an
to work, but I suppose I might hire you to keep the mosquitoes off the
horses. They wouldn't look at Chiniquy, I am sure, if they could get a
nip at you."

The Englishman looked perplexed.

"You are learning as well as any person could learn," Jim said kindly.
"I think you are doing famously. No person is particularly bright at
work entirely new. Don't be a bit discouraged, old man, you'll be a
rich land-owner some day, proprietor of the A. J. Wemyss Stock Farm,
writing letters to the agricultural papers, judge of horses at the
fairs, giving lectures at dairy institutes--oh, I think I see you,
Arthur!"

"You are chaffing me," Arthur said smiling.

"Indeed I am not. I am very much in earnest. I have seen more unlikely
looking young fellows than you do wonderful things in a short time, and
just to help along the good work I am going to show you a few things
about taking off harness that may be useful to you when you are
president of the Agricultural Society of South Cypress, or some other
fortunate municipality."

Arthur's face brightened.

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Russell," he said.

That night Arthur wrote home a letter that would have made an
appropriate circular for the Immigration Department to send to
prospective settlers.

CHAPTER XIV

THE FAITH THAT MOVETH MOUNTAINS

When supper was over and Pearl had washed the heavy white dishes Mrs.
Motherwell told her, not unkindly, that she could go to bed. She would
sleep in the little room over the kitchen in Polly's old bed.

"You don't need no lamp," she said, "if you hurry. It is light up
there."

Mrs. Motherwell was inclined to think well of Pearl. It was not her
soft brown eyes, or her quaint speech that had won Mrs. Motherwell's
heart. It was the way she scraped the frying-pan.

Pearl went up the ladder into the kitchen loft, and found herself in a
low, long room, close and stifling, one little window shone light
against the western sky and on it innumerable flies buzzed unceasingly.
Old boxes, old bags, old baskets looked strange and shadowy in the
gathering gloom. The Motherwells did not believe in giving away
anything. The Indians who went through the neighbourhood each fall
looking for "old clo'" had long ago learned to pass by the big stone
house. Indians do not appreciate a strong talk on shiftlessness the way
they should, with a vision of a long cold winter ahead of them.

Pearl gazed around with a troubled look on her face. A large basket