tance that
would barely clothe him.

Ellis had not gone to his Uncle Timothy until he had lost all hope of
getting a place elsewhere. Now this hope too had gone. It was nearly
the end of June and everybody who wanted help had secured it. Look
where he would, Ellis could see no prospect of employment.

"If I could only get a chance!" he thought miserably. "I know I am not
idle or lazy--I know I can work--if I could get a chance to prove it."

He was sitting on the fence of the Fillmore elderberry pasture as he
said it, having taken a short cut across the fields. This pasture was
rather noted in Dalrymple. Originally a mellow and fertile field, it
had been almost ruined by a persistent, luxuriant growth of elderberry
bushes. Old Thomas Fillmore had at first tried to conquer them by
mowing them down "in the dark of the moon." But the elderberries did
not seem to mind either moon or mowing, and flourished alike in all
the quarters. For the past two years Old Thomas had given up the
contest, and the elderberries had it all their own sweet way.

Thomas Fillmore, a bent old man with a shrewd, nutcracker face, came
through the bushes while Ellis was sitting on the fence.

"Howdy, Ellis. Seen anything of my spotted calves? I've been looking
for 'em for over an hour."

"No, I haven't seen any calves--but a good many might be in this
pasture without being visible to the naked eye," said Ellis, with a
smile.

Old Thomas shook his head ruefully. "Them elders have been too many
for me," he said. "Did you ever see a worse-looking place? You'd
hardly believe that twenty years ago there wasn't a better piece of
land in Dalrymple than this lot, would ye? Such grass as grew here!"

"The soil must be as good as ever if anything had a chance to grow on
it," said Ellis. "Couldn't those elders be rooted out?"

"It'd be a back-breaking job, but I reckon it could be done if anyone
had the muscle and patience and time to tackle it. I haven't the first
at my age, and my hired man hasn't the last. And nobody would do it
for what I could afford to pay."

"What will you give me if I undertake to clean the elders out of this
field for you, Mr. Fillmore?" asked Ellis quietly.

Old Thomas looked at him with a surprised face, which gradually
reverted to its original shrewdness when he saw that Ellis was in
earnest. "You must be hard up for a job," he said.

"I am," was Ellis's laconic answer.

"Well, lemme see." Old Thomas calculated car