Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.

[The Boonville Series]

THE FAIRCHILDS;

OR,

"DO WHAT YOU CAN"

BY

LUCY ELLEN GUERNSEY,

AUTHOR OF "IRISH AMY," "COMFORT ALLISON," "THE TATTLER,"
"NELLY; OR THE BEST INHERITANCE," "TWIN ROSES," ETC.

PHILADELPHIA:
AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION,

1122 CHESTNUT STREET.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by the
AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

WESTCOTT & THOMSON, HENRY B. ASHMEAD,
Stereotypers, Philada. Printer, Philada.

CONTENTS.

[CHAPTER I. EBEN MAKES UP HIS MIND]

[CHAPTER II. EBEN FINDS SOMETHING TO DO]

[CHAPTER III. EBEN AND FLORA TAKE A DRIVE]

[CHAPTER IV. EBEN DISPLAYS HIS ACCOMPLISHMENTS]

[CHAPTER V. MRS. FAIRCHILD FINDS HER MISSION]

[CHAPTER VI. EBEN CATCHES A RIDE AND SOMETHING ELSE]

[CHAPTER VII. EBEN MAKES A NEW FRIEND AND MEETS AN OLD ONE]

[CHAPTER VIII. EBEN TRIES TO SERVE TWO MASTERS]

[CHAPTER IX. THE OLD GENTLEMAN]

[CHAPTER X. EBEN GETS AN ADVANCE]

[CHAPTER XI. MR. ANTIS FORGETS THE BELL-ROPE]

[CHAPTER XII. JEDUTHUN IS GROSSLY CARELESS]

[CHAPTER XIII. EBEN GETS A NEW PLACE]

THE FAIRCHILDS.

[CHAPTER I.]

EBEN MAKES UP HIS MIND.

"THE long and the short of it is, mother, I must just go to work and earn my living the best way I can," said Eben Fairchild, straightening himself up so as to make the most of his not many feet in height; "and if I can't do what I want to do, why, I must just do what I can."

"It does seem a very hard case," said Mrs. Fairchild, sighing. "Your father's plans for you were so very different."

"He wanted you to have an education, you know," said Flora Fairchild, Eben's sister. "He said to Mrs. Willson, that very last day he was here, that ever since you came to us he had quite set his heart on your going to college."

"I know it," returned Eben, "but there is no use in talking about that now. I cannot afford to go to school, and I am not going to live upon mother so long as I have strength and sense to help myself."

"If your father had only not signed those notes, it would have been all right," said Mrs. Fairchild, wiping her eyes. "He was not under the least obligation to Mr. Furness, either, but that was Mr. Fairchild's only fault. He never knew how to say 'No.'"

Eben patted his foot on the floor rather impatiently.

"We know pa did it for the best," said Flora, "and, anyhow, it is done, and can't be undone."

"I know that as well as you do," returned Mrs. Fairchild, with a kind of mild impatience, "and I'm sure I don't want to find any fault with Mr. Fairchild, especially now that he is dead and gone, but I can't help wishing that it was different. Mr. Fairchild always looked upon your brother Eben as just as much our own child as yourself, and so have I, I am sure; and I can't help feeling disappointed that he can't have an education, as we always meant he should;" and Mrs. Fairchild took out her handkerchief and indulged in a "weep," while Eben looked steadfastly out of the window, and Flora ran her sewing machine at such a furious rate that she broke her needle, and had to stop to put in a new one. Mrs. Fairchild had a wonderful talent for "misunderstanding," and her children knew by long experience that any attempt to set her right only made matters ten times worse.

"And even supposing that you do give up going to college, and go to work, what will you find to do?" asked Mrs. Fairchild, presently.

"That is just what I must go to work and find out," replied Eben. "If I can't do one thing, I must just do another; it won't do to be too particular, so long as the work is honest and profitable enough to support me. I shall go down to the mill and talk to Mr. Antis, and to Jeduthun Cooke, and see what they can do for me. That is the first step. If I can get a place in the mill, I shall be fixed right away; I couldn't wish for anything better than that."

"You wouldn't want to go to work under that coloured man!" exclaimed Mrs. Fairchild.

"I should have been pretty badly off now if it hadn't been for that coloured man," returned Eben, with more impatience than he had showed hitherto. "What would have become of me if Jeduthun hadn't come in and taken my part as he did?"

"I wish you wouldn't be always going back to that time, Eben Fairchild," said his mother. "I don't see, for my part, what pleasure you find in it. I am sure Mr. Fairchild and I have always treated you exactly as if you were our own, and tried to have you feel so, and yet you are always bringing up the time when you lived with your uncle. I don't see how you can."

"Oh dear!" said Flora, under her breath.

"I am sure I never forget what you and pa have done for me," replied Eben, recovering his good humour, "but you know you would never have known anything about me, only for Jeduthun."

"That's true," said Mrs. Fairchild, "and you always have been a great comfort to us, Eben, I will say that, and Mr. Fairchild said the same, the very day he died, to Mr. Willson. 'Eben has always been a comfort to us from the day we took him in,' says he, 'and he is an uncommonly persevering boy,' says he, 'and the most faithful boy to do what he undertakes. I have always meant that Eben should have a good education.' Those were your dear pa's very words, and I know he wouldn't like you to go to work in the mill under Jeduthun Cooke, though I don't deny that he thought a great deal of Jeduthun, and so do I, a great deal, but, after all, it doesn't seem just the thing for you to be working under him."

"But, ma, just look here," said Eben, sitting down to the table; "don't you see how it is? To go to college I must go to school at least two years longer, and have all my time to study. Then, I couldn't get through college for less than two hundred and fifty dollars a year, at the least calculation. Four times that is one thousand dollars. Pa left us, after the farm and stock were disposed of, just this little house and garden, and a thousand dollars. That is the amount of our property. Now, how is a college education to come out of that?"

"Well, Flora has got her sewing machine. To be sure, it isn't all paid for, but then it will be pretty soon, and then all she makes will be clear gain, and there is the cow!"

"Flora wants all she can earn for herself and you," said Eben. "I shouldn't feel right to be living on her."

"Oh, well, manage it your own way," said Mrs. Fairchild. "I dare say you children think you know best, though Mr. Fairchild always said I had a good mind. Oh, if he had only taken my advice as to signing those notes! But he never said one word to me about it, till the last minute. You must manage it your own way; only I am sorry, when your father's head was so set on your having an education, and I am sure it might be managed somehow."

"There is Mrs. Brown coming in, mother," said Eben. "Hadn't you better take her into the front room? It is warm there, and the machine makes such a noise."

The moment her mother left the room, Flora stopped her machine, laid her head down on her arms, and cried, not mildly, like Mrs. Fairchild, but passionately and with a kind of fierceness. Flora had a great deal of force about her, and it came out in all she said and did.

"Don't, Flossy," said Eben, in a hoarse and altered tone; "I can't bear it! You must help to cheer me up."

"Well, I won't," said Flora, raising her head and wiping her eyes, "but oh, Eben, how can she go on so?" and in spite of herself, as it seemed, her head went down again.

"Ma isn't herself lately," said Eben. "I never saw anybody so changed. Sometimes I think she would be better if she had more to do. But never mind, Flossy. We must just think how good she is, and not mind her little ways. Come, Flossy, don't sew any more now. Come down to the bottom of the garden with me, and let us have a nice quiet talk while ma is busy with Mrs. Brown. You will break more needles than your work is worth if you go on sewing as you feel now."

"I believe you are right," said Flora, "and yet I ought not to lose any time."

"Resting is not losing time," persisted her brother, "and if you lame your back at the first start, you won't be able to do any more. Don't you know the lady in the sewing machine store cautioned you against that very thing?—against working too steadily just at first? I know you will sew all the better for resting a little while."

Flora suffered herself to be persuaded. She covered her machine, laid aside her work, and followed Eben down the path to the end of the garden, where he had found time to make a pretty seat. The garden of Mrs. Fairchild's new home extended down to the bank of the little river which ran through the village of Boonville. It was a pretty, rippling, prattling stream, turning mill wheels all along its course, but never seeming to have its nature troubled or its spirit affected by its work. A large willow hung over the water, and under this, Eben had placed his seat, though Mrs. Fairchild declared that she should never dare to sit there, because she remembered just such a tree at her grandfather's which always had red-headed caterpillars in it in July, and she should always think they were crawling over her.

Undeterred in June by the visions of the red-headed caterpillars of past Julys, Eben laid an old shawl on the seat for his sister's accommodation, and placing himself at her feet on a convenient stone, he sat some few minutes in silence, apparently watching the minnows in the water.

"Well?" said he, at last, seeing that Flora did not speak.

"Well?" said Flora, rousing herself from what seemed a reverie. "Have you quite made up your mind, Eben?"

"There don't seem to be any special need of making up my mind in this case," said Eben, still looking at the water. "It seems to be made up for me. It is perfectly plain—to me at least—that it is my duty to go to work and earn my own living, and when you see your duty, do it. That is my notion. The more you go squirming about trying to get rid of it, the harder it will come at last."

"I know it, and yet, oh, Eben, I can't bear it!" exclaimed Flora, passionately. "I did so want to have you go to college, and it all seemed so plain, and now—Can't we manage it somehow? Or don't you really care, after all? Sometimes I think you don't, you are so cool about it."

"Flossy!" said Eben.

"Well, there! I am a wretch, I know," said Flora, penitently. "I know you do care, and you are giving it all up for us."

"I would give—no, not my right hand, but sometimes I think I would give my right foot to follow out father's plan and go to college," said Eben. "Ever since I first came here, when I was a little fellow seven years old, I have heard father talk about my having a good education, and I made up my mind three years ago just what I wanted to do. I meant to be a doctor, like Doctor Henry over at the Springs. But now, Flossy, just let us look the thing squarely in the face."

"Well, if you like, though I don't know what good it will do. I have looked at it till I am sick."

"It isn't as bad as it might be," said Eben. "We have a roof over our heads, a good garden, and a cow, besides our little capital in money. Then you have your machine, which you have learned to run nicely, and you seem likely to have plenty of work, so that when your machine is once paid for, all you make will be clear gain. All that is very nice, and then we all have our health, which is better still. But then there is the other side. We cannot three of us live on the interest of a thousand dollars, and what comes out of the garden and your machine. We can't live on it, let alone any notion of saving money for college expenses."

"You would not have to go to college for two or three years," argued Flora. "Your schooling would not cost much, and matters might come round in three years."

"They might, but they wouldn't," said Eben, shrewdly. "Things don't come round, as I see. You have got to move them, and shake them about, and rub off the corners, and make them round. Besides, how should I look or feel—a great stout boy fifteen years old—going to school and living on you and mother? I should be ashamed to look any one in the face. No, no, Flossy, I have got to do my duty, as I said. If I am to have an education, if He sees it's right that I should have one," he added, reverently, "he will bring it about. I have asked him to guide me, and make me decide rightly, and I believe he has done so—I believe I see my way clear."

Flora was silent. Her brother had got on ground where she could not follow him. Presently, however, she said, "You talk just like Alice Brown. I would give anything to feel so, but I can't. However, I do believe you are right, and as you say, if you have made up your mind, the sooner you set about it the better. I know very well, when I think it over, that it will be all I can do to keep myself and mother. She cannot understand any reason why she should not have all she ever had. If only she would not talk so about pa! It makes me feel as if I should go crazy sometimes."

"You must try and have patience, Flossy," said her brother, tenderly. "I know it is trying, but remember she has always been a good, kind mother to us, and I am sure she loved my father dearly and respects his memory. But I am going up to the mill now, and I will take my fishing-tackle along. Perhaps I can get a pickerel for supper. Don't go into the house just yet. Sit here and read, and let the old machine slide for the rest of the afternoon."

[CHAPTER II.]

EBEN FINDS SOMETHING TO DO.

EBEN FAIRCHILD was not Mrs. Fairchild's own son, as my readers will probably have understood from the last chapter. Those who have read the former volumes of "The Boonville Series" will recollect the little English boy whom Jeduthun Cooke, the miller, rescued from his cruel relatives. At that time Eben Wright, as he was then called, was only seven years old—a pretty, slender, delicate little fellow; too peaked, Grandma Badger said, ever to amount to much. After staying about for some time, now with one kind family and now with another, Eben was first apprenticed to, and then adopted by, a respectable farmer who lived between Boonville and the Springs. Mr. Fairchild had only one living child, a little girl named Flora, two years older than Eben.

A greater contrast could hardly be imagined than that between Flora Fairchild and her little adopted brother. Flora was as stout, bouncing, and healthy as Eben was the reverse: a well-grown girl, with black eyes, and somewhat scowling black brows above them, a dark but clear and healthy complexion, and abundant black hair. Flora was generous, truthful, and kind-hearted, but she had "a temper of her own," as the girls said, and was very much governed by her impulses, which, to do her justice, were usually good. Eben was small of his age, thin and pale, with light hair and wide, grave blue eyes. People wondered how Flora could relish having a strange child come into the family where she had so long reigned alone, and predicted that she would make that little fellow "see sights." For their part they thought it was a foolish move, and pitied the poor delicate boy.

The course of events, however, showed that the pity was thrown away; since, if Eben did see sights in his new home, they were certainly not disagreeable ones. Flora adopted her new brother into her heart at first sight, helped him with his lessons, fought his battles, and loved him with a vehement, patronizing fondness which might sometimes have had its inconveniences, but was anything but disagreeable to poor, down-trodden little Eben.

By degrees, however, a change came over the relations between Flora and her brother. In the genial, kindly atmosphere of the Fairchild house, Eben's heart and mind, crushed by long tyranny and ill-usage, expanded like a plant in sunshine. He began first to speak above his breath when questioned, then to volunteer little remarks of his own, and finally to talk freely at all proper times, and especially when alone with Flora. He soon outstripped Flora in his lessons, so that he was able to help her instead of being helped himself. Mrs. Fairchild said Eben was worth three of Flora to help about the house, and her husband declared that Eben had more judgment about work than any boy he ever saw.

"It isn't that the boy is so very smart," said the good farmer. "I have seen smarter boys where contrivance was wanted; but then Eben is so faithful. If I set him about anything, I am sure to find it done. He never disappoints me. If he undertakes to build a fire, he never leaves it till he sees it burning, and if I set him to shelling corn, he never leaves his job while there is a kernel left on the cob. Now, Flossy is fast enough to help—just as obliging as ever she can be, I will say that for her—but if a piece of work lasts more than half an hour, or if it don't go off just right the first time, she gets out of patience and goes off and leaves it. Flossy is a good girl as ever was, in the main, but she isn't the dependence that Eben is."

When Flora was sixteen and her brother fifteen, which is the time at which our story begins, the relations between the two were entirely reversed, so that it was Eben who led, helped, and governed Flora.

Eben could recollect very little of his former life in England, but one thing he always declared he knew for certain,—that Tom Collins was not really his uncle. He remembered his father hardly at all, his mother very clearly, but he could not tell the name of the place where he had lived. It was in the country, he was sure of that. There was a gray church with a very high tower, and bells that made music. The first time Eben went to Hobartown and heard the college chime, he burst out crying, and being at last persuaded to tell the cause of his grief, he said his mamma used to hold him up to the window to hear the bells make music at home. He remembered that he went to school every day in a house close by the church where there were boys and girls, and the girls wore red capes or cloaks. One day they told him his mamma was dead, and after that he could remember nothing distinctly till he found himself on the sea with Tom Collins and his wife, very sick, and crying for his mamma. Tom's wife had been kind to him at first, and saved him more than one beating, but after a while she got very queer. She used to keep a little bottle of something black, and drink it, and then she did not seem to care what happened to him. Mr. Fairchild wrote down carefully all the particulars he could collect from Eben respecting his early life at home, thinking that some time or other he might find out something regarding the boy's parentage.

The winter that Flora was sixteen, Mr. Fairchild died. He had always been considered rather a wealthy man, as he owned a large and well-cultivated farm and was a successful raiser of stock, and every one supposed that the widow and her children would be well off. But it turned out that Mr. Fairchild had endorsed for a large amount for a neighbour. Mr. Furness had got tired of farming—such a slow and hard way of making money—so he had sold his farm, and with a large and expensive stock of goods, he had set up a store in the city some thirty miles away. His venture turned out as so many such ventures do. He failed utterly. Mr. Fairchild was called upon to pay his share, and when all was done, he found himself left with just a thousand dollars and a little place in Boonville to call his own and leave to his children. Grief and self-reproach brought on a paralytic shock, of which he died after some weeks of illness.

"Take care of your mother, my dears," were almost his last words to his children. "She has her little ways—all of us have—but she has been a good, faithful wife to me and a good mother to you. You will have to judge and decide for yourselves about many things, I know; but don't cross your mother if you can help it, and try to have patience, even if she is a little trying."

It was a mercy, as Eben said cheerfully, that they had such a nice little place in the village to go to when they were obliged to leave the farm. The house was small; but it was convenient, pleasant, and, like everything owned by Mr. Fairchild, in good repair; and there was quite a piece of land belonging to it, with a little orchard and a well-stocked garden. Mrs. Fairchild had her furniture, of course, and old General Dent bought in her favourite cow and gave it to her, requesting as a personal favour that it might run in the pasture with his own.

Flora had learned to run a sewing machine while away on a visit. She had twenty dollars of her own left her by an aunt, and with this she decided, after much consideration, to make the first payment on a good machine. Everything Flora had learned she learned thoroughly, and before she had ever expected to earn her living thereby, she had prepared herself to do so by acquiring great skill in using the machine on the finer kinds of fabric. She had friends at the Springs, which had become a popular summer resort, and she hoped by their aid, and that of Keziah Cooke, who took a great deal of washing from the Cure and the hotel, to be able to maintain herself and help to support her mother.

She had been fortunate at the very outset. Keziah, or Kissy, as she was much more commonly called, washed for a very fashionable and wealthy lady who wanted some copies made, as the artists say, of certain wonderfully-constructed under garments which had been sent her from Paris as patterns. Kissy secured the work for Flora, and Flora executed it to the perfect satisfaction of her employer. According to the usual course of stories, I ought now to go on and say that the fashionable lady screwed her poor work-woman down in price to the last penny, and kept her calling again and again for her pay. Such was not the case. Miss Barnard was as liberal and kind-hearted as she was rich and fashionable. She not only paid Flora a good price, but she recommended her to all her acquaintances, and the consequence was that, at the time our story begins, Flora had in the house as much fine work as would keep her busy for a month, and had already made a second payment on her machine. She was fortunate in liking her work, and took as much interest in copying all the tucks, ruffles, and embroidery of Miss Barnard's Paris-made night-dresses and skirts as she had ever done in following out the intricacies of a piece of worsted work. She preferred sewing to farm-work, and if she could a little have forgotten her grief for her father, and the disappointment about Eben's education, she would not very much have regretted the change in their circumstances.

Eben had not yet succeeded in finding anything to do for a living. He was naturally unwilling to give up the plan of going to college and afterwards studying medicine,—a plan on which his heart had been set for the past three years, and which he had talked over with Mr. Fairchild a hundred times. As many times since his father's death he had gone over the circumstances in his own mind, trying to see some way in which to bring about the accomplishment of his desires. He had at last come to a conclusion, and that conclusion he had announced to his mother and sister this very afternoon. He must go to work at any honest employment he could find, at which he could earn wages enough to support himself, and his schemes of study must be laid aside to some future time, if not given up altogether.

"But there's no need of doing that," said Eben to himself as he walked up the bank of the stream towards the mill. "I can keep it in mind, and maybe it will be brought about for me yet. I am sure it will, if it is best, and I won't worry about it, there! But try to do the best I can in whatever place I can find."

Eben stopped short in his walk, and stood looking across the fields towards the west for a minute or two. Then he broke out into a cheery whistle, and walked quickly on towards the mill.

As he came within sight of the dam, he broke off his whistling, and with an exclamation jumped over the fence and ran down to the edge of the pond. The cause of his haste was soon apparent. Somebody had tied a horse to a tree close to the edge of the water. The horse, in his impatience at the tormenting flies, had backed from under the tree towards the edge of the pond behind him. The consequence was that the hind wheels had gone over the bank into the water, and the fore wheels, with the old horse, were like to follow them before any one saw what was going on. Eben sprung to the wagon and tried to lift it up on the bank, at the same time calling for help, but as no help came, and the task proved beyond his own strength, he dexterously cut the traces and let the load go, thus saving the horse at the expense of the wagon. While he was patting and soothing the poor trembling beast, Jeduthun Cooke jumped out of the mill window, and came down the sloping bank like a deer.

"Well done, you!" was his first exclamation. "I was in the upper story when I looked out and saw you, and I don't believe I made more than two steps for each flight of stairs. Where's the wagon?"

"In the water," said Eben, coolly "at least I suppose so, for there's where it was going the last time I saw it. I knew I couldn't save horse and wagon both, so I cut the traces and let the thing slide."

"Cut the traces! And suppose the horse had kicked your brains out?"

"He hadn't much chance to kick, poor old fellow, and besides, I didn't think anything about that."

"I dare say you didn't. It must have been a foolish one that hitched the horse so near the bank, to begin with. Come, let's lead him to a safe place, and you come in and rest. You look kind of white and beat out."

"I do feel out of breath," admitted Eben. "You see I tried to pull the wagon up, in the first place, and it was too heavy for me. Whose is it, anyway?"

"It belongs to Mr. Wilbur. He has been up here to see Mr. Antis about getting his boy Tom a place in the mill."

Eben's face fell. "Then I am just in time to be too late," said he. "That is just what I was coming after."

"Oh, but this isn't such a place as you would want," returned Jeduthun. "It is the same that Jerry Blythe had. You wouldn't want to do such work."

"I want to do any work that I can earn my living by," said Eben. "I can't live on mother and Flora, and I won't, and I must go at anything I can find to do. It won't answer to be too particular in such a case, you know."

"Do tell!" said Jeduthun. "Why, I thought you was left pretty well off, and that you was going to Hobartown to college?"

"There is no use in talking about that now," replied Eben. "Do you think Mr. Antis has promised this place to Tom Wilbur, Jeduthun?"

"I'm afraid he has, and I am dreadful sorry for it, for one. I don't believe he'll amount to shucks, and it would have been very nice to have you round, Eben."

"Thank you, Jeduthun. I am sure it would have been nice for me. But why don't you think Tom will amount to anything?"

Jeduthun did not exactly know, only he had a notion that Tom Wilbur hadn't "any snap" to him. "I wouldn't be afraid to bet something, if I ever did bet, that the old man left Tom to fasten up that horse. But come, we won't give it up yet. Come in and see the boss. Maybe he can find something else for you to do, and if he does, you wouldn't want to work for a better man."

Mr. Antis was very sorry as well as Jeduthun, for he knew and liked Eben.

"You are just the kind of boy I want," said he, "so I should think from what I have heard of you—but a promise is a promise, you know, Eben."

"Yes, sir, I know it," said Eben. "Of course, if you have promised Tom the place, that is all about it."

"I have promised to give him a trial," said Mr. Antis. "I can't tell how he will answer my purpose beforehand."

"You don't know of anything else for me to do, Mr. Antis?" asked Eben. "I am very anxious to get to work as soon as I can."

Mr. Antis rose and walked about the office considering. "Well, no, Eben—nothing, at least, that you would want to do."

"Wanting hasn't much to do with it, Mr. Antis," replied Eben. "If a thing has got to be done, it doesn't matter much, to my notion, whether one wants to do it or not."

Mr. Antis smiled. "That is a very rational way of looking at the subject, Eben. But do you feel as if you must go to work directly? Wouldn't it be better to wait a little till the right thing comes along?"

Eben smiled in his turn. "The right thing is just as likely to come along when I am at work as when I am doing nothing, Mr. Antis, isn't it?"

"True for you, Eben—just as likely, and likelier. Well, now, I will tell you what I was thinking of. We want a boy about the house to do chores; you know what I mean by that?"

"Yes, sir; to run errands, and take care of the cow, and work in the garden, and so on."

"Exactly. We are more than usually in want of such a boy just now, for Mrs. Antis is doing her own work, and needs a good deal of help, and if we were to try to have Tom Wilbur take the place, I know how that would be. He would be certain to be wanted at the mill just when he was most needed at the house. I am sure Mrs. Antis would like to have you about her. She likes pleasant, quiet people."

"She's got a right to," said Jeduthun. "She's a quiet, pleasant person herself."

"Could I board at home, sir? I think mother and Flora would like to have me at home, and I would help them a little at odd times."

"Why, yes, I suppose you could, if I could depend upon your being on hand early in the morning."

"And what wages would you give?"

"Well, if you boarded at home, I think I could give you twelve dollars a month. But, Eben, are you really serious? Would your mother be willing to have you take such a place?"

"I am quite serious, Mr. Antis. I must go to work at something, you see, and it won't do to be too particular. Mother feels bad at my having to give up school, anyway, but I think after a little, she will be reconciled to it."

"Flora has got on nicely, my wife tells me," remarked Mr. Antis. "She says the girl goes to work like a woman. But I always knew there was plenty of good stuff in Flora."

"Well, and now I must go to work like a man and find out whether there is any good stuff in me," replied Eben, smiling. "I think I should like the place, Mr. Antis, but I should wish to talk with mother and Flora, if you don't mind letting me have the refusal of the situation till to-morrow."

"For a week if you like. And, Eben, if you don't mind, would you just stop at the store as you go along, and ask Mr. Hallet to send over some tea? I have had so much to think of, I forgot all about it."

"Kissy says Hallet hasn't any tea fit to drink," remarked Jeduthun. "We get all ours over at the Springs."

"I know it, and if I had anybody to send—"

"I could go if I had a horse," said Eben, modestly. "There would be plenty of time to drive over and back before dark."

"Oh, there are horses enough," replied Mr. Antis, evidently pleased. "Go up to the house and get the buggy and the old gray. Take Flora along. The ride will be good for her, and I dare say she has errands of her own to do."

[CHAPTER III.]

EBEN AND FLORA TAKE A DRIVE.

AT this moment the conversation was interrupted by Mr. Wilbur, who entered in a great flutter.

"I should like to know who's been a-meddling with that ere team of mine?" said he, in an aggrieved tone of voice. "There's my horse a-standing hitched by the mill door with the traces just hacked right off, and the wagon ain't nowhere to be seen. I'd like to know who's been a-meddling with my team, that's all."

"Here's the fellow," said Jeduthun, laying his hands on Eben. "If it hadn't been for him, your old horse would have been lying where your wagon is—in the mill pond."

And Jeduthun proceeded to tell the story, which lost nothing in the process. Mr. Wilbur did not seem inclined to be very grateful to Eben for his interference.

"Just like boys! Never have no sense," said he, angrily. "Why couldn't you hold on and holler?"

"I did make all the noise I could, but nobody heard me," said Eben. "I saw the old horse must go in a minute, and I did what seemed for the best."

"Next time, Eben, you can let the horse go along with the wagon," said Jeduthun. "You don't seem to get much thanks for saving him. I know I thought you'd be killed before I could get to you. I never saw anything better done in my life."

"Indeed, Mr. Wilbur, I don't see what better the boy could do," said Mr. Antis. "It was not a very good place to leave a horse."

"Of course it wasn't. Trust a boy for finding out the worst place to leave a horse or anything else. I told Tom to put him in the shade. Just like boys! I never saw one that wasn't a plague. Now, there's my wagon in the pond, and all my groceries in it."

"I think I will go and got the horse, and find out what Mrs. Antis wants," said Eben, addressing himself to the miller. "There is no time to lose."

"Do, my boy, and take Flora with you, as I said, and, Jeduthun, you find some of the men to help about getting up the wagon for Mr. Wilbur."

"I knew it," said Jeduthun as they walked over towards the house. "I would have taken my Bible oath that it was Tom Wilbur who tied that horse. If you do take this place, Eben, you will find Mrs. Antis a very pleasant lady to work for. She isn't any of your snappish kind of women, nor she ain't one of the slack kind, either. She calculates to do what's right herself, and she wants other people to do it by her. I'll just pull out the buggy for you while you go in and speak to her."

Mrs. Antis was pleased to find a chance to send to the Springs, and gave Eben a number of commissions.

"Please write them down, Mrs. Antis," said Eben.

"Why, can't you remember?"

"I dare say I could, but every one forgets sometimes, and when a thing is written, it is written, you know."

"Very true," said Mrs. Antis. "Is any one going with you?"

"Mr. Antis said I might take Flora for the ride," said Eben.

"So much the better," replied Mrs. Antis, good-naturedly giving up the thought she had just entertained of riding over herself. "She can do my errand at the milliner's, and save me the trouble. Just go over and get your sister and call here, and I will have the basket all ready."

"If one could find such a boy as that, there would be comfort in it," thought Mrs. Antis as Eben went out, "but I think every one we have tried has been a greater plague than the last."

It was with no little satisfaction that Eben helped his sister into the buggy and set out for his drive over to the Springs. He felt the pleasure that any boy would feel in driving a fine horse; he was gratified that Mr. Antis had been willing to trust him with so valuable an animal; he was glad of the chance to oblige that person, who had always been kind to him, and he was especially glad of the opportunity to have a quiet talk with Flora before seeing his mother.

The afternoon was warm, and he had plenty of time before him, so he drove rather slowly over the pretty country road which led from Boonville to the Springs, telling Flora, meanwhile, of the talk he had with Mr. Antis and Jeduthun. Flora looked grave at first.

"It just amounts to your being Mr. Antis's hired man," said she.

"Just exactly that, and nothing more, only I shall board at home instead of in the family."

"That's something," said Flora, thoughtfully. "But, Eben, don't you feel as if it were something of a come dawn in the world?"

"No, I don't know that I do. Why?"

"Well, you know we have always visited Mrs. Antis, and felt ourselves just as good as she is—I mean as far as position and all that goes, for in other ways I am sure she is a great deal better than I am. It seems as if it wouldn't be very pleasant for you to be living there as a servant: that is the truth of it. I dare say you think it is very silly in me, but I do feel so."

"It is natural enough, I suppose," said Eben, "and yet I can't say I feel as you do. I can't see that any honest work is degrading. Of course it is not the kind of work that I would have chosen,—we cannot have everything to suit us—but it is better than a good many other things. I would rather do it than go in a store, for instance."

"Would you, really?"

"Yes, because I like the work—taking care of the horses and working in the garden, and so on—better than standing behind a counter all day. It never did seem to me like a man's work to be selling yards of ribbon and calico, and papers of pins, and so on."

"There is something in that. But people have a great deal more respect for clerks in stores than they have for hired men."

"That depends on who the people are, I fancy," said Eben, shrewdly. "Don't you remember how scornfully your aunt Fletcher spoke of somebody as 'a mere dry goods clerk,' and wondered how some young lady could think of marrying such a person?"

"Yes, I know; and what do you suppose she will say to you now?"

"She does not seem very much disposed to say anything to any of us, I think," said Eben, with a curious little contraction of his mouth. "I don't think she will distress herself as long as we don't want anything of her. I shouldn't like to go for it! I do not think I need be governed by her opinion. She is not my aunt, as, you know, she took pains to make me understand."

"I believe you come as near to hating Aunt Fletcher as you can to hating anybody," said Flora, smiling.

"No, I don't. I don't care anything about her. I did think she need not have been in such a great hurry to make mother comprehend that she could not possibly be expected to do anything for us. As if we ever asked her! But that is neither here nor there. The question is about taking up with Mr. Antis's offer, and I have about made up my mind to do so. Twelve dollars a month is not much, but it is something, a certainty, too, and meantime I have a chance of showing what I can do—of gaining a character—don't you see? If Mr. Antis finds I am good for something in one place, he is all the more likely to help me to another."

"You certainly are the longest-headed boy of your age, Eben. But there is something in that."

"There is another thing," said Eben. "The work at Mr. Antis's will not be very hard, and I am in hopes I may get some time to study, so that I can go on with my Latin—at least so far as not to forget what I have learned. I know Mr. Willson will help me, for he said so, and he is not the man to say more than he means."

"No, indeed, and I will go on with you. I am sure I can get time if I try. Well, Eben, I shall not say a word against your going to Mr. Antis if you think it best. Here we are at the Springs. You may leave me at Miss Hurd's."

"And where shall I find you?"

"Oh, I will be at the Cure. I want to see Miss Barnard. Her room is in front, and I can keep a lookout for you."

When Eben had carefully done all his errands, he drove round to the front of the Cure. Flora did not keep him long before she came down with two large bundles in her hands.

"More work?" asked Eben.

"Yes, more work, and something else besides work. I took up a book while I was waiting in Miss Barnard's room, and she asked me if I was fond of reading, and when I said I was, she pulled down this great bundle of old magazines—The Sunday-at-Home, The Leisure Hour, and others—and gave them to me, saying that there was a great deal in them, and I might keep them as long as I liked."

"Good for her!" said Eben. "She must be a nice person, I am sure."

"She is, indeed. And that is not the best of it. You must know—though that is a great secret—that she is to be married this fall, if she is well enough. Her mother has come up to see her, and Mrs. Barnard is so pleased with what I have done, that she says she will have me make all the wedding cloth—all the under-clothes, that is—instead of getting them done in New York. So I am sure of as much work as I can do all summer. Isn't that finding a gold mine?"

"It is, indeed," said Eben. "We do have a great deal to be thankful for, and among other things that you learned to use the machine so well. But, Flora, what would Aunt Fletcher say to your working for money? You know the remarks she made about Miss Emily Willson's working for the fancy store."

"Oh yes; she said it might do here, but in town any one would lose caste directly who should do such a thing. Miss Barnard does not seem to think there is anything degrading in my sewing for her. She always seems glad to see me, and asks about you and mother—or mother and you, rather—not condescendingly, but as if she were really interested. She treats me as if she thought I was quite as good as herself."

"I have a notion that the Barnards are a notch above the Fletchers in the way of fashion, and so on," remarked Eben.

"That is an elegant way of putting it, but I dare say you may be right," returned Flora, laughing. "Have you done all your errands?"

"Yes, and more. I have an express parcel to carry home for Mr. Antis. I must stop at the railroad station for it as we go home."

"The more I think about it, the more I am decided to take up with Mr. Antis's offer," continued Eben when the express parcel had been safely stowed away under the seat and they were on their way homewards. "If only mother can be brought to consent, without feeling too badly about it."

"She will come round all the easier for having the magazines to employ her," said Flora. "Only don't you go to reasoning and arguing, Eben. Let her just say her say out without contradiction, and then she will be ready to hear reason."

"How sensible we are!" said Eben, smiling.

Flora coloured.

"Well, I know I don't always do so, but I am always sorry when I don't; and you must admit, Eben, that I have improved. I don't argue half as much as I used to."

"You are the best and dearest as well as the most sensible girl I know," said Eben. "It is a great advantage to have you to consult with in my affairs. Come, get up, old Guy! You need not take it so very leisurely, if it is a little up hill."

As the children had foreseen, Mrs. Fairchild had a great many objections to make to Eben's plan. Eben let her exhaust herself upon them, and quietly recurred again and again to the advantages of the arrangement, dwelling particularly on the facts that he would board at home and that he should have time to study, and at last Mrs. Fairchild was brought to say that Eben might try it till something better turned up.

"But I'm sure I don't know what sister Fletcher will say," was her conclusion.

"We need not mind what she says," said Flora. "Advice is the only thing she is liberal with. We are not likely to see her very soon, I fancy, now that we have not the farm for her to rusticate upon."

"Never mind her," said Eben, good-naturedly. "There, mother! I forgot part of my errand, after all. Mr. Budd, the steward at 'The Cure,' has sent you a basket of famous duck eggs to put under one of our hens. You know how much you admired those beautiful white ducks we saw in the park that day. He has sent you eight of the eggs, and old Dusty wants to set, so we can put them right under her."

Mrs. Fairchild was very fond of poultry, and very skilful in raising the more delicate kinds. The present of the duck eggs, and the sight of the magazines, which Flora now brought out, quite restored her good humour, and before bed-time, she was ready to believe that Eben had done the best thing possible, and to say what a good thing it was that he had a mother to advise him, to which Eben very heartily agreed.

"And as for sister Fletcher, why, as you say, Eben, we are not bound to mind her. If your father had been governed by her, we never should have adopted you at all, for she was very much opposed to it. And you always have been a comfort, Eben—always. I will say that for you, and your dear father said the same. And I dare say you will get an education yet, somehow or other. Things often do come round, you know, when we least expect them."

"Very true," said Eben, cheerfully. "Goodnight, dear mother. I must be up bright and early, you know."

Then Eben went to his own little room, and setting down his candle, dropped wearily into his chair and laid his head on his arms. He did not look quite so cheerful. In fact, nobody, not even Flora, guessed the sacrifice he was making.

Eben loved study and the acquirement of learning for learning's sake to a degree somewhat unusual in a boy of his age. He learned easily, especially where languages were concerned, and he had a kind of passion for everything connected with physiology and natural history. Eben had a quick and strong imagination, and had been somewhat given to castle-building. Often and often he had gone over all the circumstances of his future life—how he would get through college and into the medical schools, working his way, after a while, so as not to be so much of a burden on his father; how he would take his degree and got into practice, and then, when he could afford it, how he would go abroad and see the hospital and health establishments of Europe; how he would get in as assistant to the famous Doctor Henry at the Springs, and after a while set up an establishment of his own.

Latterly, these dreams had somewhat changed their character. A brother of Mrs. Willson's had come home from India, where he had been a medical missionary, and had made a long visit to his brother-in-law. Doctor Auben was a man of great sense and kindness, and struck by the eagerness and fixed attention with which Eben had listened to his Sunday-evening lectures, he took the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the boy. Since that time Eben's views had undergone a change, and instead of a grand establishment at home, he thought of a large practice in India or China, where he might minister to the bodily wants of the heathens, and at the same time help to extend the kingdom of the Master whom he loved. For Eben was a true Christian boy, a member of the church, and quite ready to confess himself such on all proper occasions, and to make the glory of God the great aim of his life.

It was very hard to give up all these bright dreams and plans, and go to work with a good grace at the hundred and one little things which go to fill up the time of a "hired boy." Eben could not but feel that it was hard, though he had quite made up his mind what to do. It seemed to him somehow as if his Master had rejected him as unfit for the place he had wished so much to fill—as if he must have deceived himself and overrated his own talents, since, after all his aspirations, he was simply compelled to occupy himself with the commonest task which any dunce could have performed as well. Eben had some very bitter thoughts during the hour that he sat by his little table with his head resting on his arms. The tempter was busy with him, suggesting hard and unkind thoughts of the Master he had tried so hard to serve, and resisting all his attempts to say heartily, "Thy will, not mine, be done."

"There is no use in all this," Eben said, at last, aloud, and starting to his feet. "I can't make myself submissive, nor cheerful, nor believing, as I know I ought to be, but I know who can and will do all that and more for me."

Eben threw himself on his knees by the bedside and prayed as he had never done before, with tears and sobs and almost groans of anguish. It was his first great spiritual conflict, and a hard one, but he took the right way to conquer by fleeing from his enemy to his best and all-powerful Friend, and leaving that Friend to fight for him. He did not feel, even when he lay down, that the victory was gained, but cried himself to sleep as he had not done since his father died. When he woke in the morning, however, he found that all was well. His faith was once more clear, and he felt that he was quite ready to serve his Master in the way that Master chose for him.

[CHAPTER IV.]

EBEN DISPLAYS HIS ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

"WELL, as Mrs. Antis has no girl," said Eben to himself while dressing, "I suppose she would like to have me come up and make a fire for her. I will just lay everything ready for Flora and bring in a pail of water, and then be off."

Eben was so early that he found the house and barn locked, and nobody stirring.

"What shall I do now?" said he, after he had knocked once or twice without receiving any answer. "Well, here is a hoe, and here are some potatoes that clearly need hoeing, and that, as Miss Hilliard would say, naturally suggests the idea of going to work to hoe them. So here goes."

Mr. Antis, roused by the sound of Eben's hoe, and looking out of the window, saw what the boy was about. He opened the window and called to him:

"Never mind the potatoes now, Eben. I'll throw you out the key of the stable, so you can water and feed the horses, and by that time I will be down stairs."

"Very well, sir," said Eben, picking up the key. "I only went at the potatoes because there didn't seem to be anything else to do. I guess I haven't done them any harm."

"I guess not, by the looks. He'll do," said Mr. Antis as he finished dressing. "A boy that goes to hoeing potatoes, because he can't find anything else to do, will make his way in the world. However, new brooms sweep clean, and it is early time yet."

"I would have made the fire for Mrs. Antis, only I couldn't get in," said Eben as Mr. Antis met him on the door-step. "I have been here some time."

"Time enough, my boy. Mrs. Antis is only just up. You may make the fire now, and finish the horses afterwards. You seem to understand how to go to work with them."

"Yes, my father always let me take the care of poor Fancy," said Eben, with just a little huskiness in his voice at the thought of the beautiful "Morgan," his own particular property which had gone with the rest of Mr. Fairchild's stock. "I love horses dearly, they are such knowing, willing creatures. It seems too bad the way they are abused sometimes. I don't see how any one can abuse a dumb beast."

"I am glad you feel so, and I quite agree with you, Eben. I would never keep a boy that I found abusing or overdriving a horse or cow."

"I don't believe he will keep Tom Wilbur long, then," was Eben's thought, but he did not express it. Before he went home to his breakfast, he had fed the horses, milked, brought in wood for the day, swept off the walk, and put on a kettle of dish-water. Mrs. Antis smiled when she came across this proof of the boy's thoughtfulness.

"I hardly ever had a girl who would remember to do that," she said to her husband. "But I must not count too much on Eben, for I know that just as surely as he shows himself good for anything, you will be for getting him away from me."

There was not a little talk among Mrs. Fairchild's friends and Eben's former schoolmates when it was discovered that Eben had really gone to work, not in the mill, which was considered a very good place, but as Mr. Antis's "hired boy." Some people wondered how Mrs. Fairchild could allow such a thing, and Mrs. Badger said Anne Fairchild never would have thought of it, if the boy had been her own.

"Mr. Fairchild always considered Eben the same as his own," said her daughter, "and Flora thinks there is nobody in all the world like Eben."

"Yes, but then you see Eben isn't their own flesh and blood. It speaks well for the boy, anyhow, after his expecting to be Mr. Fairchild's heir, and to go to college, and what not."

"I wonder Mr. Antis didn't take him into the mill instead of Tom Wilbur," said Mrs. Badger, junior. "Tom ain't no more account than a towstring."

"I believe Mr. Wilbur got the promise from Mr. Antis before Eben saw him," remarked Miss Emily Willson, who was in the company. "Perhaps Tom will do better in different hands."

"Maybe so. His father does have a kind of discouraging way with him, that's a fact," said Grandma Badger. "But I expect Tom is a good deal what his father was at his age—always finding fault with his business and wanting to try something else. That was always the way with Joe Wilbur, and that was the reason he never got on any, and you will see Tom will be just such another one as he was."

"Let us hope for better things in Tom's case," said Miss Emily, smiling. "Flora told me that her mother would not hear of this arrangement at first, but Eben was so very anxious to be doing something for himself that she gave way, and allowed him to do as he pleased."

"They are real good, smart children, both of 'em," said Grandma Badger. "Folks said Eben was too young to join the church, but I don't see any of our members that walk any more consistent than he does. For my part, I think all the more of the boy that he has gone to work at whatever he could find to do, to help along his mother and sister, instead of waiting for something to turn up that just suited him."

"Then, if it was the right thing for Eben to do, grandma, why should you blame his mother for telling him to do it?" asked young Mrs. Badger, rather mischievously.

The old, lady took a pinch of snuff, and drew herself up.

"You see, Malviny, I ain't so smart as you be, and sometimes I say foolish things. The apostle says, 'If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man,' and I don't seem to have come to that pint of perfection just yet, though maybe I shall if I live eighty years longer."

"You come about as near it as most of us, I guess, grandma," said the younger lady, who had only meant to draw out her mother-in-law, and so the conversation was happily ended.

Of course Eben's conduct had been discussed at the school, where he had always been a great favourite with both teacher and scholars.

"The Fairchilds have come down in the world," said Martha Edwards, with a toss of her head, "to let Eben go out to work like a common hired man. I guess they won't hold their heads quite so high after this."

"Why not?" asked Alice Brown.

"Oh, because nobody thinks anything of hired men or girls."

"I don't know that," said Elsie Dennison; "my mother thinks as much of Maggy Saddler as if she was one of the family."

"That's different," said Martha.

"And Joseph Antis respects Eben," said Alice Brown. "He told my father so, for I heard him. He said he thought more of Eben than ever."

"It must have been pretty hard on Eben to give up school and go to work," said David Brown, "so fond as he was of study. If it had been thee now, Henry, thee wouldn't have minded half so much."

"I know it," said Henry Wilson. "I'd rather work three hours in the hayfield the hottest day that ever was, than one over the Latin grammar or Virgil, while Eben reads Virgil just for fun. He never will stop at the end of the hundred lines. He always wants to read on and see how the story turns out. I told father last night I wished I was in Eben's place, and he in mine."

"Why, Henry Willson! And you the minister's son. I should think you would be ashamed!" exclaimed Martha Edwards, with her favourite toss of the head.

"What did thy father say to that?" asked David.

"He laughed, and said I must be as faithful in doing my work as Eben was in doing his, and there was no telling what would happen. I don't think Eben has very hard times with Mr. Antis. Look at him now, driving the old gray! He looks as well satisfied as if he owned the whole concern."

"That shows how much Mr. Antis thinks of him," said Osric Dennison. "He never would let Jerry Blythe drive the old gray. He thinks as much of that old horse as if it were a man."

"Good reason why, when it carried him all through the wars," said David. "But I don't think, boys, you need be in any hurry to pity Eben, or to look down on him, either. I guess you will find he will come out about as well as any of us."

Eben, on his part, did not find his place at all an unpleasant one. He had a good many different things to do, which used up his time and kept him busy, but none of them were hard or disagreeable, and some of them were very much to his taste. Especially did he like taking care of the garden. Eben had always been very fond of flowers, and Mrs. Antis had a beautiful collection of them. One day, Eben observed to her that the flower-beds needed weeding.

"Yes, the plants are getting smothered out of existence," said Mrs. Antis, "but I seem to get no time to attend to them."

"I might weed them this afternoon, if you like," suggested Eben. "The rain has softened the ground, so the weeds can be got up without disturbing the other things."

Mrs. Antis looked doubtful. "I don't know about setting you to work at my flower-beds, Eben. When boys get to weeding, they are apt to pull up plants as well as weeds."

"I guess I sha'n't do that," said Eben. "I weeded the onions all out yesterday, and I don't think I pulled up many of the plants."

"I dare say you will do it very well," said Mrs. Antis. "Anyhow, the poor plants might as well be pulled up, as run out by the weeds. I believe I am very ungracious, Eben, but the truth is I am so tired I can hardly breathe."

"No wonder, with so much company and all the work to do," said Eben. "I'm afraid you will be down sick if you don't get some one to help you. I wish I could do more. I don't believe but that I could get the breakfast as well as not, if you would only tell me what you want. Come, Mrs. Antis! Now, you lie in bed to-morrow morning, and let me try."

Mrs. Antis smiled in rather a tearful fashion, for she was nervous, and, as she said, fairly worn out.

"Why, Eben, I should think you had enough to do already without turning cook. I feel sometimes as though you were rather put upon."

"I'm not afraid of being put upon," said Eben. "I like to see how much I can do. Well, then, I'll go at the flower-beds, if you can just step out and show me a little."

Eben had not been long engaged when Tom Wilbur came into the garden, and with a very ill-used expression went to work hoeing some sweet corn which grew out far from the flower-beds.

"So you are going to gardening too?" said Eben, cheerfully.

"I suppose so," returned Tom, sullenly. "There's nothing doing in the mill, and I was just going off fishing, when the boss came in and sent me out here to hoe this plaguy corn. I declare, I won't stand it! So!" and Tom struck viciously at a large weed, cutting off instead a stalk of corn.

"Take care! You won't do much good that way," said Eben. "I should think you would like working in the garden for a change. I do."

"Well, it ain't very pleasant for a fellow to be bossed round all day, and never have a chance for any fun," said Tom, still more sulkily. "I don't believe any one would like it. I hate the whole thing, anyhow. I wanted to do something different. I wanted my father to get me a place in a store at Hobartown, and he might have done it, too, just as well as not."

"Why didn't he, then?" asked Eben.

"Oh, I don't know. Some bothering nonsense about my being out of the way of temptation. I should have done well enough, but how can I do anything here, when I hate the whole concern?"

"You will have to do as the old Indians did," said Eben.

"What do you mean?" asked Tom.

"It is a story my father used to tell," said Eben. "One time late in November, when there was snow on the ground, a party of Indians came and camped out in the edge of the Long Woods, near my grandfather's house, and two or three days after the old gentleman said to his son, 'Come, let us go down and see the Indians, and find out how they are off for provisions. I dare say they haven't too much to eat.' So down they went, father carrying a basket of apples. The first person they came across was an old Indian, who was sitting on the end of a log gnawing a piece of cold corn-cake, which looked as if it might have been a week old. Do you like that?' asked my grandfather."

"The old man stopped eating, and answered, with a great deal of gravity and dignity, 'He's my wittle, and I will like him!'"

"Humph!" said Tom, guessing the application of the story.

"Father used often to quote the old man's answer to Flora and me when we complained of what we had to do," continued Eben, busily going on with his work meanwhile; "and I often think of it, and say to myself, 'He's my wittle, and I will like him.'"

"I don't see the sense of it, anyway," said Tom, though he did see well enough.

"The sense is plain," returned Eben. "If you can't do what you like, the next best thing and anyhow is to like what you do, and anyhow if you keep on doing the best you can, you almost always learn to like it."

"I never shall learn to like this place, I know, and I don't care whether I do or not," said Tom. "It isn't any place for me, and I don't see what father wanted me to come here for, anyhow. Jeduthun Cooke bosses me round, and tells me to do this and that, and when I say anything to Mr. Antis, all the good I get is, 'Oh, ask Jeduthun; he'll tell you what to do.'"

"But, Tom, if you were clerk in a store, you'd have to be ordered round by somebody quite as much as you are now. You would have to be on your feet all day, and called here and there by everybody. I have been shopping with mother at Hobartown, and in the city, too, sometimes, and I thought people were very provoking. They called the clerks this way and that, and made them pull down heaps of things, and then wouldn't take anything, after all. It was just having fifty bosses instead of one. I am sure Jeduthun is always good-natured."

"Good-natured! Yes, very much! You ought to have heard him scold this morning, just because I left the office alone a few minutes to run out and speak to one of the boys; and I haven't a minute for any fun from morning till night."

"I thought you had all last Saturday?"

"Well, that was only once."

"One whole day in three weeks is pretty well, I should say. I'll be bound you wouldn't have as much as that in Hobartown. Come, Tom, make the best of it, like a man. You might try twenty times and not get so good a place."

But Tom could not be comforted. He wanted to do something different. The mill was dirty, and he had to wear overalls from morning till night, and it wasn't very pleasant to work hard all day, and be ordered round by Jeduthun Cooke. He didn't like it, and nobody wanted to do what they didn't like. Mr. Antis had no business to make him hoe corn and potatoes. That wasn't what he was hired for, and he wasn't going to stand it.

"If you don't do any work only just as long as it is easy and you like it, you won't accomplish much," said Eben. "Every kind of work is hard, if you have to earn your living by it, and goes wrong sometimes. I like to study better than to do any kind of work, but if I had my living to get by it, I should grow tired of it a great many times, I know."

"You may preach till you are gray, Eben Fairchild, and you won't make me like milling a bit better, or think things are pleasant when they are not," said Tom. "How nice you have made those beds look!" he added, struck with sudden admiration at the result of Eben's labour. "There is some fun in work like that."

"It is hard work, though," returned Eben, straightening himself up, "harder work than hoeing corn, though it pays when it is done. I believe I haven't broken off a single plant. There goes five o'clock. I must go and make the fire for Mrs. Antis."

"Why, you don't do kitchen work, do you? I shouldn't like that."

"I'm not particular. I do anything that needs to be done," said Eben. "I guess my dignity won't suffer, and if it does, I guess it may just get well again."

The next morning, as Eben was putting on the tea-kettle, Mr. Antis came into the kitchen with a very disturbed face.

"I don't know what we are to do about breakfast, Eben," said he. "My wife can't get up this morning. She is completely worn out."

"I was afraid she would be," said Eben. "She will have to get a woman to help her."

"That is easier said than done, my boy. I have inquired of everybody about here and in Hobartown, and I can't get a girl for love nor money. I heard of one at the Springs yesterday, and I will let you drive over there by and by to see about her, but meantime, what are we to do about breakfast?"

"Oh, I can got breakfast," said Eben, cheerfully. "I have done it before now, when mother was not very well and Flora was away. Never you mind, Mr. Antis. If you will see to the horses, I'll get up some kind of a meal."

Mr. Antis laughed, and went off to the barn. Eben bustled about grinding coffee, slicing potatoes to fry, and setting the table. Presently, he called Mr. Antis, who came in to find a very respectable breakfast of ham and eggs, potatoes, and coffee, while a nicely-covered tray stood on the table ready to be carried up stairs. Eben was just toasting some bread.

"Well, I declare!" said Mr. Antis. "Where did you learn so much?"

"Oh, I have watched the women folks a great many times," answered Eben, busily turning his bread. "You sit down and eat your breakfast, and when I get this done, I'll just run down and get Kissy Cooke to come up for a while."

"But you must have your own breakfast, my boy."

"Well, I guess maybe I had better not go home to breakfast, there is so much to do. I'll just ask Tom to stop and tell mother I can't come, so that she won't wait for me."

Kissy left her work and came up from the mill long enough to make the sick woman comfortable, but she could not stay to do the housework. One of the patients for whom she washed at the Cure was going away at two o'clock, and Kissy had two white dresses to do up and get over to the Springs by twelve.

"Such fixings, and puffs, and ruffles, and what not!" said Kissy. "However, I ought not to complain, for I get a dollar apiece for doing 'em. But, mercy! How any one can wear such a lot of stuff! I'll just go down and get some warm water for you, Mrs. Antis, and put the room to rights, and then I don't see but I shall have to go."

Keziah went down stairs, and came up laughing.

"You never see such a sight in your life, Mrs. Antis. There's that boy Eben doing up the work as steady as an old woman—washing the dishes, cleaning the knives, and all. He puts water in the spiders to let 'em soak, and fills up his dish-kettle as fast as he takes the water out, all as regular as you please. 'Why, Eben,' says I, 'are you turned cook?'"

"'Oh, I can turn my hand to anything,' says he, as cheerful as a lark."

"I never did see such a boy."

"I am sure I never did," said Mrs. Antis. "I don't know what in the world I should have done without him this summer. I have had so much company, and nobody to help me."

"Seems to me, if I was company where there was no help, I should turn to and be help myself," remarked Keziah.

"Well, I did think Matilda Benedict might at any rate have offered to help me, but she never did," said Mrs. Antis. "Must you go now, Keziah?"

"Why, yes, I don't see but I must, on account of those dresses. If the lady wasn't going away, I would put her off, but there's just where it is, you see. However, I'll run in as soon as I get back."

"I think, perhaps, I can get up by and by," said Mrs. Antis. But she did not get up that day nor the next. Eben found time before he went in search of a girl to run down to his mother's and tell the state of the case.