n work. You thought I could not work, but I
can. I am going to work to-day while you are gone."

"Are you?" said his father. "Very well; I should be glad to have you."

"What should you like to have me do?" asked Rollo.

"O, you may pick up chips, or pile that short wood in the shed. But stand
back from the wheel, for I am going to start now."

So Rollo stood back, and his father drew up the reins which Jonas had just
put into his hands, and guided the horse slowly and carefully out of the
yard. Rollo ran along behind the wagon as far as the gate, to see his
father go off, and stood there a few minutes, watching him as he rode
along, until he disappeared at a turn in the road. He then came back to
the yard, and sat down on a log by the side of Jonas, who was busily at
work mending the wheelbarrow.

Rollo sat singing to himself for some time, and then he said,

"Jonas, father thinks I am not big enough to work; don't you think I am?"

"I don't know," said Jonas, hesitating. "You do not seem to be very
industrious just now."

"O, I am resting now," said Rollo; "I am going to work pretty soon."

"What are you resting from?" said Jonas.

"O, I am resting because I am tired."

"What are you tired of?" said Jonas. "What have you been doing?"

Rollo had no answer at hand, for he had not been doing any thing at all.
The truth was, it was pleasanter for him to sit on the log and sing, and
see Jonas mend the wheelbarrow, than to go to work himself; and he mistook
that feeling for being tired. Boys often do so when they are set to work.

Rollo, finding that he had no excuse for sitting there any longer,
presently got up, and sauntered along towards the house, saying that he
was going to work, picking up chips.

Now there was, in a certain corner of the yard, a considerable space
covered with chips, which were the ones that Rollo had to pick up. He knew
that his father wished to have them put into a kind of a bin in the shed,
called the _chip-bin_. So he went into the house for a basket.

He found his mother busy; and she said she could not go and get a basket
for him; but she told him the chip-basket was probably in its place in the
shed, and he might go and get that.

"But," said Rollo, "that is too large. I cannot lift that great basket
full of chips."

"You need not fill it full then," said his mother. "Put in just as many as
you can easily carry."

Rollo still objected, saying that he wanted her very much t