e the
horses a cut with his whip that sent them dashing down the road.

"If he wasn't jus' tryin' to sneak his way through 'thout payin'!"
exclaimed John Jay, indignantly. George made no comment, but John Jay
seemed unable to quit talking about the occurrence. Half an hour later
he broke out again: "He thought 'cause I was jus' a little boy he could
cheat me, an' nobody would evah know the difference. I nevah in all my
life befo' heard tell of anything so mean!"

"Haven't you?" asked George, with such peculiar emphasis and such a
queer little smile that John Jay felt guilty, although he could not have
told why.

"No, I nevah did," he insisted.

George leaned against the door-casing, and looked thoughtfully across
the fields. "There are more turnpikes in life than one, my boy," he said
kindly, "and every one has its toll-gate. There is the road to learning.
I gave up everything to get through that gate, even my health. One
cannot be anything or do anything worth while without paying some sort
of toll. It may be time or strength or hard work or patience, and
sometimes we have to give them all."

"'Peahs like I've nevah struck any such roads in my travellin',"
answered John Jay, carelessly, who often understood George's little
parables far better than he cared to acknowledge.

"But I know one road that you are on now, where you try to slip out of
paying what you owe every day."

John Jay hung his head, and rubbed his bare feet together in embarrassed
silence. If the Reverend George said it was so, it must be so, although
he did not know just what he was hinting at.

"Mr. Boden knows very well," continued George, "that the money that is
paid here goes to keep the road in good condition for him to travel
over. He is very glad to have such a good pike provided for him, but he
wants it for nothing. I know a poor old woman who keeps the road smooth
for somebody. She works early and late, in hot weather and cold, to earn
food and shelter and clothes for somebody; and that somebody eats her
bread, and wears out the clothes, and sleeps under her roof, and never
pays any toll. He owes her thanks and willing service,--all the help he
can give her poor, tired old body, but she never gets even the thanks.
He takes all her drudgery as a matter of course."

John Jay's head dropped lower and lower, as he screwed his toes around
in the dust of the path, mortified and embarrassed. All the whippings of
his life had never stung hi