eason for it, and exactly that reason would not be likely to exist
another day. But then the difficulty with playing, or attempting to
amuse one's self all the time, is, that it produces such a state of
mind, that almost any thing becomes a source of uneasiness or
dissatisfaction; and something or other is likely to occur, or there
will be something or other wanting, which makes the time pass very
heavily along.

It is so with men as well as boys. Men sometimes are so situated that
they have nothing to do but to try to amuse themselves. But these men
are generally a very unhappy class. The poorest laborer, who toils all
day at the hardest labor, is happier than they.

So that the physician's prescription was, in reality, a far more
disagreeable one than Rollo had imagined.

When Rollo reached home, he told his mother that he was not to have any
thing more to do with books for a month.

"And you look as if you were glad of it," said she, with a smile.

"Yes, mother, I am," said Rollo, "rather glad."

"And what do you expect to do with yourself all that time?" said she.

"O, I don't know," said Rollo. "Perhaps I shall help Jonas, a part of
the time, about his work."

"That will be a very good plan for a part of the time," said his mother;
"though he is doing pretty hard work just now."

"What is he doing?"

"He is digging a little canal in the marsh, beyond the brook, to drain
off the water."

"O, I can dig," said Rollo, "and I mean to go now and help him."

This was about the middle of the forenoon; and Rollo, taking a piece of
bread for a luncheon, and a little tin dipper, to get some water with,
to drink, out of the brook, walked along towards the great gate which
led to the lane behind his father's house. It was a pleasant, green
lane, and there were rows of raspberry-bushes on each side of it, along
by the fences. Some years before, there had been no raspberries near the
house; but one autumn, when Jonas had a good deal of ploughing to do
down the lane, he ploughed up the ground by the fences in this lane,
making one furrow every time he went up and down to his other work.
Then in the spring he ploughed it again, and by this time the turf had
rotted, and so the land had become mellow. Then Jonas went away with the
wagon, one afternoon, about two miles, to a place where the raspberries
were very abundant, and dug up a large number of them, and set them out
along this lane, on both sides of it; and so, in