with a flower or feather attached, and the "straw braid" for making
them was in great demand. Boys and girls were alike taught to braid,
and the long winter evenings were not spent idly. Dr. Mason raised
large crops of rye, and each child, almost as soon as he could walk,
was taught to braid, and was soon able to do much by it toward
clothing himself. At six years of age a dollar a week was easily
earned; at eight, three dollars; and in something of that proportion
up to the eldest.

Does any one think that such a life, with such an object in view, was
hard or cruel? Never was there a greater mistake. It was of great
value to those young spirits. They had something real, that they could
understand, to labor for. There was life and courage and true heroism
in it. It was an education--with here and there, to be sure, some
rough places to pass over--which was worth more to them than all the
money millionaires bequeath their sons and daughters; an education
which prepared them in after-life to be courageous and self-helpful.

It is this kind of training that has made New England's sons and
daughters strong and self-reliant, and the lack of it which makes
these hard times such a horror that we hear of many who seek death by
their own hands as preferable to the struggle for better times.

In the long winter evenings, when the labor of the day was over, the
children home from school, and the "chores" all finished, the candles
were lighted and the evening work began. The mother in her corner was
busy making and mending for her large family. The doctor, if not with
the sick, read and studied opposite her. The children gathered around
the long table in the middle of the room, where lay the school-books
and straw previously prepared for braiding, while the old fireplace,
heaped with blazing logs of hickory, oak, and fragrant birch, made the
room warm and cheerful. Here, with their books before them and
fastened open to the next day's lessons, the children with nimble
fingers plaited the straw and studied at the same time. For children
taught to be industrious, usually carry into the schoolroom the
principles thus developed, and are ambitious to keep as near the head
of the class as possible.

Such a family as this was well equipped to meet and conquer adversity.
For several days Dr. Mason had been unusually grave and silent. All
noticed it, but no remarks were made until evening, when he came to
supper, so unmistakably worried