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Show REMINDS HIM OF HIS- YOUTH; Recollections Come to Man at Sight of a Grindstone.. "Down In our back yard," said tho man who boardB, "Is a reminder of my boyhood, a survival of barefooted, spindle-legged days. Item, a grindstone grind-stone "There's a boy In our houso who turns that grindstone Early nnd late ho Is down there fooling with it. Ho doesn't havo to turn it, that Is wily ho Is so pnsslonntely fond of tho exercise exer-cise If ho hnd to turn It ns I did when i boy ho could bo Induced to np-proach np-proach It only through tho pereuaslvo application of a stick or the end of n lenthcr strap. The boy next door Is his partner In theso grindstone stunts. They sharpen knives. Tho next door boy holds tho knife whllo our boy turns tho crank. They havo three different dif-ferent knives to work on. Apparently neither of thesp weapons Is ovor used for anything except grinding. Thoy nro tho sharpest knives I ever saw. In the days when I turned a grind-stono grind-stono I turned to somo good purpose. Tho men I turned for Bhnrpened BcythcB nnd nxes nnd butcher's knives nnd things, but none of thoso Implements Imple-ments ever got one-half so sharp as the knives theso boys own. " "Our boy and tho boy next door get n good deal of fun out of their grindstone, grind-stone, but they miss mnny of tho incidents in-cidents that enlivened my own tussles tus-sles with that deadly machine Thoy don't havo nnybody to cuff them on tho enr, for Instance, nnd growl: 'Hurry 'Hur-ry up, there, now. Turn fast till I put an edgo on this scythe. It Is clouding up, and wo must get tho rest of thnt grass cut and dried before the rain comes.' Or' maybo It wns tho weight of nn ax I was laboring under. Unconsciously, Un-consciously, or moro likely consciously, conscious-ly, I slowed up a bit and fell to daydreaming. day-dreaming. Hut I didn't dream long. A smart box on the near check nnd n nod townrd tho woodpllo brought mo to. 'No tlmo to dawdle,' said tho somebody who held tho ax, nnd so I limbered up nnd for the spaco of a mlnuto or so put a touch of lightning into tho revolutions of thnt stono wheel. "It wns under such dlsndvnntngcs that my early acquaintance with a grindstone flourished. Theso boys know no such lncentlvo to pegging nwny nt their everlasting grinding. Their bouts with tho grlndstono nro moro play. Still, I am glnd they havo it to play with. You don't Beo mnny grindstones In Now York, nnd It docs n follow good to brush up against something that helped form his character." |