brought into a liquid condition. I never saw greater waste than this. Then there is that deep bed of muck, not three hundred yards off,—not a load of it ready to come here. Besides, if the corn-stalks and potato-vines were tumbled in, they would make the whole pen dry, keep the hogs clean, and enable them to grow. But I suppose Mr. Spangler thinks it too much trouble to do these little things.

“Now, Tony,” he continued, “you can't do anything profitable or useful in this world without some trouble; and as you are to be a farmer, the sooner you learn this lesson, the more easily you will get along. But who is to do that job of putting a stopper over this hole in the trough, you or I?”

“I'll do it to-morrow, Uncle Benny,” replied Tony.

“To-morrow? To-morrow won't do for me. A job that needs doing as badly as this, should be done at once; it's one thing less to think of, don't you know that? Besides, didn't you want to do some jobs?” rejoined Uncle Benny.

Tony had never been accustomed to this way of hurrying up things; but he felt himself fairly cornered. He didn't care much about the dirt in the trough; it was the unusual promptness of the demand that staggered him.

“Run to the house and ask Mrs. Spangler to give you an old tin cup or kettle,—anything to make a patch big enough to cover this hole,” said Uncle Benny; “and bring that hammer and a dozen lath-nails you'll find in my tool-chest.”

Tony did as he was directed, and brought back a quart mug with a small hole in the bottom, which a single drop of solder would have made tight as ever.

“I guess the swill is worth more to the hogs than even a new mug would be, Tony,” said Uncle Benny, holding up the mug to the sun, to see how small a defect had condemned it. Then, knocking out the bottom, and straightening it with his hammer on the post, he told Tony to step over the fence into the trough. It was not a very nice place to get into, but over he went, and, the nails and hammer being handed to him, he covered the hole with the tin, put in the nails round the edge, hammered the edge flat, and in ten minutes all was done.

“There, Tony, is a six months' leak stopped in ten minutes. Nothing like the present time,—will you remember that? Never put off till to-morrow what can be done to-day. Now run back with the hammer and these two nails, and put this remnant of the tin cup in my chest; you'll want it for something one of these days. Always save the pieces, Tony.”

Tony was really surprised, not only how easily, but how quickly, the repair had been made. Moreover, he felt gratified at being the mechanic; it was the first time he had been allowed to handle any of Uncle Benny's nice assortment of tools, and he liked the old man better than ever. But who is there that does not himself feel inwardly gratified at conferring a new pleasure on a child? Such little contributions to juvenile happiness are neither barren of fruit nor unproductive of grateful returns. They cost nothing, yet they have rich rewards in the memory of the young. They make beautiful and lasting impressions. The gentle heart that makes a child happy will never be forgotten. No matter how small the gift may be, a kind word, a little toy, even a flower, will sometimes touch a chord within the heart, whose soft vibrations will continue so long as memory lasts.

This survey of Mr. Spangler's premises was continued by Uncle Benny and Tony until the latter began to change his opinion about the former doing up the odd jobs so thoroughly that none would be left for him. He saw there was enough for both of them. The old man pointed out a great many that he had never even noticed; but when his attention was called to them, he saw the necessity of having them done. Indeed, he had a notion that everything about the place wanted fixing up. Besides, Uncle Benny took pains to explain the reasons why such and such things were required, answering the boy's numerous questions, and imparting to him a knowledge of farm wants and farm processes, of which no one had ever spoken to him.

The fact was, Uncle Benny was one of the few men we meet with, especially on a farm, who think the boys ought to have a chance. His opinion was, that farmers seldom educate their children properly for the duties they know they will some day be called on to perform,—that is, they don't reason with them, and explain to the boy's understanding the merit or necessity of an operation. His idea was, that too many boys on a farm were merely allowed to grow up. They were fed, clothed, sent to school, then put to work, but not properly taught how and why the work should be done. Hence, when they came to set up for themselves, they had a multitude of things to learn which they ought to have learned from a father.

He used to say, that boys do only what they see the men do,—that all they learned was by imitation. They had no opportunity allowed them while at home of testing their own resources and energies by some little independent farming operation of their own. When at school, the teacher drills them thoroughly; when at home, they receive no such close training. The teacher gives the boy a sum to do, and lets him work it out of his own resources. But a farmer rarely gives a boy the use of a half-acre of land, on which he may raise corn or cabbages or roots for himself, though knowing that the boy could plant and cultivate it if he were allowed a chance, and that such a privilege would be likely to develop his energies, and show of what stuff he was made. The notion was too common that a boy was all work, and had no ambition,—whatever work was in him must be got out of him, just as if he had been a horse or an ox. It was known that at some time he must take care of himself, yet he was not properly taught how to do so. The stimulant of letting him have a small piece of ground for his own profit was too rarely held out to him. No one knew what such a privilege might do for an energetic boy. If he failed the first year, he would be likely to know the cause of failure, and avoid it in the future. If he succeeded, he would feel an honest pride,—the very kind of pride which every father should encourage in his child. And that success would stimulate him to try again and do still better. Both failure and success would be very likely to set him to reading about what others had done in the same line,—how they had prospered,—and thus a fund of knowledge would be acquired for him to draw upon whenever he set up for himself.

As before mentioned, Mr. Spangler made a strange departure from his rule of plenty of work for everybody, by quitting home on a wet day and going to the tavern rendezvous, to hear what the neighbors had to say, leaving no work marked out for his “hands” to do in his absence. These wet days were therefore holidays for the boys. All three were pretty good readers; and so they usually borrowed a book from Uncle Benny, and went, on such occasions, into the barn, and lay down on the hay to read. Uncle Benny recommended to them that one should read aloud to the others, so as to improve his voice, and enable each to set the other right, if a mistake were made. When the weather became too cold for these readings in the barn, they went into the kitchen, there being no other room in the house in which a fire was kept up.

One November morning there came on a heavy rain that lasted all day, with an east wind so cold as to make the barn a very uncomfortable reading-room, so the boys adjourned to the kitchen, and huddled around the stove. But as the rain drove all the rest of the family into the house, there was so great an assembly in what was, at the best of times, a very small room, that Mrs. Spangler became quite irritable at having so many in her way. She was that day trying out lard, and wanted the stove all to herself. In her ill-humor at being so crowded up, she managed to let the lard burn; and at this she