g, while a mean thought
entered his, mind, "she's been feedin' in my pastur' all the mornin',
and I calc'late I'm entitled to the next milkin', you'd better come
'round to-night, just after milkin', and then you can take her."

"I didn't think he was quite so mean," passed through Hiram Walton's
mind, and his lip curved slightly in scorn, but he knew that this
feeling must be concealed.

"Just as you say," he answered. "I'll come round tonight, or send
Harry."

"How old is Harry now?"

"About fourteen."

"He's got to be quite a sizable lad--ought to earn concid'able. Is he
industrious?"

"Yes, Harry is a good worker--always ready to lend a hand."

"That's good. Does he go to school?"

"Yes, he's been going to school all the term."

"Seems to me he's old enough to give up larnin' altogether. Don't he
know how to read and write and cipher?"

"Yes, he's about the best scholar in school."

"Then, neighbor Walton, take my advice and don't send him any more. You
need him at home, and he knows enough to get along in the world."

"I want him to learn as much as he can. I'd like to send him to school
till he is sixteen."

"He's had as much schoolin' now as ever I had," said the squire, "and
I've got along pooty well. I've been seleckman, and school committy, and
filled about every town office, and I never wanted no more schoolin'. My
father took me away from school when I was thirteen."

"It wouldn't hurt you if you knew a little more," thought Hiram, who
remembered very well the squire's deficiencies when serving on the town
school committee.

"I believe in learning," he said. "My father used to say, 'Live and
learn.' That's a good motto, to my thinking."

"It may be carried too far. When a boy's got to be of the age of your
boy, he'd ought to be thinking of workin.' His time is too valuable to
spend in the schoolroom."

"I can't agree with you, squire. I think no time is better spent than
the time that's spent in learning. I wish I could afford to send my boy
to college."

"It would cost a mint of money; and wouldn't pay. Better put him to some
good business."

That was the way he treated his own son, and for this and other reasons,
as soon as he arrived at man's estate, he left home, which had never
had any pleasant associations with him. His father wanted to convert
him into a money-making machine--a mere drudge, working him hard,
and denying him, as long as he could, even the common recreations of