had always been slight, and his sunken cheeks
and wasted limbs spoke of the hard usage and suffering of his present
situation. The family had many delicacies for themselves, but the _work
boy_ they knew never was used to such things, and they were indifferent,
as to what his fare chanced to be. He generally managed to satisfy the
cravings of hunger on the coarse food given him, but that was all. About
this time it happened that the farmer was digging a ditch, and as he was
afraid winter would set in before it was completed, Johnny and himself
were at work upon it early and late, notwithstanding the wind whistled,
and it was so cold they could hardly handle the tools. While thus
employed, it chanced that they got wet to the skin with a drizzling
rain, and on returning to the house the farmer changed his clothes,
drank some hot mulled cider, and spent the remainder of the evening in
his high-backed chair before a comfortable fire; while the boy was
sent to grease a wagon in an open shed, and at night crept to his straw
pallet, shaking as though in an ague fit. The next morning he was in
a high fever, and with many a "wonder of what had got into him," but
without one word of sympathy, or any other manifestation of good-will,
he was sent home to his mother. Late in the evening of the same day a
compassionate physician was surprised to see a woman enter his office;
her garments wet and travel-stained, and, with streaming eyes, she
besought him to come and see her son.

"My Johnny, my Johnny, sir!" she cried, "he has been raving wild all
day, and we are afraid he will die."

Mistaking the cause of the good man's hesitation, she added, with a
fresh burst of grief, "Oh! I will work my fingers to the bone to pay
you, sir, if you will only come. We live in the Gap."

A few inquiries were all that was necessary to learn the state of
the case. The benevolent doctor took the woman in his vehicle, and
proceeded, over a mountainous road of six miles, to see his patient. But
vain was the help of man! Johnny continued delirious; it was work, work,
always at work; and pitiful was it to hear his complaints of being
cold and tired, while his heart-broken parent hung over him, and denied
herself the necessaries of life to minister to his wants. After being
ill about a fortnight, he awoke one evening apparently free from fever.
His expression was natural, but he seemed so weak he could not speak.
His mother, with a heart overflowing with j