e garden
to-morrow -- I can't attend to anything else till I get my
grain in."

"Won't you plant some sweet corn this year, Mr. Landholm? --
it's a great deal better for cooking."

"Well, I don't know -- I guess the field corn's sweet enough. I
haven't much time to attend to sugar things. What _I_ look for
is substantials."

"Aren't sweet things substantial, sir?" said Winthrop.

"Well -- yes, -- in a sort they are," said his father laughing,
and looking at the little fat creature who was still in her
brother's arms and giving him the charge of her supper as well
as his own. "I know _some_ sweet things I shouldn't like to do
without."

"Talking of substantials," said Mrs. Landholm, "there's wood
wanting to be got. I am almost out. I had hardly enough to
cook supper."

"Don't want much fire in this weather," said the father,
"However -- we can't get along very well without supper. --
Rufus, I guess you'll have to go up into the woods to-morrow
with the ox-sled -- you and Sam Doolittle -- back of the pine
wood -- you'll find enough dead trees there, I guess."

"I think," said Rufus, "that if you think of it, what are
called substantial things are the least substantial of any --
they are only the scaffolding of the other."

"Of what other?" said his father.

"Of the things which really last, sir, -- the things which
belong to the _mind_ -- things which have to do with something
besides the labour of to-day and the labour of to-morrow."

"The labour of to-day and the labour of to-morrow are pretty
necessary though," said his father dryly; "we must eat, in the
first place. You must keep the body alive before the mind can
do much -- at least I have found it so in my own experience."

"But you don't think the less of the other kind of work, sir,
do you?" said Winthrop looking up; -- "when one can get at it?"

"No, my boy," said the father, -- "no, Governor; no man thinks
more highly of it than I do. It has always been my desire that
you and Will should be better off in this respect than I have
ever been; -- my great desire; and I haven't given it up,
neither."

A little silence of all parties.

"What are the things which 'really last,' Rufus?" said his
mother.

Rufus made some slight and not very direct answer, but the
question set Winthrop to thinking.

He thought all the evening; or rather thought and fancy took a
kind of whirligig dance, where it was hard to tell which was
which. Visions of better