ed to grow up. They were fed, clothed, sent to
school, then put to work, but not properly taught how and why the work
should be done. Hence, when they came to set up for themselves, they had
a multitude of things to learn which they ought to have learned from a
father.

He used to say, that boys do only what they see the men do,--that all
they learned was by imitation. They had no opportunity allowed them
while at home of testing their own resources and energies by some little
independent farming operation of their own. When at school, the teacher
drills them thoroughly; when at home, they receive no such close
training. The teacher gives the boy a sum to do, and lets him work it
out of his own resources. But a farmer rarely gives a boy the use of a
half-acre of land, on which he may raise corn or cabbages or roots for
himself, though knowing that the boy could plant and cultivate it if he
were allowed a chance, and that such a privilege would be likely to
develop his energies, and show of what stuff he was made. The notion was
too common that a boy was all work, and had no ambition,--whatever work
was in him must be got out of him, just as if he had been a horse or an
ox. It was known that at some time he must take care of himself, yet he
was not properly taught how to do so. The stimulant of letting him have
a small piece of ground for his own profit was too rarely held out to
him. No one knew what such a privilege might do for an energetic boy. If
he failed the first year, he would be likely to know the cause of
failure, and avoid it in the future. If he succeeded, he would feel an
honest pride,--the very kind of pride which every father should
encourage in his child. And that success would stimulate him to try
again and do still better. Both failure and success would be very likely
to set him to reading about what others had done in the same line,--how
they had prospered,--and thus a fund of knowledge would be acquired for
him to draw upon whenever he set up for himself.

As before mentioned, Mr. Spangler made a strange departure from his rule
of plenty of work for everybody, by quitting home on a wet day and going
to the tavern rendezvous, to hear what the neighbors had to say, leaving
no work marked out for his "hands" to do in his absence. These wet days
were therefore holidays for the boys. All three were pretty good
readers; and so they usually borrowed a book from Uncle Benny, and went,
on such occasions, int