“Work comes easy to you, and you earn your money.”

“I mean to know how to framè a barn yet,” answered James.

“Then you don’t think you can quite do it yet?”

“Hardly,” said James.

“Pluck and brains will accomplish it, and you have both,” added Mr. Treat, intending to pay his young employé a fine compliment.

“I’ll give you another chance at it one of these days,” Mr. Treat added. “I owe you fifteen dollars, just.” And he counted out the money, and passed it to the happy boy.

“There! the highest price I said, fifty cents a day; and I’m well satisfied, too,” Mr. Treat continued.

James had just passed his thirteenth birthday, and he was developing rapidly into a stalwart boy for one of his age. The winter school opened, and he attended as usual, although he had about all there was in the text-books at his tongue’s end. He could repeat a good part of his reading-book, and perform the problems in arithmetic with his eyes shut; yet it was excellent discipline to go over them again.

That winter he found somewhere another volume to read that greatly interested him. It was next to “Robinson Crusoe” in his estimation. The book was “Alonzo and Melissa,” well suited to fascinate a boy like him. Once reading did not satisfy him. There were two books now that towered above all the books he ever read, and he wondered if there were any more like them—if so, where? On the whole it was a profitable winter to him; and he began to feel that he could do better for his mother than to run her little farm. Just before the close of school, he said to his mother:

“I’ve been thinking that I can do better for you than to stay on the farm. I could get twelve dollars a month to go out to work.”

“Perhaps so,” was all his mother said.

“You could keep a cow, hire a man to plant what is necessary, and take care of it; and it wouldn’t cost a quarter as much as I can earn,” James continued.

“And it would be four times as hard for you,” responded Mrs. Garfield. “It’s better for a boy like you to go to school while he can, and not labour all the time. Boys should not work too hard.”

“I knew what you’d say; I’ve learned that by heart,” replied James. “But I was never hurt by work yet, and I never expect to be.”

“Nevertheless, you may be,” responded his mother.

“A feller may as well be earning something when he can; there’s need enough of it in this part of the world,” added James.

“In this part of the world!” repeated his mother; “you don’t seem to have so high an opinion of this part of the country as you might. What’s the trouble with it?”

“No trouble as I know, only a feller has a better chance in some other places.”

“Better chance for what?” asked his mother

“To get a living, or make a man, or most anything,” answered James.