more distasteful. His only comfort was the knowledge that
Mrs. Moss and the Squire were satisfied with him, his only pleasure the
lessons he learned while driving the cows, and recited in the evening
when the three children met under the lilacs to "play school."

He had no thought of studying when he began, and hardly knew that he
was doing it as he pored over the different books he took from the
library. But the little girls tried him with all they possessed, and he
was mortified to find how ignorant he was. He never owned it in words,
but gladly accepted all the bits of knowledge they offered from their
small store; getting Betty to hear him spell "just for fun;" agreeing
to draw Bab all the bears and tigers she wanted if she would show him
how to do sums on the flags, and often beguiled his lonely labors by
trying to chant the multiplication table as they did. When Tuesday
night came round the Squire paid him a dollar, said he was "a likely
boy," and might stay another week if he chose. Ben thanked him and
thought he would, but the next morning, after he had put up the bars,
he remained sitting on the top rail to consider his prospects, for he
felt uncommonly reluctant to go back to the society of rough Pat. Like
most boys he hated work, unless it was of a sort which just suited him;
then he could toil like a beaver and never tire. His wandering life had
given him no habits of steady industry, and while he was an unusually
capable lad of his age, he dearly loved to loaf about and have a good
deal of variety and excitement in his life.

Now he saw nothing before him but days of patient and very
uninteresting labor. He was heartily sick of weeding; even riding Duke
before the cultivator had lost its charms, and a great pile of wood lay
in the Squire's yard which he knew he would be set to piling up in the
shed. Strawberry-picking would soon follow the asparagus cultivation,
then haying, and so on all the long, bright summer, without any fun,
unless his father came for him.

On the other hand, he was not obliged to stay a minute longer unless he
liked. With a comfortable suit of clothes, a dollar in his pocket, and
a row of dinner-baskets hanging in the school-house entry to supply him
with provisions if he didn't mind stealing them, what was easier than
to run away again? Tramping has its charms in fair weather, and Ben had
lived like a gypsy under canvas for years, so he feared nothing, and
began to look down the l