Excerpt from Dorian Dorian whistled cheerfully as he trudged along the road. It was a scant three miles to town, and he would rather walk that short distance than to be bothered with a horse. When he took Old Nig, he had to keep to the main-traveled road straight into town, then tie him to a post - and worry about him all the time; but afoot and alone, he could move along as easily as he pleased, linger on the canal bank or cut cross-lots through the fields to the river, cross it on the foot-bridge, then go on to town by the lower meadows. The road was dusty that afternoon, and the sun was hot. It would be cooler under the willows by the river. At Cottonwood Corners, Dorian left the road and took the cut-off path. The river sparkled cool and clear under the overhanging willows. He saw a good-sized trout playing in the pool, but as he had no fishing tackle with him, the boy could only watch the fish in its graceful gliding in and out of sunshine and shadow. A robin overhead was making a noisy demonstration as if in alarm about a nest. Dorian sat on the bank to look and listen for a few moments, then he got up again. Crossing the river, he took the cool foot-path under the willows. He cut down one of the smoothest, sappiest branches with which to make whistles. Dorian was a great maker of whistles. Which he freely gave away to the smaller boys and girls whom he met. Just as it is more fun to catch fish than to eat them, so Dorian found more pleasure in giving away his whistles than to stuff them in his own pockets. However, that afternoon, he had to hurry on to town, so he caught no fish, and made only one whistle which he found no opportunity to give away. In the city, he attended to his mother's errands first. He purchased the few notions which the store in his home town of Greenstreet did not have, checking each item off on a slip of paper with a stub of a pencil. Then, there were his shoes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.