s to keep the trench open and free, and then it would be easy
for him to dig.

Jonas then left him, and told him that there was work enough for him for
three or four days, to dig up his ground well.

Rollo went to work, very patiently, for the first day, and persevered an
hour in digging up his ground. Then he left his work for that day; and the
next morning, when the regular hour which he had allotted to work arrived,
he found he had not much inclination to return to it. He accordingly asked
his father whether it would not be a good plan to plant what he had
already dug, before he dug any more.

"What is Jonas's advice?" said his father.

"Why, he told me I had better dig it all up first; but I thought that, if
I planted part first, those things would be growing while I am digging up
the rest of the ground."

"But you must do, you know, as Jonas advises; that is the condition. Next
year, perhaps, you will be old enough to act according to your own
judgment; but this year you must follow guidance."

Rollo recollected the condition, and he had nothing to say against it; but
he looked dissatisfied.

"Don't you think that is reasonable, Rollo?" said his father.

"Why; I don't know," said Rollo.

"This very case shows that it is reasonable. Here you want to plant a part
before you have got the ground prepared. The real reason is because you
are tired of digging; not because you are really of opinion that that
would be a better plan. You have not the means of judging whether it is,
or is not, now, time to begin to put in seeds."

Rollo could not help seeing that that was his real motive; and he promised
his father that he would go on, though it was tiresome. It was not the
hard labor of the digging that fatigued him, for, by following Jonas's
directions, he found it easy work; but it was the sameness of it. He
longed for something new.

He persevered, however, and it was a valuable lesson to him; for when he
had got it all done, he was so satisfied with thinking that it was fairly
completed, and in thinking that now it was all ready together, and that he
could form a plan for the whole at once, that he determined that forever
after, when he had any unpleasant piece of work to do, he would go on
patiently through it, even if it was tiresome.

With Jonas's help, Rollo planned his garden beautifully. He put double
rows of peas and beans all around, so that when they should grow up, they
would enclose his garden li