"I s'pose," said Edwin, "he means the Devil is like some of our big medicine men who can turn themselves into deer and elk, and any kind of animal, and the Devil can change himself into a hungry, howling lion and--" "And into a Satan," suggested Lester. "And into a serpent," added Warren. "Into a snake," I chimed in. "And put a man's head on!" ejaculated Edwin. "And talk to women when they go swimming!" said Lester, with a laugh. "There's no use talking to you boys. I'm going to sleep," and Brush turned over. One by one, sleep overcame these boys. Brush made a peculiar noise as he breathed, and Lester puffed away like a steamboat. A Whippoorwill sang in one of the cottonwood-trees near the corner of the house. Fainter and fainter grew the sound, and so the day passed into yesterday, and the morrow began to dawn. Chapter VIII Fraudulent Holidays "Third Reader," called Gray-beard, and some ten or twelve boys and girls marched to the place of recitation, and put their toes on a straight crack in the floor. The reading lesson was some verses on "Summer," prettily illustrated with a picture of a boy and a dog, the lad racing over a meadow, and the dog frisking at his side. "Now, Robert, begin!" said Gray-beard to little Bob, who in some unaccountable way had reached the head of the class. The boy put his index finger on the first word, and slid it along as he read, in a low, sing-song tone, "Come, come, come, the Summer now is here." "Read that over again," said Gray-beard. "Read it loud, as though you were out of doors at play." Bob read again, but in the same manner, and had hardly gone through half the line when the sharp crack of Gray-beard's ruler on the desk made us all jump. "That's not the way to read it!" he exclaimed with some impatience; and he repeated the lines to show how they should be given. "Now, begin again." Bob began, but in the same lifeless tone, never taking his finger from the words. "Next!" interrupted Gray-beard. "The same verse; read as though you were wide awake and calling to your playmates, not as if you were going to sleep." The boy addressed straightened himself up and shouted out: "Come, come, come, the Summer now is here!" going through the verse without a break, then he glanced proudly toward the girls, only to see them giggling behind their books. "Silence!" cried Gray-beard, striking his desk. "That was well done!" The door slowly opened, and the farmer entered, hat in hand, and addressed Gray-beard, "I want to transfer a sow with a litter of pigs from one pen to another, and I've come to ask if you could let me have the help of some of the boys?" When permission had been granted, a number of willing hands went up, and as many faces turned with eager expectancy to the farmer, who looked around, and then said, "Brush, Frank, Lester, and Warren will do."