e one afternoon. His father was writing a sermon in the sitting
room. Jason tip-toed into the kitchen, where his mother was preparing
supper.

"The packet's in, mother, and I carried a man's carpet bag up to the
hotel and look--what he gave me!"

His slender boyish brown hands fairly trembled as he held a torn and
soiled magazine toward his mother. She dropped the biscuit she was
molding and seized it.

"_Harper's Monthly!_ O Jason dear, how wonderful! You shall read it
aloud to me after supper."

"It's prayer meeting night," said Jason in a sick voice.

His mother flushed a little. "So it is! My goodness, Jason! Print makes
a heathen of me and you're most as bad. You haven't fed the horse or
milked."

"So I won't get a look at it till tomorrow," cried Jason, bitterly.

Mrs. Wilkins glanced toward the closed door that led into the sitting
room. Then she looked at Jason's wide brown eyes, at the round-about she
had cut over from his father's old sermon coat, at the darned stockings
and the trousers that had belonged to the rich boy of the town they had
lived in the year before.

"Jason," she said, "you ought to get plenty of sleep because you're a
growing boy. But a thing like this won't happen for years
again--and--well, I've saved up several candle ends, hoping to get some
sewing done nights when your father was using the lamp. When you go up
to bed tonight, take those and read your magazine."

"But you ought to keep them," protested Jason.

"Not at all," exclaimed his mother, vigorously, "it's all for your
education. Run along now and milk."

So Jason reveled in his _Harper's Monthly_, and the next day as he wiped
the dishes for his mother, he produced his great idea.

"If I can earn the money, this summer, mother, can I subscribe to
_Harper's Monthly_ for a year?"

"My goodness, Jason, it's five dollars and this is the first of August!
School begins in a month."

"I know all that," replied Jason impatiently, "but if I earn the money
can I have it for _Harpers Monthly_?"

"Of course you can. It's all for your education, my dear. I never forget
that."

A money paying job for a boy of twelve was a hard thing to find in High
Hill and Jason was late for supper that night. But his brown eyes were
shining with triumph when he slid into his seat and held out his bowl
for his evening meal of mush and milk.

"I've got a job," he said.

"A job?" queried his father. He smiled a little at Jason's mother.