Explore "Farmington" by Clarence Darrow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
If I were to pick out the happiest time of my life, I should name the first few days of the summer vacation after the district school was out.
In those few rare days all thoughts of restraint were thrown away. For months we had been compelled to get up at a certain time in the morning, do our tasks, and then go to school. Every hour of the day had been laid out with the precision of the clock, and each one had its work to do. Day after day, and week after week, the steady grind went on, until captivity almost seemed our natural state. It was hard enough through the long fall and winter months and in the early spring; but when the warm days came on, and the sun rose high and hot and stayed in the heavens until late at night, when the grass had spread over all the fields and the leaves had covered all the twigs and boughs until each tree was one big spot of green, when the birds sang on the branches right under the schoolhouse eaves, and the lazy bee flew droning in through the open door, then the schoolhouse prison was more than any boy could stand.