brought up Harry the
way I'd been brought up. I knew he was only joking, yet I got quite
excited. 'Yes,' I said, 'Do as my father and mother did. Have a farm
about twice as large as you can manage. Don't keep a hired man. Get up
at daylight and slave till dark. Never take a holiday. Have the girls do
the housework, and take care of the hens, and help pick the fruit, and
make the boys tend the colts and the calves, and put all the money they
make in the bank. Don't take any papers, for they would waste their time
reading them, and it's too far to go the postoffice oftener than once a
week; and'--but, I don't remember the rest of what I said. Anyway your
uncle burst into a roar of laughter. 'Hattie,' he said, 'my farm's too
big. I'm going to sell some of it, and enjoy myself a little more.' That
very week he sold fifty acres, and he hired an extra man, and got me a
good girl, and twice a week he left his work in the afternoon, and took
me for a drive. Harry held the reins in his tiny fingers, and John told
him that Dolly, the old mare we were driving, should be called his, and
the very next horse he bought should be called his, too, and he should
name it and have it for his own; and he would give him five sheep, and
he should have his own bank book and keep his accounts; and Harry
understood, mere baby though he was, and from that day he loved John as
his own father. If my father had had the wisdom that John has, his boys
wouldn't be the one a poor lawyer and the other a poor doctor in two
different cities; and our farm wouldn't be in the hands of strangers. It
makes me sick to go there. I think of my poor mother lying with her
tired hands crossed out in the churchyard, and the boys so far away, and
my father always hurrying and driving us--I can tell you, Laura, the
thing cuts both ways. It isn't all the fault of the boys that they leave
the country."

Mrs. Wood was silent for a little while after she made this long speech,
and Miss Laura said nothing. I took a turn or two up and down the
stable, thinking of many things. No matter how happy human beings seem
to be, they always have something to worry them. I was sorry for Mrs.
Wood, for her face had lost the happy look it usually wore. However, she
soon forgot her trouble, and said:

"Now, I must go and get the tea. This is Adele's afternoon out."

"I'll come, too," said Miss Laura, "for I promised her I'd make the
biscuits for tea this evening and let you rest." They