rvant answered the summons.

"Jane," she said, "hand me that roll of linen from the wardrobe."

The woman complied, and the mistress put the bundle in the hands of
Ishmael, saying:

"Here, my boy: here are a dozen shirts already cut out, with the sewing
cotton, buttons, and so forth rolled up in them. Take them to your aunt.
Ask her if she can do them, and tell her that I pay a dollar apiece."

"Oh! thank you, thank you, ma'am! I know Aunt Hannah will do them very
nicely!" exclaimed the boy in delight, as he made his bow and his exit.

He ran home, leaping and jumping as he went.

He rushed into the hut and threw the bundle on the table, exclaiming
gleefully:

"There, Aunt Hannah! I have done it!"

"Done what, you crazy fellow?" cried Hannah, looking up from the frying
pan in which she was turning savory rashers of bacon for their second
meal.

"I have got you--'an engagement,' as the professor calls a big lot of
work to do. I've got it for you, aunt; and I begin to think a body may
get any reasonable thing in this world if they will only try hard enough
for it!" exclaimed Ishmael.

Hannah sat down her frying pan and approached the table, saying:

"Will you try to be sensible now, Ishmael; and tell me where this bundle
of linen came from?"

Ishmael grew sober in an instant, and made a very clear statement of his
afternoon's errand, and its success, ending as he had begun, by saying:
"I do believe in my soul, Aunt Hannah, that anybody can get any
reasonable thing in the world they want, if they only try hard enough
for it! And now, dear Aunt Hannah, I would not be so selfish as to go to
school and leave all the burden of getting a living upon your shoulders,
if I did not know that it would be better even for you by-and-by! For if
I go to school and get some little education, I shall be able to work at
something better than odd jobbing. The professor and Mr. Middleton, and
even the commodore himself, thinks that if I persevere, I may come to be
county constable, or parish clerk, or schoolmaster, or something of that
sort; and if I do, you know, Aunt Hannah, we can live in a house with
three or four rooms, and I can keep you in splendor! So you won't think
your boy selfish in wanting to go to school, will you, Aunt Hannah?"

"No, my darling, no. I love you dearly, my Ishmael. Only my temper is
tried when you run your precious head into the fire, as you did last
night."

"But, Aunt Hannah, Israel Putnam, or