One evening, a few days later, Mrs. Cole, who had been absent several hours, came in looking very tired, and after laying aside her old bonnet and shawl, informed them that she had obtained a place for Johnny.  It was four miles distant, and the farmer’s man would stop for him on his way from town, the next afternoon.  What a beautiful object was farmer Watkins’s homestead, lying as it did on the sunny slope of a hill; its gray stone walls, peeping out from between the giant trees that overshadowed it, while everything around and about gave evidence of abundance and comfort.  The thrifty orchard; the huge barn with its overflowing granaries; the sleek, well-fed cattle; even the low-roofed spring-house, with its superabundance of shining pails and pans, formed an item which could hardly be dispensed with, in the tout ensemble of this pleasant home.

Farmer Watkins was an honest, hard-working man, somewhat past middle age, with a heart not naturally devoid of kindness, but, where his hirelings were concerned, so strongly encrusted with a layer of habits, that they acted as an effectual check upon his better feelings.  His family consisted of a wife, said to be a notable manager, and five or six children, the eldest, a son, at college.  In this household, work, work, was the order of the day; the farmer himself, with his great brown fists, set the example, and the others, willing or unwilling, were obliged to follow his lead.  He had agreed to take John Cole, as he said, more to get rid of his mother’s importunities, than for any benefit he expected to derive from him; and when remonstrated with by his wife for his folly in giving her the trouble of another brat, he answered shortly:  “Never fear, I’ll get the worth of his victuals and clothes out of him.”  Johnny was to have his boarding, clothes, and a dollar a month, for two years.  This dollar a month was the great item in Mrs. Cole’s calculations; twelve dollars a year, she argued, would almost pay her rent, and when the tears stood in Johnny’s great brown eyes (for he was a pretty, gentle-hearted boy), as he was bidding them all good-bye, and kissing the baby over and over again, she told him about the money he would earn, and nerved his little heart with her glowing representations, until he was able to choke back the tears, and leave home almost cheerfully.

Home—­yes, it was home; for they had much to redeem the miseries of want within those bare cabin walls, for gentle hearts and kindly smiles were there.  There

“The mother sang at the twilight fall,
To the babe half slumbering on her knee.”