“I don’t know much about it,” answered James. “If I knew what hardships other people have, I could tell something about it; but I don’t.”

James never spoke a truer word. He was born and reared in the forest. He had never seen even a village, much less a large town or city. He had seen but one or two frame-houses at that time; and these had just been erected in the vicinity. How could he understand that others enjoyed more than he did? He was a happy boy. He had his home, though it was a cabin. He had his mother and brother and sisters, and they were just as dear to him as home and brothers and sisters are to those who dwell in palaces. Perhaps they were more so: we incline to the belief that they were. He had a mother; and if any mother was ever worth more to a child than his was he did not know it, nor could he be made to believe any such thing. So he was a contented boy. What other people, more highly blest, called hardships, he accepted as a matter of course. He scarcely knew that it was not as good as others enjoyed. Why should he not be a rollicking, wideawake, happy boy? Hard work challenged his best endeavours now that his brother was gone; but hard work is not necessarily hardship Some rich men work more hours in a day to keep their money, than the poor man does to keep soul and body together. And often it is more annoying labour, straining the nerves, banishing sleep, fretting the disposition, and keeping up a continual fever of anxiety.

James did not call hard work hardship; he never thought of such a thing. He was never happier than he was during that season of severe toil after his brother left home. He had greater responsibility, but responsibility is not hardship. He felt more manly and competent; and he was both, now that the care of the farm and his mother rested on his shoulders. A close observer could see the honest pride of a noble heart cropping out through his manly bearing. Call it hardship to run the farm! He never dreamed of it; it was his delight. The language of singing expressed his daily experience far better than complainings. Under his homely jacket nestled a spirit that had not learned discontent. No!

Neighbour Mapes put his question to the wrong party, when he said:

“What do you think about it, James?”

James was not the passenger to awake. Break the slumbers of somebody who is happy only when he is asleep. James was happiest when he was awake, as mortals everywhere should be. And he never was more wide awake than he was on the farm during that season of excessive labour.

“Goin’ to exchange work with Mr. Lamper,” said James one day to his mother.

“How so?” inquired his mother.

“He wants an extra hand once in a while, and so do I; and then I want his oxen sometimes.”

“You have seen him?”

“Yes; and have made the bargain.” “A good arrangement, I guess,” added his mother. “Then, his head is older than yours, and he can show you some things about farming that you don’t know.”

“And ‘Two heads are better than one, if one is a sheep’s head,’ I have heard you say a good many times,” added James, in his lively way.

“If they are pioneer heads, it is so,” rejoined his mother, whose opinion of pioneer life was more favourable than that of neighbour Mapes. “Pioneer life requires all the wisdom that can be got together to make life in the woods successful.”

This reference to “life in the woods” was partly in a vein of pleasantry; for now the designation was scarcely appropriate. Nearly fourteen years had elapsed since Mrs. Garfield moved into that township, and great changes had been wrought in that time. Many settlers had moved into the township, and the unbroken