Let us look in upon the three boys a night or two after they have commenced housekeeping.

They take turns in cooking, and this time it is the turn of the one in whom we feel the strongest interest.

“What have we got for supper, boys?” he asks, for the procuring of supplies has fallen to them.

“Here are a dozen eggs,” said Henry Bounton, his cousin.

“And here is a loaf of bread, which I got at the baker’s,” said his friend.

“That’s good!  We’ll have bread and fried eggs.  There is nothing better than that.”

“Eggs have gone up a cent a dozen,” remarks Henry, gravely.

This news is received seriously, for a cent means something to them.  Probably even then the price was not greater than six to eight cents a dozen, for prices were low in the West at that time.

“Then we can’t have them so often,” said James, philosophically, “unless we get something to do.”

“There’s a carpenter’s-shop a little way down the street,” said Henry.  “I guess you can find employment there.”

“I’ll go round there after supper.”

Meanwhile he attended to his duty as cook, and in due time each of the boys was supplied with four fried eggs and as much bread as he cared for.  Probably butter was dispensed with, as too costly a luxury, until more prosperous times.

When supper was over the boys took a walk, and then, returning to their humble room, spent the evening in preparing their next morning’s lessons.

In them James soon took leading rank, for his brain was larger, and his powers of application and intuition great, as Dr. Robinson had implied.  From the time he entered Geauga Seminary probably he never seriously doubted that he had entered upon the right path.

CHAPTER IX.

WAYS AND MEANS.

James called on the carpenter after supper and inquired if he could supply him with work.

“I may be able to if you are competent,” was the reply.  “Have you ever worked at the business?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“At Orange, where my home is.”

“How long did you work at it?”

“Perhaps I had better tell you what I have done,” said James.

He then gave an account of the barns he had been employed upon, and the frame house which he had assisted to build for his mother.

“I don’t set up for a first-class workman,” he added, with a smile, “but I think I can be of some use to you.”

“I will try you, for I am rather pressed with work just now.”

So, in a day or two James was set to work.

The carpenter found that it was as he had represented.  He was not a first-class workman.  Indeed, he had only a rudimentary knowledge of the trade, but he was quick to learn, and in a short time he was able to help in many ways.  His wages were not very large, but they were satisfactory, since they enabled him to pay his expenses and keep his head above water.  Before the seventeen dollars were exhausted, he had earned quite a sum by his labor in the carpenter’s-shop.