men, and stout ones
too, could do in a long day. But there, un-der the shel-ter of the high
corn, were the friend-ly hands work-ing mi-ra-cles; ga-ther-ing up the
corn, and put-ting it in-to sheaves in a man-ner that could not be
e-qual-led by mor-tal hands.

Wil-lie whistl-ed, and cut a-way, not-with-stand-ing the burn-ing heat
of the sun: his sic-kle glis-ten-ed, and the corn fell in such long
sweeps that I do be-lieve it was as ma-gi-cal as the hands them-selves.

The long-est day will, how-e-ver, have an end: but when Wil-lie's first
day wa-ned, the farm-er was struck with as-to-nish-ment at be-hold-ing
the gold-en rows of hea-vy corn, stand-ing for his ad-mi-ra-tion in the
well ti-ed sheaves. He look-ed from the lit-tle man to the fruits of his
la-bour, and pro-mi-sed to him-self to do his best to se-cure so
va-lu-a-ble a ser-vant.

"Oh, oh!" said the farm-er, "if he can reap so well, per-haps he can
plough:" so ac-cord-ing-ly the next morn-ing found lit-tle Wil-lie as a
plough-man. But how could he know how to do it? any one would say. Why,
the hands guid-ed the plough; and the lands were plough-ed in fur-rows
as straight as the flight of an ar-row sped by the strong-est arm.

[Illustration: THE BRIDGE.]

The farm-er watch-ed from his win-dow, but the hands were in-vi-si-ble
to his eyes: he saw the plough cut its way un-err-ing-ly in-to the
bo-som of the earth, in a man-ner that sur-pri-sed e-ven his
ex-pe-ri-ence, and he a-gain bless-ed his good for-tune that had giv-en
him such a won-der-ful lit-tle la-bour-er.

Wil-lie sat at the board of the good farm-er, who thought he could not
make too much of him, for he was grate-ful to the in-dus-tri-ous youth,
who seem-ed to take plea-sure in work-ing for the in-ter-est of his
mas-ter. Time roll-ed on, and Wil-lie be-came quite head man, for it was
found that he could be en-trust-ed with any-thing. One day, when he was
out on the moun-tains, where he had gone to ga-ther the flocks for the
shear-ing, heavy storms came on, and the floods de-lu-ged the val-ley,
sweep-ing the flocks and the herds a-way in their head-long course.
Wil-lie wise-ly kept his charge upon the moun-tain's side un-til the
wa-ters had in some de-gree sub-si-ded; but he was a-larm-ed when he
de-scend-ed in-to the val-leys to find that, in ma-ny pla-ces, the
wa-ter was im-pass-a-ble to his charge. As he stood in deep thought, the
gi-ant hands spread them-selves over the tur-bid wa-ters, form-ing