d. "Thank you very much. When
may I come?"

"Well, let's see. To-day's Wednesday. Suppose you report for duty next
Monday."

"All right! I'll be there. I'll leave here Monday morning. I'll speak
to Grandpa Walker to-night."

"Very well. See you Monday. Good-by!"

"Good-by!"

Robert Starbird chirruped to his horse, started on, and was soon lost
to sight around a bend in the road.

And Pen strode back across the field, prouder and happier than he had
ever been before in all his life.

But he still had Grandpa Walker to settle with.

At supper time, on the evening after his talk with Robert Starbird,
Pen had no opportunity to inform his grandfather of the success of his
application for employment. For, almost as soon as he left the table,
Grandpa Walker got his hat and started down to the store to discuss
politics and statecraft with his loquacious neighbors. But Pen felt
that his grandfather should know, that night, of the arrangement he
had made for employment, and so, after his evening chores were done,
he went down to the gate at the roadside to wait for the old man to
come home.

The air was as balmy as though it had been an evening in June.
Somewhere in the trees by the fence a pair of wakeful birds was
chirping. From the swamp below the hill came the hoarse croaking of
bull-frogs. Above the summit of the wooded slope that lay toward
Chestnut Hill the full moon was climbing, and, aslant the road, the
maples cast long shadows toward the west.

To Pen, as he stood there waiting, came his mother. A wrap was around
her shoulders, and a light scarf partly covered her head. She had
finished her evening work and had come out to find him.

"Are you waiting for grandpa?" she asked; though she knew without
asking, that he was.

"Yes," was the reply. "I want to see him about leaving. I had a talk
with Mr. Starbird this afternoon, in the road, and he's given me the
job he spoke about. I wasn't going to tell you until after I'd seen
grandpa, and the trouble was all over."

"You dear boy! And if grandpa objects to your going?"

"Well, I--I think I'll go anyway. Look here, mother," he continued,
hastily; "I don't want to be mean nor anything like that; and
grandpa's been kind to me; but, mother--I can't stay here. Don't you
see I can't stay here?"

He held his arms out to her appealingly, and she took them and put
them about her neck.

"I know, dear," she said; "I know. And grandfather must let you go. I
sha