f other hired
men were fully discussed. The standard of excellence for work in the
neighbourhood, however, appeared to be Perkins, whose abilities Tim
appeared greatly to admire, but for whose person he appeared to have
little regard.

"He's mighty good at turnip hoeing, too," he said. "I could pretty near
keep up to him last year and I believe I could do it this year. Some
day soon I'm going to git after 'im. My! I'd like to trim 'im to a fine
point."

The live stock on the farm in general, and the young colts in
particular, among which a certain two-year-old was showing signs of
marvellous speed, these and cognate subjects relating to the farm, its
dwellers and its activities, Tim passed in review, with his own shrewd
comments thereon.

"And what do you play, Tim?" asked Cameron, seeking a point of contact
with the boy.

"Nothin'," said Tim shortly. "No time."

"Don't you go to school?"

"Yes, in fall and winter. Then we play ball and shinny some, but there
ain't much time."

"But you can't work all the time, Tim? What work can you do?"

"Oh!" replied Tim carelessly, "I run a team."

"Run a team? What do you mean?"

Tim glanced up at him and, perceiving that he was quite serious,
proceeded to explain that during the spring's work he had taken his
place in the plowing and harrowing with the "other" men, that he
expected to drive the mower and reaper in haying and harvest, that, in
short, in almost all kinds of farm work he was ready to take the place
of a grown man; and all this without any sign of boasting.

Cameron thought over his own life, in which sport had filled up so large
a place and work so little, and in which he had developed so little
power of initiative and such meagre self-dependence, and he envied the
solemn-faced boy at his side, handling his team and wagon with the skill
of a grown man.

"I say, Tim!" he exclaimed in admiration, "you're great. I wish I could
do half as much."

"Oh, pshaw!" exclaimed Tim in modest self-disdain, "that ain't nothin',
but I wish I could git off a bit."

"Get off? What do you mean?"

The boy was silent for some moments, then asked shyly:

"Say! Is there big cities in Scotland, an' crowds of people, an' trains,
an' engines, an' factories, an' things? My! I wish I could git away!"

Then Cameron understood dimly something of the wander-lust in the boy's
soul, of the hunger for adventure, for the colour and movement of life
in the great world "away" fro