Occasionally we would forget that the neighbor-boys
were not girls, and would find ourselves all playing together in
delightful unconsciousness; although possibly a thought, like
that of the "Ettrick Shepherd," may now and then have flitted
through the mind of some masculine juvenile:--
"Why the boys should drive away
Little sweet maidens from the play,
Or love to banter and fight so well,--
That Is the thing I never could tell."
One, day I thoughtlessly accepted an invitation to get through a
gap in the garden-fence, to where the doctor's two boys were
preparing to take an imaginary sleigh-ride in midsummer. The
sleigh was stranded among tall weeds an cornstalks, but I was
politely handed in by the elder boy, who sat down by my side and
tucked his little brother in front at our feet, informing me that
we were father and mother and little son, going to take a ride to
Newburyport. He had found an old pair of reins and tied them to
a saw-horse, that he switched and "Gee-up"-ed vigorously.
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