The Story of Ab

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER V. A GREAT ENTERPRISE. What always happens when two boys not yet fairly in their 'teens meet, at first aggressively, and then, each gradually overcoming this apprehension of the other, decide upon a close acquaintance and long comradeship? Their talk is firmly optimistic and they constitute much of...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER V. A GREAT ENTERPRISE. What always happens when two boys not yet fairly in their 'teens meet, at first aggressively, and then, each gradually overcoming this apprehension of the other, decide upon a close acquaintance and long comradeship? Their talk is firmly optimistic and they constitute much of the world. As for Ab and Oak, when there had come to them an ease in conversation, there dawned gradually upon each the idea that, next to himself, the other was probably the most important personage in the world, fitting companion and confederate of a boy who in an incredibly short space of time was going to become a man and do things on a tremendous scale. Seated upon the rock, a point of ease and vantage, they talked long of what two boys might do, and so earnest did they become in considering their possible great exploits that Ab demanded of Oak that he go with him to his home. This was a serious matter. It wa: a no slight thing for a boy of that day, allowed a playground within certain limits adjacent to his cave home, to venture far away; but this in Oak's life was a great occasion. It was the first time he had ever met and talked with a boy of his age, and he became suddenly reckless, assenting promptly to Ab's proposal. They ran along the forest paths together toward Ab's cave, clucking in their queer language and utilizing in that short journey most of the brief vocabulary of the day in anticipatory account of what they were going to do. Ab's father and mother rather approved of Oak. They even went so far as to consent that Ab might pay a return visit upon the succeeding day, though it was stipulated that the father?and this was a demand the mother made?should accompany the boy upon most of the journey. One-Ear knew Oak's father very well. Oak's father, Stripe...