Henry up at the big farm close to Snitterfield church (where Henry Shakspere lived) as the two men discussed the price of a yoke of oxen at Stratford or Warwick fair, or debated whether they should "sow the head-land with wheat,--with red wheat, Davy,"[A] or grumbled over the "smith's note for shoeing and plough-irons," or told the latest turn in the quarrel between "William Visor of Woncot" and "Clement Perkes of the Hill." Very likely the little hazel-eyed boys took William Visor's part, though they wisely kept their opinions to themselves, since small boys in that period were not allowed the liberty of speech they enjoy in these degenerate times. William Visor was a neighbor of the Ardens, and possibly a friend of "Marian Hackett, the fat ale-wife of Wincot"; for Wincot, Woncot, and Wilmcote are all the same place. Or perhaps the young lads sided with Clement Perkes; for the Hill where he lived at Weston was known as Cherry Orchard Farm, a name full of tempting suggestions to little boys. And we know that Shakspere, like many less wise people, was fond of "ripe red cherries." He mentions them again and again. He and Gilbert, and their little friends the Sadlers and Harts and Halls, must have played bob-cherry, as we do now,--drawing up the stem of the cherry with our tongues, and, with a sudden snap, getting the round, ripe fruit between our lips,--and then have used the stones for "cherry-pit"--a child's game that is frequently mentioned by Shakspere and other old writers, which consisted in pitching cherry-stones into a small hole. [Footnote A: 2d Henry IV., Act 5. Scene 1.] [Illustration: THE SCHOOL AND GUILD CHAPEL.]