turned out to be the pleasantest old man the boys and girls
had ever been acquainted with. It was no wonder they liked him, for he
was very fond of children, and like generally begets like. He was a very
different sort of character from any about the farm. He had been well
educated, and being in his younger days of a roving, sight-hunting
disposition, he had travelled all over the world, had seen a multitude
of strange men and strange things, and had such a way of telling what he
had thus picked up as never to fail of interesting those who heard him.
Sometimes of a long winter evening, when he was giving accounts of
foreign countries, or how people lived in our great cities, or how they
carried on farming in other parts of our country, he talked so
pleasantly that no one thought of being sleepy. On such evenings, before
he came to live on the farm, Mr. Spangler would often fall asleep on his
chair in the chimney corner, and once or twice actually tipped over
quite into the ashes; but now, when Uncle Benny got fairly under way,
there was no more going to sleep. Mr. Spangler pricked up his ears, and
listened better than if any one had been reading from a book.

Then Uncle Benny had a way of always putting in some good advice to both
men and boys, and even to the girls. He had read and travelled so much,
that he had something appropriate for every event that turned up.
Indeed, every one was surprised at his knowing so much. Besides this, he
was very lively and cheerful, and as fond of fun as could be, and seemed
able to make any one laugh whenever he chose to indulge in a joke.

In addition to all this, he was uncommonly handy with tools. Though an
old man, and not strong enough to do a full day's work at mowing or
hay-making, because of stiff joints, yet he could potter about the house
and barns, with a hatchet, and saw, and a nail-box, and mend up a
hundred broken places that had been neglected for years before he came
to live there. If he saw anything out of order, a gate with no latch, a
picket loose in the garden fence, or any other trifling defect about the
premises, he went to work and made all right again. He even mended the
broken lights in the kitchen windows, and got rid of all the old hats
and bonnets that had been stuffed into them. He put on new buttons to
keep up the sashes, and so banished the big sticks from the wood-pile
that had been used to prop them up. He said they were too ugly even to
look at.

It