Clinton by Walter Aimwell — Read

The days were now perceptibly longer, and the sun had begun to make quite an impression on the huge snow-banks in which Brookdale had been nearly buried up all winter. "Bare ground," that looks so pleasant to the boy in a northern climate, after a long winter, began to appear in little brown patches, in particularly sunny and sheltered spots. The ice upon the pond was still quite thick, but it was too soft and rough for skating. The sled runners cut in so deeply, that there was little fun in sliding down hill. Besides, skating and coasting had got to be old stories, and the boys were heartily tired of all their winter sports. The sleighing was about spoiled, the roads were sloppy, the fields and meadows impassable, and the woods uncomfortable. In fact, while all the outdoor amusements of winter were at an end, it was too early for the various summer games and sports that supply their places. This brief season, which usually attends the breaking up of winter in northern latitudes, is generally the dullest of all the year to boys in the country, unless they are so fortunate as to be able to amuse themselves indoors, a part of the time at least.

Clinton's favorite place of resort, at such seasons, was the shop in the rear of the house. Here, surrounded with tools, and patterns, and plans, and specimens of his own work, and perhaps absorbed by some object upon which he was engaged, he was never at a loss for amusement. A day or two after his return from the logging camp, he went to work on the "settle," which he had determined to make, in imitation of the one he had seen at Uncle Tim's. This was a job that would require some little thinking and planning, as well as skill at handling tools,-for his mother had promised to give it a place in the kitchen, if it was well made,-and he felt anxious to do his best on this occasion. He first sawed out from a plank the two end pieces, rounding off one corner of each, in a sort of long scroll pattern. Having planed these smooth, he next made the seat, which was also of stiff plank, and fastened it firmly in its place. Nothing remained to be done but to make the back, which was of boards, planed and matched, and screwed into the end pieces. In the course of a week the settle was finished; and it was not only neat and well-finished, but really substantial. It looked as though it might do service full as long as Uncle Tim's. Clinton was quite satisfied with his success, and his mother was so well pleased with the settle, that she not only decided to place it in the kitchen, but promised to make a handsome cushion for it.