to a grasshopper
you had a knack for pitching hay. Besides, you'd make a fine bit of
money and the work would be no heavier than handling freight down at
the mills. You've got to work somewhere through your summer vacation."

He made the latter statement as a matter of course for a matter of
course it had long since become. Ted always worked when he was not
studying. Vacations, holidays, Saturdays, he was always busy earning
money for if he had not been, there would have been no chance of his
going to school the rest of the time. Sometimes he did errands for one
of the dry-goods stores; sometimes, if there were a vacancy, he helped
in Fernald and Company's shipping rooms; sometimes he worked at the
town market or rode about on the grocer's wagon, delivering orders. By
one means or another he had usually contrived, since he was quite a
small boy, to pick up odd sums that went toward his clothes and "keep."
As he grew older, these sums had increased until now they had become a
recognized part of the family income. For it was understood that Ted
would turn in toward the household expenses all that he earned. His
father had never believed in a boy having money to spend and even if he
had every cent which the Turners could scrape together was needed at
home. Ted knew well how much sugar and butter cost and therefore
without demur he cheerfully placed in the hands of his sister Ruth, who
ran the house, every farthing that was given him.

From childhood this sense of responsibility had always been in his
background. He had known what it was to go hungry that he might have
shoes and go without shoes that he might have underwear. Money had been
very scarce on the Vermont farm, and although there was now more of it
than there ever had been in the past, nevertheless it was not
plentiful. Therefore, as vacation was approaching and he must get a job
anyway, he decided to present himself before Mr. Wharton and ask for a
chance to help in harvesting the hay crops at Aldercliffe and Pine Lea.

"You are younger than the men I am hiring," Mr. Wharton said, after he
had scanned the lad critically. "How old are you?"

"Fourteen."

"I thought as much. What I want is men."

"But I have farmed all my life," protested Ted with spirit.

"Indeed!" the manager exclaimed not unkindly. "Where?"

"In Vermont."

"You don't say so! I was born in the Green Mountains," was the quick
retort. "Where did you live?"

"Newfane."

Instantly the