class="first">TONY King was particularly struck with the improvement in the coffee-mill, for his knuckles had received a full share of the general skinning; and when the job was done, turning to the old man, he said, “O, Uncle Benny, won't you teach me to do such things before you do all the odd jobs about the farm?”

“Never fear that all the odd jobs about any farm, and especially such a one as this, are going to be done in a hurry,” he replied, laying his hand gently on Tony's head. “If the owner of a farm, I don't care how small it may be, would only take time to go over his premises, to examine his fences, his gates, his barn-yard, his stables, his pig-pen, his fields, his ditches, his wagons, his harness, his tools, indeed, whatever he owns, he would find more odd jobs to be done than he has any idea of. Why, my boy, all farming is made up of odd jobs. When Mr. Spangler gets through with planting potatoes, don't he say, 'Well, that job's done.' Didn't I hear you say yesterday, when you had hauled out the last load of manure from the barn-yard,—it was pretty wet and muddy at the bottom, you remember,—'There's a dirty job done!' And so it is, Tony, with everything about a farm,—it is all jobbing; and as long as one continues to farm, so long will there be jobs to do. The great point is to finish each one up exactly at the time when it ought to be done.”

“But that was not what I meant, Uncle Benny,” said Tony. “I meant such jobs as you do with your tools.”

“Well,” replied the old man, “it is pretty much the same thing there. A farmer going out to hunt up such jobs as you speak of will find directly, that, if he has no tool-chest on hand, his first business will be to get one. Do you see the split in that board? Whoever drove that nail should have had a gimlet to bore a hole; but having none, he has spoiled the looks of his whole job. So it is with everything when a farmer undertakes any work without proper tools. Spoiling it is quite as bad as letting it alone.

“You see, Tony,” he continued, “that a good job can't be done with bad tools,—that split shows it. No doubt the man who made it excused himself by saying that he was never intended for a mechanic. But that was a poor excuse for being without a gimlet. Every man or boy has some mechanical ability, and exercising that ability, with first-rate tools, will generally make him a good workman. Now as to what odd jobs a farmer will find to do. He steps out into the garden, and finds a post of his grape-arbor rotted off, and the whole trellis out of shape. It should be propped up immediately. If he have hot-beds, ten to one there are two or three panes out, and if they are not put in at once, the next hard frost will destroy all his plants. There is a fruit-tree covered with caterpillars' nests, another with cocoons, containing what will some day be butterflies, then eggs, then worms. The barn-yard gate has a broken hinge, the barn-door has lost its latch, the wheelbarrow wants a nail or two to keep the tire from dropping off, and there is the best hoe with a broken handle. So it goes, let him look where he may.

“Now come out into the yard,” continued the old man, “and let us see what jobs there are yet to do.”

He led the way to the wood-shed. There was an axe with only half a handle; Tony knew it well, for he had chopped many a stick with the crippled tool. Uncle Benny pointed to it with the screw-driver that he still carried in his hand, but said nothing, as he observed that Tony seemed confounded at being so immediately brought face to face with what he knew should have been done six months before. Turning round, but not moving a step, he again pointed with his screw-driver to the wooden gutter which once caught the rain-water from the shed-roof and discharged it into a hogshead near by. The brackets from one end of the gutter had rotted off, and it hung down on the pig-pen fence, discharging into the pen instead of into the hogshead. The latter had lost its lower hoops; they were rusting on the ground, fairly grown over with grass. The old man pointed at each in turn; and, looking into Tony's face, found that he had crammed his hands into his pockets, and was beginning to smile, but said nothing. Just turning about, he again pointed to where a board had fallen from the farther end of the shed, leaving an opening into the pig-pen beyond. While both were looking at the open place, three well-grown pigs, hearing somebody in the shed, rose upon their hinder feet, and thrust their muddy faces into view, thinking that something good was coming. The old man continued silent, looked at the pigs, and then at Tony. Tony was evidently confused, and worked his hands about in his pockets, but never looked into the old man's face. It was almost too much for him.

“Come,” said Uncle Benny, “let us try another place,” and as they were moving off, Tony stumbled over a new iron-bound maul, which lay on the ground, the handle having been broken short off in its socket.

“How the jobs turn up!” observed Uncle Benny. “How many have we here?”

“I should say about five,” replied Tony.

“Yes,” added the old man, “and all within sight of each other.”

As they approached the hog-pen, they encountered a strong smell, and there was a prodigious running and tumbling among the animals. They looked over the shabby fence that formed the pen.

“Any jobs here, Tony?” inquired Uncle Benny.

Tony made no answer, but looked round to see if the old man kept his screw-driver, half hoping that, if he found anything to point at, he would have nothing to point with. But raising the tool, he poised it in the direction of the feeding-trough. Tony could not avert his eyes, but, directing them toward the spot at which the old man pointed, he discovered a hole in the bottom of the trough, through which nearly half of every feeding must have leaked out into the ground underneath. He had never noticed it until now.

“There's another job for you, Tony,” he said. “There's not only neglect, but waste. The more hogs a man keeps in this way, the more money he will lose. Look at the condition of this pen,—all mud, not a dry spot for the pigs to fly to. Even the sheds under which they are to sleep are three inches deep in slush. Don't you see that broken gutter from the wood-shed delivers the rain right into their sleeping-place, and you know what rains we have had lately? Ah, Tony,” continued the old man, “pigs can't thrive that are kept in this condition. They want a dry place; they must have it, or they will get sick, and a sick pig is about the poorest stock a farmer can have. Water or mud is well enough for them to wallow in occasionally, but not mud all the time.”

“But I thought pigs did best when they had plenty of dirt about them, they like it so,” replied Tony.

“You are mistaken, Tony,” rejoined Uncle Benny. “A pig is by nature a cleanly animal; it is only the way in which some people keep him that makes him a filthy one. Give him the means to keep himself clean, and he will be clean always,—a dry shed with dry litter to sleep in, and a pen where he can keep out of the mud when he wants to, and he will never be dirty, while what he eats will stick to his ribs. These pigs can't grow in this condition. Then look at the waste of manure! Why, there are those thirty odd loads of corn-stalks, and a great pile of sweet-potato vines, that Mr. Spangler has in the field, all which he says he is going to burn out of his way, as soon as they get dry enough. They should be brought here and put in this mud and water, to absorb the liquid manure that is now soaking into the ground, or evaporating before the sun. This liquor is the best part of the manure, its heart and life; for nothing can be called food for plants until it is