“Can’t do anything without a plan,” remarked Mr. Treat one day to James.

“How is it about milking?” asked James, facetiously. “It is true in milking, my boy. By plan I mean system, and you can’t milk the cows, and that a time, morning and night, you milk the cows, and that systematic way enables you to accomplish other work more successfully. Then, too, the cows give more milk by milking them systematically.”

“I didn’t know that,” said James, surprised that cows would give more milk by systematic milking.

“It is true, whether you knew it or not,” remarked Mr. Treat. “Even the Lord would make a failure in running this world without system. The fact is, Jimmy, you have to run your farm on God’s plan, or it won’t run at all. If you should plant two kernels of corn where God means that only one should grow, you would have your labour for your pains. You can raise no corn in that way. You could raise a plenty of stalks, but mighty little corn. Hens would starve to death in such a corn-field. If you should sow two bushels of wheat where there should be only one bushel on the Lord’s plan, your biscuit would be pretty small next winter.”

James laughed at this eccentric way of putting things, and, at the same time, he received some very valuable ideas from the sensible carpenter, who continued very much in the same vein:—

“ ‘A place for everything, and everything in its place,’ is an old adage, and just as true as Genesis. The men who obey this rule are the men who succeed; and the men who never mind it are the ones who go to smash. I’ve seen that over and over. There’s no use a-trying to run things on the line of disorder and confusion; they’ll get upset, sure. No man can amount to much in this world except on system. Remember that, Jimmy, and you will come out all right.”

“You mean a time to study, and a time to work, and a time to play?” inquired James.

“That’s it; only I should cut the time to play pretty short,” replied Mr. Treat. “Not much time to play in Ohio, when we have all that we can do to make the ends meet. ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,’ they say, and I guess’tis true. But, look here, have we got this right?” (springing up to examine his work). “I have been so busy talking that I didn’t stop to think what I was about. All talking and careless work will make a botch of it.”

The work was found all right and in a good state of progress. And now in silence the labour went on for an hour or two, James minding his P’s and Q’s, and the carpenter keeping an eye on his plan and his work.

We must state the upshot of this barn-building in a word, as space is dwindling away. The barn was completed according to the contract, and without a break from the start. Perhaps James could not have framed a barn without assistance when the building was completed, but he learned a great deal about the carpenter’s trade while he worked upon it. Evening after evening he studied over it alone. He drew a plan of his own, and studied it hour after hour, in order to learn how to frame a barn. With the same persistent efforts that he mastered a problem in arithmetic, he studied his plan of framing a building; and although he did not become master of the art, he, nevertheless, approximated to it. When the barn was completed, Mr. Treat paid James fifty cents a day, amounting to nearly twenty dollars, saying:

“You’ve earned it, every cent of it, James.” During the previous winter James made great progress in his studies, by improving the long evenings. He had learned about all he could learn in the district school, although he continued to go in the winter time. In some things he was more advanced than his teacher, and often put questions which the teacher could not answer. He mastered Adams’s Arithmetic during the winter. Lying flat on the floor, that the light of the fire might shine on his book, he studied arithmetic every evening for weeks, until he had learned all there was to learn in it, and he was really more competent to teach that science than the man who presided over the district school. The scholars said that James