e had left. It must carry him through the day
unless he got work. The five cents must be kept for some dire
emergency.

He started uptown rather aimlessly. In his week's wanderings he had
come to know the city very well and no longer felt confused with its
size and bustle. He envied every busy boy he saw. Back in Upton he had
sometimes resented the fact that he was kept working continually and
was seldom allowed an hour off. Now he was burdened with spare time.
It certainly did not seem as if things were fairly divided, he
thought. And then he thought no more just then, for one of the queer
spells in his head came on. He had experienced them at intervals
during the last three days. Something seemed to break loose in his
head and spin wildly round and round, while houses and people and
trees danced and wobbled all about him. Chester vaguely wondered if
this could be what Aunt Harriet had been wont to call a "judgement."
But then, he had done nothing very bad--nothing that would warrant a
judgement, he thought. It was surely no harm to run away from a place
where you were treated so bad and where they did not seem to want you.
Chester felt bitter whenever he thought of Aunt Harriet.

Presently he found himself in the market square of Montrose. It was
market day, and the place was thronged with people from the
surrounding country settlements. Chester had hoped that he might pick
up a few cents, holding a horse or cow for somebody or carrying a
market basket, but no such chance offered itself. He climbed up on
some bales of pressed hay in one corner and sat there moodily; there
was dejection in the very dangle of his legs over the bales. Chester,
you see, was discovering what many a boy before him has
discovered--that it is a good deal easier to sit down and make a
fortune in dreams than it is to go out into the world and make it.

Two men were talking to each other near him. At first Chester gave no
heed to their conversation, but presently a sentence made him prick up
his ears.

"Yes, there's a pretty fair crop out at Hopedale," one man was saying,
"but whether it's going to be got in in good shape is another matter.
It's terrible hard to get any help. Every spare man-jack far and wide
has gone West on them everlasting harvest excursions. Salome Whitney
at the Mount Hope Farm is in a predicament. She's got a hired man, but
he can't harvest grain all by himself. She spent the whole of
yesterday driving around, trying